“Come on. Let’s fly somewhere together,” she said. She massaged her shoulder. “Now that we’re not getting pelted with slithers.”

“Well,” he said after a moment’s thought, “have you ever seen the river?”

“The Arkansas?” Jessica shrugged. “Just from the bridge on the way over here.”

“You haven’t seen the Arkansas River till you’ve seen it in the secret hour,” Jonathan said. “Motionless water, excellent for skipping rocks.”

“Oh, cool.” For a moment she tried to figure out how the laws of motion would apply, but her new physics lobe quickly gave up. “So how does that work?”

Jonathan smiled again, his brown eyes flashing in the light of the dark moon. “It’s kind of tricky to explain. But you get a lot more skips than on regular water. Swimming’s fun too.”

“Okay,” Jessica said. “I could use some fun.”

“Come on, then. I’ll show you.”

Jonathan offered her his hand, and she took it.

“You kids have fun now,” Dess called.

“Okay,” Jessica said. “See you, Rex.”

The seer only nodded, his hands still shaking. Even in the blue light she could tell his face was ashen. What had happened to him before they’d arrived? And why had the darkling run away while she was still finding her way here, if its minions were sacrificing themselves to hold her up?

She shook her head. Evidently Rex and Melissa were still keeping secrets from the rest of them.

They leapt up and over the trees, finding their way back to the railroad bed and then across Jenks, until Jessica could see the glimmer of the river in the distance. From the air it looked like a giant slither winding its way down from the black hills, glowing with the cold light of the dark moon.

“You know,” Jonathan said as they flew. “Maybe it’s better for Cassie. Forgetting about all this.”

“Maybe. Doesn’t seem fair, though.”

“Sure, but think about how much it would scare a kid like that. Knowing about all these weird creatures crawling across her while she’s frozen for an hour every night?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Jessica said. “I mean, it scares me, and I’m the all-powerful flashlight-bringer.”

“And on top of the fear factor, everyone would think she was totally crazy. Eventually, since she’ll never see the blue time again after all, she’d probably decide they were right.”

They landed on a stretch of not-quite beach, a narrow strip of dry earth dotted with patches of scrubby grass. The river stretched out before them, motionless wavelets glittering like scales made of diamond, reflecting a shattered image of the dark moon.

It was beautiful, but Jessica shivered.

“Not cold, are you?”

“No. It’s always warm here.” She shook her head. “I was just wondering if Cassie might see the blue time again. I mean, what if Dess is right? What if the secret hour swallows all of Bixby—or even the whole world—forever? And everyone gets sucked through, like Cassie was? Suddenly cars and electricity don’t work, and people can’t even make fires anymore. Only five of us on the whole planet know anything about using thirteen-letter words and stainless steel to protect ourselves. What happens then?”