“Wow,” he said after a moment of marveling at it all.

“And not a hint of guilt,” Melissa said softly.

“What do you mean?”

“None of them thought that mindcasting was a bad thing, Rex. Of those hundreds of minds, not one thought it came with any cost.”

Rex pulled his hand away, shaking his head to clear it. “So you’re saying Angie’s wrong? That the Grayfoots fooled her somehow?”

“No.” Melissa glanced over her shoulder toward the top of the stairs, reassuring herself that Madeleine wasn’t within listening range. “Since Angie gave us her little lecture, I’ve been sifting through the memories for the kind of thing she was talking about—destroying people, altering minds for profit, mass manipulation. But I haven’t found them.” She drummed her fingers on her knees. “For some reason, though, I still think she’s telling the truth. Does that make any sense?”

Rex nodded. “Maybe they passed down an edited version.”

“What they passed down was unbelievable smugness, Rex. They never questioned what they were doing. I don’t think they could question it.”

“How do you mean?”

She reached for his hand again and showed him an unpleasant memory from only a few weeks before—the moment when she had touched Dess against her will and pried the secret of Madeleine’s existence from her. Melissa forced herself to linger over how Dess’s mind had been locked by the old mindcaster, effortlessly twisted to hide what she knew. And how Melissa had torn it open.

When she felt a chill run through Rex, she released his hand.

“Why did you show me that?” he asked.

“Because you have to remember what we’re capable of,” she said. “Mindcasting doesn’t just affect normal people. It can be used against other midnighters too.”

“I know.” His eyes narrowed. “But what does that have to do with Bixby’s history?”

She looked up at him. “Before us five orphans came along, every midnighter grew up surrounded by mindcasters, all of them sharing thoughts every time they shook hands. But what if it wasn’t just news and memories they were passing on? What if they were passing on beliefs? And what if at some point they all decided to believe that midnighters never did anything bad?”

“Decided to believe?”

Melissa leaned closer, speaking softer now, imagining the old woman upstairs listening from just around the corner. Melissa had chosen Madeleine’s house to have this conversation with Rex for one simple reason: inside its crepuscular contortion, their minds couldn’t be overheard.

“Over the centuries,” she said, “midnighters started to believe whatever they did was okay, just like people who owned slaves used to think they were being ‘good masters’ or whatever. Except unlike slavery, nobody from the outside ever questioned what the midnighters were up to in Bixby. It was all secret, and anytime doubts cropped up, there were mindcasters around to squash them. It was like some clique of cheerleaders going through high school together, all thinking the same way, talking the same way, believing they’re at the center of the universe…but for thousands of years.”