“I’m here,” I say, but there’s a lock on the outside, and I struggle to open it, my fingers shaking. Dracula’s behind me now, his arm looped around my waist. I whirl around to face him, and we’re so close again, everything about this as intimate as a nightmare.

He reaches out, slowly, carefully, twirling a strand of my still-wet hair around his finger. “You know you belong with me,” he whispers, his breath hot on my cheek. “Flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood.”

“Stop saying that.” I grit my teeth. “I hate it when you say that.”

It’s the same line he gives every girl, the one he used on me all those years ago. The one he tried to use on Mina, too.

My hand fumbles behind me, and at last, the lock gives way, and I force open the door.

Inside, it’s a single room, the wooden ceiling pitched, the place stinking of mothballs. Bee’s pressed against the wall, her face pallid, Jane trying and failing to comfort her. This is their worst fear incarnate, the past repeating into the present like mirrors reflecting back on themselves to infinity. I kneel beside them, and Bee curls into me.

“It happened so quick,” she whispers. “The way they chased us up here.”

“It’s all right now,” I say.

Nearby, Michael’s still half-delirious from what I did, and Daisy sits at his side, doing her best to calm him. She’s still clutching her bag, but Dracula doesn’t notice her. He’s watching me, the way Michael reaches out for my hand.

“I’ve defended kingdoms,” Dracula says, sneering. “Fought off whole armies. And that’s who you choose over me? A soldier who didn’t even want to go into battle?”

I glare back, wishing my gaze could turn him to ash. “Not everyone’s a born killer.”

“But you are.” Dracula takes a step closer. “We’re the same, you and me. That’s why you won’t stay dead.”

“I’m nothing like you,” I say, only half believing it.

A sharp creak in the stairwell, and Rochester’s climbing the steps now, along with his corps of mesmerized girls. Jane sees them, sees herself in them, and she twists toward the farthest corner, her hands over her eyes. She won’t watch what comes next, this thing she helped to create.

“I’ll ask you once more, Lucy.” Dracula edges toward me. “Where’s the last urn?”

“I already told you. I don’t have it.”

“That’s strange. Because I’ve looked everywhere for it,” he says, before turning to Daisy. “Maybe you know where it is.”

He rips the crocheted bag away from her and rifles through it, his face twisted, his hands gnarled. But it’s all for nothing. The bag’s empty.