“Look,” Bee whispers, and something slight, something almost too small to see, twitches beneath her skin. We all watch, our voices hushed, until it settles again, quiet and calm inside her.

“That’s the first time we’ve seen it in a month,” Jane says, and squeezes Bee’s hand.

The two of them are different now. That gray tar inside them is drying up. There’s no reason for it to stay. No Rochesters left to keep the grudges growing.

There are other changes too. We’ve noticed it in the small things, the kind nobody else would ever see. A single strand of silver in Jane’s hair. A laugh line around Bee’s eyes. A tiny liver spot on my hand.

We’re aging now. Slowly, in real time, like we always should have. It’s something those men thought they’d stolen from us forever, but forever wasn’t up to them.

The decay that used to unfurl from me is still here, but it’s within me now. It’s twining its way through my body, my constant companion, carefully turning my viscera to gray, and one day, many years from now, it will be my undoing. And when that day comes, I’ll welcome it.

But in the meantime, we’ve still got many evenings ahead of us. With a sharp howl, the wolves have arrived, skulking out at sunset, and Jane squeals as they run circles around us. Back at Dahlia Hall, they were ready to rip out our throats. Now they’re just content to do parlor tricks. Children of the night, indeed.

And someone else has arrived too, sneaking up the dusty hill. I don’t spot him at first, but Bee does, her face brightening.

“Hello, Michael,” she says. Then she regards Jane, a conspiratorial glance passing between them. “I think we’re going to take a walk.”

The two of them scurry off, leaving Michael and me alone. He watches me, his eyes clearer than before. The thrall is faded now, nearly vanished altogether, but the echo of what I did to him is still strong enough that he can find me here. Strong enough that I still want him to find me.

“You’re leaving tonight, right?” I ask.

Michael nods. “We’ve got the truck all packed up,” he says, and then says no more about it. He doesn’t have to. I already know. They’re headed up the coast, six hundred miles away, to where Walter got a job managing a quaint indoor theater in downtown Eureka.

“There will be a lot fewer bloodsuckers in that projection booth,” Walter told us, and when I gave him a sideways look, he only chuckled. “I meant mosquitos, Lucy.”

I fold my hands in my lap. “And Daisy’s going with you?”

At this, Michael blushes. “I guess so. My grandfather invited her along. She wants to be an usherette or something.”