Jonathan frowned at her. “It’s more complicated than that.” He swallowed, wondering how much he should say. “You don’t know Rex and Melissa as well as I do. Let’s just say I don’t trust Rex. I don’t think he tells everything he knows, even to Melissa.”

“Why would he do that?”

“To keep control of the whole thing. If everyone else knows what he knows, being a seer doesn’t give him any power.”

“Rex withhold information? Come on, Jonathan. Last weekend at the museum he told me stuff about the blue time for, like, six hours. I had to tell him to stop or my head was going to explode.”

“Six hours, and he didn’t tell you about me.”

Jessica blinked. “Oh, right. He did kind of forget to mention you.”

Jonathan smiled sourly. “He wanted you to be one of his midnighters.”

She sighed and looked out again. He followed her gaze past the city to the horizon. From up here they could see all the way to the edge of Bixby, where dark clusters of houses faded away into the badlands. The low flat plains shone with dark moonlight, and the mountains beyond were black silhouettes against the stars.

“So what do I do?” she said softly.

“I guess you don’t have a choice. You’ve got to do what Rex says.” Jonathan sighed. “Sometimes I think the whole midnighter thing is rigged.”

“Rigged?”

“Yeah. It’s a setup. We’ve all got our own talents. Rex reads lore, I fly, Melissa casts, Dess does the math. You must do something. So we wind up all dependent on each other, like we’re supposed to fit together into a team.”

Jess squeezed his hand. “Jonathan, what’s so bad about that?”

He scowled. “I didn’t ask to be on a team. I don’t even know who put the team together.”

“Maybe fate put us together.”

“I didn’t ask to be on fate’s team either.” He pulled his hand away. “It all seems totally rigged, like we’re stuck with each other.”

Jess shook her head. “Jonathan, that’s not rigged. That’s just life.”

“What’s life? Having Rex tell you what to do?”

“No, needing help. Getting stuck with other people.”

“Like being stuck up here with me?”

“Yeah, exactly. Like you being stuck protecting me.” Jessica stood up on the narrow strut. She took a few steps away, glaring out over the dark city.

“I didn’t mean—,” he started, standing himself.

The two were silent. Jonathan took a deep breath, trying to figure out when this conversation had turned into a fight. He did feel trapped now. Not by Jess, or even the darklings who were after her, but by the words they’d said—by not knowing what to say to make it better.