“You mean, you thought you’d leave us to die alone?” Bellflower doesn’t move. She doesn’t go for me. She doesn’t do anything at all. Neither does Vervain—or any of the other girls. They just keep waiting, expecting a better explanation that never comes.

“It’s not like that,” Rochester keeps murmuring, and I shake my head.

“It’s exactly like that,” I say, as I start to crawl away, desperate to clamber to my feet, to get back to Bee.

Next to me, Vervain watches him, her gaze gone inky black. “It didn’t bother you at all, did it?” she asks. “You really never cared what became of us.”

Rochester searches the faces around him, clearly convinced someone will be on his side. But nobody is. His Wunderkammer of women, suddenly on an impromptu labor strike. Even from here, I can tell he senses it in the air. It’s all starting to fray, starting to slip away. His dubious plan, not built to last.

I’m waiting for him to scream or to argue with them, but he just grins instead.

“You’re right,” he says. “I never did care what became of you.”

Five steps. That’s all it takes. Then he’s standing with us, his jaw set, a thick sinew quivering in his neck. He wrestles the stake out of Bellflower’s hand and gives it right back to her. One quick thrust, and Bellflower’s heart is shattered to pieces. A whimper from a wolf, and she’s gone, vanished into the night.

Vervain lets out an agonizing cry before she drops to her knees, desperately searching the dust. “Bellflower,” she keeps whispering, and the tears are coming now, running thick as honey down her face. These strange girls, these unlikely sisters. Rochester never counted on that. He never counted on anything except himself.

But the others see him now, what he really is, what he’s always been. His collection of would-be wives, not so eager to belong to a man who will discard them like last week’s leftovers. Vervain’s on her feet again, her venomous gaze set on him, and the others look to her, taking her lead.

And together, they’re coming right at him.

“Do something,” Rochester practically spits in Dracula’s face, but Dracula barely notices. All he cares about is what I’m holding in my arms. If Bellflower and Vervain won’t bring it to him, he’ll have to get it himself.

“I’m not waiting any longer, Lucy,” he says, and he’s at my side, always moving faster than I remember.

I don’t even have time to lunge at him before he plucks the urn from my arms and lifts it above his head, bringing it down hard. The clay, shattering in the gravel like porcelain.