This twists like a blade inside me. Renfield moves toward me slowly, his every step looking like agony. I want to help him, to save him from what Dracula’s condemned him to, but I know it’s too late for that.

Instead, my hand presses into the wall behind me, searching for it. The closet door, the place where the last urn’s hidden.

Renfield’s shadow drapes over me, his ragged arms reaching out, but at last, I manage to yank open the door and shove him through it. He topples into the dark, right past the very thing he wants most in the world.

I scoop the urn off the floor, the heat of it searing into my hands. This is the one from the cellar, the worst urn. I wrap it in the hem of my dress and slam the door, flipping the latch and sealing Renfield inside.

He drums on the wall, desperation setting in. “Please don’t leave me, Miss Lucy,” he cries on the other side, the flames burning brighter, and a sob lodges in my throat, because he’s the same as me. A victim in all this, collateral damage from a monster who never gave a damn about either of us.

Above me, the ashes of Dracula churn in the grimy air.

“I’d like to kill you a thousand more times,” I seethe, and I swear I hear him laugh again.

I won’t listen. As I stagger across the hazy room, I glance up at the decay, all the beautiful bits of mold and cobwebs I’ve been training. They’ll burn here, they’ll turn to ash, and there’s nothing I can do. Everything’s disintegrating faster than I can fathom.

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, and vanish into the hall.

Downstairs, the flames are devouring everything. The kitchen’s already collapsing inward from the heat, the icebox thick with dust. Even with all the windows open, the house is blooming gray.

“Lucy?” Bee is somewhere nearby. She came back for me. “Where are you?”

“I’m here,” I say, my voice nearly dissolving in the rush of flames.

In the smoldering hall, Bee and I find each other, the blaze singeing our dresses, our hair, our skin. The rooms are lost to us, everything here is lost. We stumble past the parlor, and I can’t help but look back. Inside, chunks of horsehair plaster crumble from the ceiling, crushing the rolltop desk, burying Mina’s letter opener.

And my ruby necklace. Those jewels were supposed to be our rainy day, the thing we’d been saving for a night like this. We’ve got nothing left now. We’re the heirs to oblivion.

“Forget it,” Bee says, and together, we keep going, the smoke clogging up our throats.