Jessica frowned. On the phone this afternoon no one had mentioned what was supposed to happen after they rescued Cassie from the blue time. How would they keep her from spilling the beans to everyone in town?

Of course, maybe the answer was obvious. Melissa would reach into the young girl’s mind and erase what had happened here. She had done it more than once before—to Jessica’s own parents, probably. And back when her talent was young and unformed, Melissa had forced herself into Rex’s father’s mind, leaving the old guy half crazy. The thought of his milky, empty eyes made Jessica shiver again.

But maybe it didn’t have to be that way.

“This is a pretty crappy dream, huh?” she said to the girl, rubbing her slither-bitten hand.

Jonathan raised an eyebrow, and even Rex, who still looked pretty shaky, snorted out a short laugh.

“What?” Jessica shrugged. “I’m just saying, as nightmares go, this one’s on the weird side. Right, Cassie?”

The look of dazed confusion gradually faded from the girl’s face, her expression turning more thoughtful. “Well, I was kind of wondering: what’s going on here?” She looked up at the dark moon. “What happened to everything? And who are you guys?”

“You’ve got a fever, right?” Jessica asked.

“Not a fever. My grandma said it’s just a cold.”

“Oh. Right. Okay,” Jessica said slowly and deliberately. “But sometimes when we’re sick, we have funny dreams.”

Cassie crossed her arms. “Yeah, maybe. But people in those funny dreams don’t usually bring it up that I’m dreaming.”

Jonathan laughed. “Nice try, Jess.”

“Yeah, this kid’s smarter than that,” Rex said. “And tougher than she looks too.”

“Smarter?” Jessica cried. “What’s that supposed to mean? I thought the blue time was all a dream, remember?”

“Oh, yeah.” Rex chuckled. “Well, feel free to tell her whatever you want until Melissa gets here.”

Jessica frowned and glanced at Jonathan, who shrugged, a helpless look on his face. He didn’t much like the idea either, but he clearly couldn’t see any other way of keeping the secret hour secret.

A crashing sound reached them through the trees.

“Speaking of which,” Rex said.

Dess emerged first, a long metal pipe balanced over one shoulder, like a spear ready to be thrown. She stumbled into the clearing and came to a halt, looking at them one by one. Then she lowered the spear with a disgusted noise. “No monsters left, are there?”

“All under control,” Rex said.

“Rats,” Dess said. “Jessica, I haven’t slain jack squat since you became the flame-bringer.”

Jessica sighed. “Yeah. My bad.”

Melissa came into view, yanking on her long black dress, the hem of which was tangled with twigs and trailing branches.

“Jeez, Rex. That was freaky,” she announced.

“You tasted it?” he asked quietly.

“It was pretty hard to miss,” Melissa said, running a finger along one of her scars. “I mean, I already knew you were having an identity crisis. But I didn’t think a darkling would agree with you!”