She looked into the sky and saw that the dark moon reached its apex. “Come on, Flyboy. Time for your party trick.”

“Okay.” He swallowed. “You really think this will help?”

“Of course it will.” Dess led Jonathan back toward where the other three stood. She knew the two sisters had more stuff to work out, but sometimes apology math was funny: no number was ever high enough, and you just had to get over it.

They were holding each other, as if already out of words. Melissa stood off to one side, eyes closed. Prompting? Controlling? Or just eavesdropping? Dess wondered if this new non-evil style of mindcasting really helped or was just another crock.

Dess waited until she caught Jessica’s eye, then pointed at Jonathan.

Give the poor kid this much at least.

Jessica nodded back and pulled away. “Come on. I want to show you something about midnight. Something not horrible. It’s a little weird but…trust me?”

Beth made a choked little sound, wiping at her face, then said softly, “I trust you.”

Jonathan stepped forward, holding out both his hands. “You saw us do this, right? On Halloween?”

Beth nodded, taking his hand carefully. As her smaller fingers closed around his, a look of surprise crossed her face.

“It’s…dizzy.”

“It’s a lot better than dizzy,” Jessica said, smiling. She pulled her right hand from her pocket; white sparks fluttered upward from it. The bracelet she wore glowed, its tiny charms aglitter. Dess squinted at the light.

Beth stared at it openmouthed. “What is that?”

“Don’t you remember? It’s a present from Jonathan…plus some lightning.” Jessica took Flyboy’s hand.

At first they took a weenie, ten-foot hop. Then a longer one took them to the middle of the field. Finally they opened up big time, heading for the motionless Arkansas River. Jessica’s right hand sparkled in the distance, its trail of white light coruscating across the blue horizon.

Dess felt a smile spread across her face, and she was suddenly much less depressed. Beth had seen the blue time again; she’d gotten to fly.

“Yeah, I know,” Melissa said.

Dess let out a sigh. Alone with the bitch goddess one more time.

“I’m still sorry, you know. For what I did to you.”

Typical mindcaster trick, catching her off guard and getting all sentimental. Dess heard herself saying, “Whatever. It’s probably not your fault, the way you are.”

“We saved Rex that night.”

Not so sorry after all? Dess thought. But she couldn’t argue with Melissa’s logic. “You’ll miss him, won’t you?”

Melissa nodded. “I already do.”

Dess sighed again. Maybe there was one darkling left in Bixby.

They stood there in silence for a while, waiting for the others to come back.

“So how many more of us are out there?” the mindcaster finally asked.

Dess took a breath, glad to be talking about math instead of all this emotional crap. “Well, let’s say you have to be born within a half second of midnight, right? That would be one out of every eighty-six thousand four hundred people.”