At once, my throat closes up. Dracula knew he couldn’t kill me, not for good, so this was the next best thing. Skip me across the water like a stone, and I could be gone for hours, for days if the tides were in his favor. Plenty of time for him to find the last urn.

I thought I was doing the right thing by leaving Bee and the others behind. It turns out I was only making them an easy target.

I take off the way we came, past all the wooden rides and back through the maze of mirrors, still not looking at the spot where my face should be. Renfield follows behind, calling my name, warning me where the security guard likes to hide. But I don’t stop. I don’t have time, not if Dracula’s already on his way to them.

But as I make it to the front entrance, I turn back, all my resolve withering to ash.

“I can’t do this,” I say. “I can’t stop him.”

“You’re wrong, Miss Lucy.” Renfield reaches through the darkness and touches my arm. “You’re the only one who can stop him.”

We look at each other, the last two people left in the world who understand this. Renfield pulls away from me, and for a moment I can see him there, hidden within himself, hidden in his own face. The man he used to be, all the things he would have done, the things he would have been if Dracula hadn’t gotten to him first.

“Come with me,” I whisper, but he only shakes his head.

“I’m sorry,” he says, “but you can’t trust me.”

“I can’t trust myself, either.”

“Yes, you can,” he says, and grinning, he reaches into his pocket. I brace for what he might be searching for. A stake perhaps or a piece of silver or even a bulb of garlic. But when he removes his hand, it’s only a spider crawling across his gray skin. “Would you like one for the road?”

He passes the tiny creature to me, and I smile, closing my fingers around it. After all, it seems impolite not to take it.

On the street, the traffic of the Richmond District buzzing by, I get to a bustling intersection before I set the spider free on the sidewalk. It skitters away into the gutter.

The ocean whispers all around me, a spray of salt water on my cheek. Dracula could have already gotten to them by now. He could have already wrestled the urn away from Daisy and put the rest of himself back together again.

Or maybe he hasn’t found them yet. Maybe I can still get there first.

My head down, I take off running.