“There you are,” he says, and puts out a steady hand to her. “Come on now. Show’s over.”

She stares at him. “What are you talking about?”

“We’ve finally got them.” Rochester smirks at her, and the greasy look on his face turns my stomach. “You don’t have to pretend anymore. You can come on back to me now.”

His hand is still extended to her, but Jane’s not looking at him. She’s gaping at Bee, something frantic in her face.

“He’s lying,” she whispers. “Bee, I promise you he’s lying.”

But Bee won’t listen. She’s already backing away from Jane, that wounded look in her eyes, as if she knew it all along.

From the lobby, Dracula’s coming up behind us, less than twenty yards away, but Vervain and Bellflower won’t wait for him. They shove Bee out of the way, and then they shove me down, just so they can loom over me, their shadows long, the stakes quivering between their delicate fingers. I crawl backward in the dirt, but they keep in step with me.

They can’t do this, not tonight. By the time I return, it’ll be hours from now, and there might not be anything to come back to. No Daisy or Michael. No Bee or Jane, either.

That’s if I return at all. I might not have any more afterlives left in me.

A lonesome howl behind us, and Dracula’s in our midst, joining us at last. All around, the wolves are more restless now, braying at the moon, braying at these men. Their eyes burning brighter, they look to me, as if waiting on a cue. I stare back at them, wishing I knew what they wanted.

Dracula seizes up next to Rochester, still watching me. “Go on,” he says to Bellflower and Vervain, his latest protégés, his cold-blooded killers-in-training. The ones who will be better versions of me.

Grinning, the girls gaze down at me. They’re ready to turn me to ash, but all I can do is rasp out a ragged sigh, regret seeping into me.

“I’m so sorry for what they’ve done to you,” I whisper, and I expect this to be it, a final insult, their reason for dispatching me. But that’s not what happens at all. Instead, something passes between us, something small. A memory, a moment. That last night on their deathbed when I was there. When the men were nowhere to be found.

Bellflower suddenly isn’t looking at me anymore. “Where were you?” Her eyes shift to Rochester. “When we were dying, where were you?”

Rochester steps back as if he’s been punched. “I… thought I’d leave the three of you to rest.”