He wasn’t the biggest monster I’ve ever seen. He was maybe eight feet tall and looked like an animated suit of armor made of red clay. His face had no features, no eyes, no mouth. There were also no letters on his forehead for me to erase if I needed to.

His magic felt different than it had before, which was only to be expected. He was different now. I’d given him the power to become real again.

“Greetings to the Golem of Prague,” I said.

It paused on the stairs.

You do not belong here, he told me.

I couldn’t tell if he meant here in the basement or in his city. He clarified it for me without my having to ask, so I guess he was still in my head.

Your help was necessary. You should leave and not ever come back. I won’t be so lenient again.

“I’m trapped here,” I told him. “As you know very well. I will leave when I can.”

Acceptable, it said. And it started down the stairs again. It was an awkward-looking movement. Since the stairs weren’t wide enough for his feet, the golem leaned back to center his weight over his . . . over what would have been his heels had he been human.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

There are demons here. The last of the demons in my city.

The Jewish Quarter, I thought, not Prague. I hoped he didn’t mean Prague.

“You’ve done your job,” I told him. “The vampires left here are no villains. They mean no harm to the people here.”

Yeah. I had a hard time with that last one, too, after I said it. Vampires ate people. It was what they did. But they had brought all the humans here to shelter them, and they were still guarding them to the best of their abilities.

They are demons, said the golem. They must be destroyed.

“What about the humans?” I asked.

They are not my people, he said—and I felt a cold chill. Because I knew what he meant.

Vanje had said that not even being Jewish had been enough to save people from the golem.

I didn’t know what percentage of the people living in Josefov were still Jewish. But if Prague was like the rest of Europe, after the Nazis got through with the city, it was a far smaller percentage than it had been when this had been the only place in Prague the Jewish population could live. And if being Jewish wouldn’t save them anyway, it didn’t matter because the golem would kill them all. If Vanje was right.

“What will you do to the humans who are not Jewish?” I asked.

They are not my people, the golem said. None of the humans are my people. I have no people.

“What if they are Rabbi Loew’s people?” I asked.

It roared at me without a sound. I covered my ears, and it didn’t do any good at all. In that sound, I heard a fury built up over centuries of frustration and rage. He didn’t speak in words, but I heard him just fine. The rabbi had condemned him to that horrible half death, burdened him with the need to guard and no means by which to do it.