Rex saw how far the Focus stretched up and down the track, how it trailed off into the brush and extended even to the ramshackle houses backed up against the right-of-way. He wondered how far into the mesquite trees it went. The small town of Jenks was close to the Arkansas River, and the scrub in these parts was impenetrably dense, hiding much of the landscape from his new predator’s eyes.

But old darklings had been here, of that Rex was sure. He could see deep, clawed footprints in the soil and a broad tree branch that had almost cracked under the weight of something huge and winged. There were slither burrows scattered throughout the underbrush; darklings young and old hid from the sun out in the deep desert caves, but some of their little minions nested closer to town, buried under the earth.

It took time to layer a place with this much Focus, this many signs. They must have begun months ago, maybe a lot longer than that. Melissa and Madeleine had felt their celebrations out in the desert: the darklings had somehow known that the eclipse was coming and exactly where it would happen. Which meant they’d probably also known what Dess had discovered today, that this first tear in the blue time would spread like a rip along the seam of an old T-shirt.

Maybe it had always been their plan that the blue time would one day come apart. But what would happen then?

Suddenly something caught Rex’s eye. One of the railroad track cross-ties stood out, a halo of red surrounding it. He looked closer and smelled the inherent strangeness of the spot. The blue time was paper-thin here.

The old wood of the cross-tie was marked with a sliver of Focus, looking out of place here among the stains of darklings. He drew closer and saw in the half-moon shape the distinctive tread of a sneaker.

That was why it looked different—that other kind of Focus clung to it, the kind Rex had only learned to see over the last couple of weeks.

“Prey,” he said softly.

“Five minutes,” announced Dess, nervously rocking the long piece of steel pipe that rested on her shoulder. “How’s the flame-bringer doing?”

“Close,” Melissa said. “But they’re slowing down. Wimps.”

“Not everyone appreciates the subtle pleasures of flying through a windshield, Melissa,” Dess said.

“They’ve got five whole minutes before midnight, and Flyboy’s already parking it!”

“How far are they?” Rex interrupted.

“A few miles.”

“Not good.” He followed the trail of human Focus with his gaze. The glimmering footprints left the rail bed and headed down into the dense undergrowth. “She went this way. On foot, not being dragged.”

“Who? Cassie?” Dess asked.

Rex nodded.

“You can see that?”

“I can see the traces of humans now,” he said, pointing at the trail. “And these footprints look like they were made in the blue time. Cassie must have left them during the eclipse.”

Dess’s face twisted into a skeptical expression. Other than Melissa and Madeleine, none of them yet understood how different he had become.