Dess seemed the worst for it. She ate lunch with Jessica and Jonathan or alone these days—never with Rex and Melissa. She hadn’t forgiven the mindcaster for pillaging her memories that night.

Not that Jessica could blame her. Or blame Rex for being freaked out by his transformation into a halfling. And the scars on Melissa’s face from her accident still carried pink stitches.

But everyone seemed to have forgotten that Anathea, the young seer who’d been turned into a halfling back in the old days, had died that night. Which was a lot worse than anything that had happened to the rest of them.

Sometimes when Jessica watched the other midnighters interact, she felt like wearing a T-shirt with big letters on the front: GET OVER IT.

“They’re awake, all right,” Melissa said slowly. “I’m surprised you guys can’t hear them.”

“Hear them?” Rex glanced over his shoulder toward the badlands. “You mean they’re coming this way?”

Jessica reached for Disintegrator in her pocket, but it wasn’t there; she’d never expected to need the flashlight during the day. She had only Acariciandote, the bracelet Jonathan had given her. She reached to touch it, feeling the thirteen tiny charms dangling from her wrist.

Melissa shook her head. “Not coming, not moving much at all. Just so loud.” She winced, her face twisting into the pained expression she wore whenever too many people were around.

“Melissa,” Rex asked, “what do you mean by ‘loud’?”

“I mean screaming, howling, raising a ruckus.”

“As in afraid?”

Melissa shook her head. “No. As in celebrating.”

Jessica’s watch said 9:17 A.M., but it seemed like hours since the blue time had begun. The minutes seemed to drag along, as if time itself had become a formless, limping thing.

How could she even be sure if her watch was working right or not? It felt like they’d all been standing out there in the parking lot for hours.

“Get down from there!” Rex yelled again.

Jessica looked up and sighed. Jonathan was still on the roof of the school.

“I thought you said this could go on forever,” he shouted down.

“Yeah, or it could end any second!”

“Nah, midnight only comes in one-hour slices, Rex. You know that.” Jonathan laughed and took an arcing hop up to the top of the gym. From there he scanned the horizon, as if the Bixby skyline might hold some clue as to what was going on.

Jessica saw how high he was and swallowed. But she knew yelling at Jonathan was pointless. He always flew until the last moment of midnight, squeezing out every second of weightlessness; it hadn’t taken him long to convince himself that this unexpected blue time would last a solid hour. For Jonathan this wasn’t a terrifying mystery to be solved—it was a double helping of dessert, an extra recess, a free period spicing up an otherwise crappy Monday.

Jessica wanted to scream at him to quit being stupid, but if she sided with Rex in front of everyone else, Jonathan would probably stay up there until the world ended.