A long moment dissolves between us as he stares off, seeing everything and nothing. “About you,” he says finally. “About how much he wants to crack you open and find out what you look like inside.”

In spite of myself, I tremble a little, but we can use this. Because of the thrall, because Renfield can scry into his mind, we can track Dracula. Together, the three of us sneak across the lot and duck behind a blocky building. The lobby.

A wolf is sniffing at the edge of the building, only a few yards away. He’ll spot us soon. He’ll tell the others we’re here.

I turn back to Renfield. “What else is Dracula thinking?”

“He’s saying I was never as loyal as I claimed to be.” A pained look twists across his face. “But that’s not true. I was loyal. For years, I waited for him.”

“I know,” I say, and put a careful hand on his back. “Come on now.”

Inside the darkened lobby, we latch the front door and snake quietly through the red velvet rope, so bleak and matted now.

Bee and I help Renfield over the counter, the three of us crouching on the stone floor among husks of stale popcorn and crushed gumdrops gone hairy and gray.

“He’s still looking,” Renfield says, his milky eye vacant, peering into places I’ll never go. “He’s worried, too. He didn’t think you’d survive this long. He’s a little impressed.”

I scoff. “I doubt that.”

His gaze shifts, and Renfield looks at me now. “You’re wrong,” he says. “He keeps thinking how you’re the one he sees in the sunlight, when the past comes for him. You’re the only thing that frightens him, Miss Lucy.”

This instantly chills me. “Where is he now?” I ask.

A long, unforgiving moment. “He’s right outside the door.”

I start to crawl toward the back, toward the only safe way out, motioning them to follow, but then I see it in him. Renfield’s not just in Dracula’s head now. Dracula’s returning the favor.

“No,” I cry, but Renfield’s vanishing right before our eyes, the thrall yanking him away.

“I told you not to trust me, Miss Lucy,” he says, sorrow twitching across his face, and I’m sure I see Dracula behind his gaze, laughing at me.

With a single heave, Renfield puts his hands on the urn and tears it from my arms. I topple back against Bee, the two of us splayed across the sticky floor.

I struggle to my feet again, charging after him, but Renfield’s already to the door. So is Dracula. In the gloom outside, he’s nearly invisible. All I can see is his hand, emerging from the shadows, pressing against the window.