“Some of them retain a lot of their predecessor’s personality,” I told him, though I’d wondered about the nature of ghosts for exactly the same kinds of reasons. All well and good to dismiss them as . . . as nothings when one of them wasn’t leaving you drawings or another one wasn’t trying to help you survive. But I gave him the only answer I had. “The ones who bear grudges or are extremely attached to someone who is still living seem to be the most independent of thought.”

The kitchens were huge, and there were two of them. The front half was modern and filled with ovens, various kinds of cooking surfaces, and giant mixing machines taller than I was, with bowls that sat on the ground. Everything was immaculate.

There was a half wall and a wider than the usual doorway opening that led into a room that looked as though it had been pulled directly from the Middle Ages. The far wall had a giant fireplace with a spit. Beside it was a stack of metal pots that looked as though they should have a witch throwing eyes of newts and snail tails or something in them. One of the long walls was covered by a giant brick oven with rows and columns of regularly spaced openings that were about two feet square.

My werewolf guide trotted right up to the farthest opening and climbed through. I did the same and found that the inside of the oven was a room in its own right. Against one of the inner walls was a narrow metal ladder, up which my guide was already climbing. I followed him up a couple of stories and out to the roof of the building.

The werewolf had quit talking and was making an effort to be silent, so I followed suit. We weaved our way between chimneys on the roof of the bakery. When we reached the end of the bakery, there was a narrow hop, and we kept going on the roof of the next building. We probably made a quarter of a mile before we jumped to the ground.

The werewolf, still quiet, didn’t speed up from the easy jog we’d begun on the rooftops, and he took us into a more residential and modern section of the town. In total, we ran maybe six miles, long enough for me to regret my lack of socks. He took me to a garage under an apartment building built in the last hundred years and stopped by a motorcycle. He started to get on it, then stopped.

“We’ll attract too much attention without helmets,” he said. “Wait here, I’ll be right back.”

He was as good as his word, returning with a pair of helmets. He tossed me one and put on the other himself.

Mine wasn’t a perfect fit—and I didn’t like the way it restricted my vision—but I didn’t complain. When he mounted the bike, I climbed on behind him and held on.