“Why I’m where?” said Jessica.

Rex’s eyes narrowed. “Here in Bixby, Jessica. Here on earth. You’re the flame-bringer, after all, and we’re going to need a really big bonfire.”

Rex had brought three experiments for the rip.

First he had Jessica light a candle and step away from it. Normally it would have sputtered out when she took her hand away—without the flame-bringer, fire couldn’t exist in the blue time.

Yet as Jessica stepped back, first one yard, then a few more, then finally walking to the other side of the glowing red boundary, the candle stayed alight. Her eyes widened. The rip really did have different rules. Like the pink Cadillac, a fire would keep going once it was started.

“That’s the price the darklings pay for making the blue time weaker,” Rex said. “If normal people can move through the rip, so can flame.”

“So anyone can start a fire?” Dess asked.

“I doubt that.” Rex flicked his lighter a few times; it didn’t even make a spark. But when he held down its button and placed its jet of gas to the candle, it came back alight. He smiled, lifting the tiny yet blinding flame. “But once Jessica’s started it, a fire can spread on its own. People can pass it to each other.”

“Whoa, Jess,” Jonathan said. “See if your flashlight works the same way.”

Jessica waited until all their eyes were covered, then whispered Enlightenment’s name and switched it on. Squinting through her fingers, Dess saw its white beam cut through the blue time in a blinding wedge.

But when Jess put it on the tracks and stepped away from it, the light sputtered and died.

“I didn’t think so,” Rex said. “The chemical reaction in a battery is too complicated to sustain itself—like a car engine. But if Jessica lights a bunch of torches, we can protect a lot of people at once.”

“Yeah, eventually. But this happens at midnight, Rex,” Jonathan said. “People will be scattered all over Bixby or however far the rip spreads. So how do we organize everyone without radio or phones?”

“We don’t organize everyone, Jonathan. We save who we can.”

They were all silent for a moment.

Dess realized that an awful feeling was growing in her stomach. For the first time she was starting to take this end-of-the-world thing seriously. This wasn’t like saving one little kid. The lives of uncountable strangers depended on the five of them.

How many people could one darkling eat in a night? How many darklings were there altogether? The math almost made her head spin. Numbers were one thing when they were abstract: coordinates or computer bits or seconds between now and midnight. But when they represented human lives, the thought of all those numerals in a row suddenly became obscene.

Yet Rex stood there, calmly planning the long midnight.

“First we’ll need a way to get the maximum number of people awake,” he was saying. “Then we should create some sort of signal that’s visible from all over town. Hopefully that will gather people together. And finally, we’ll need a way to defend them all from the darklings.” Rex produced a bottle rocket. “I was thinking fireworks might do all three things at once.”