My hands turn soft and ashen, Mina’s fingers slipping right through me. I’m dying in reverse, and there’s nothing we can do except sit here and wait for it.

“Daisy’s right, you know.”

My skin goes translucent. “About what?”

“You’re too cynical. You never used to be.”

“Things change,” I try to say, but my voice evaporates first.

Mina shakes her head, as if arguing with fate. “Don’t let him win, Lucy,” she says, and that’s it. I’m gone, pulled back into the world against my will, my body cracking, my bones stretching taut against fresh skin.

It’s always more painful than I remember.

WHEN I OPEN MY eyes, it’s already evening, the sun vanishing from the sky. Bee is sitting next to me, her face splotchy with tears.

“Welcome back,” she whispers.

She’d never seen me die before. I wonder what it looked like to her. I wonder what I look like even now, my body not quite finished. My skin’s settling over my rib cage, my hair still curling into place. Everything about me is brand-new, and I don’t entirely feel like myself. I’m more like a prototype, like a Lucy that hasn’t been broken in yet.

Quivering, I lie on my side, facing a wall, barely able to move. Bee watches me, as though she can’t believe I’m real.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come back,” she says, and my chest tightens, part of me convinced she knows the truth. That I wanted to stay there with Mina. That I wanted to stay dead.

“Renfield?” I ask, my lips parched.

“I chased him away,” Bee says. “And that other thing too.”

That specter, that shadow. Dracula. With the daylight dissolving into nothing, he’ll be back again soon enough. That means I can’t be here waiting for him.

I struggle to sit up, everything in me weak and brittle and so terribly hungry. I always come back from the dead famished.

And there’s something else that happens every time I come back, one final insult from the afterlife—I return without a stitch of clothing on. Bee’s done the polite thing and wrapped me up in an old quilt, which is better than nothing, but I need to get dressed before anyone else sees me.

I finally manage to prop myself up on my arms, but when I turn away from the wall, I realize I’m already too late. Bee and I aren’t alone. The living room, so empty last night when we returned, is filled to the brim with people. They’re cross-legged on the floor, sprawled out on furniture, even standing room only. All of them patiently gazing at us. At me.

Daisy’s at the forefront, smiling. “Good to see you again, Lucy.”