Rex looked over at the shaft of stone, biting his lip. Melissa pulled her head from her hands and looked up at him.

“You’re not serious,” she said.

Dess laughed. “You think it’s literal, don’t you? You think she can use fire. Real fire.”

“In the secret hour?” Jonathan asked.

“That would kick butt,” Dess said. “Red fire in the blue time.”

Rex looked at Melissa.

“It makes sense, I guess,” she said. “At least it’s something that would scare them enough to explain all this.”

“But you said fire didn’t work here,” Jessica said.

Rex nodded. “That’s right. That’s why they created the secret hour in the first place. The whole point of the Split was to escape technology. Fire, electronics, all the new ideas.” He turned to Jessica. “But you’ve come to make them face fire again. You could change everything.”

“Well, don’t just stand there making speeches about it,” Dess said. “Anyone got any matches?”

“No.”

“No.”

“No.”

Melissa shook her head. “Some flame-bringer. Too bad we didn’t get the match-bringer.”

“Hey, I asked about matches,” Jessica said. “And Rex said they’d be—”

A cracking sound pealed through the snake pit, along with a blinding flash, and a dead slither fell to the ground next to Dess.

“Oh, yuck!” she cried, holding her nose at the smell.

Melissa raised her head to the sky. “They know it’s fading. They’re coming closer.”

“Okay,” Rex said. “Maybe we don’t need matches. We can start a fire the old-fashioned way.”

“With what? Flint or something?” Jonathan said.

“Or two sticks. You rub them together,” Dess said.

“Sticks?” Jessica looked around. “I’m not the stick-bringer either, and this is a desert.”

“Here.” Rex pulled off a steel ring from his boot. He picked up a rock from the ground. “Bang these together, Jess.”

She took them from him and struck them against each other.

“Harder.”

Jessica held the rock firmly and brought the metal down against it as hard as she could.

A spark flew, bright red in the blue light.

“Oh, yeah,” Dess said. “Did you see that color?”

Jessica glanced at Rex. It hadn’t looked like much to her.

His mouth had fallen open. “Fire,” he murmured.

“Yeah, but sparks won’t stop an army,” Jonathan said. “We need to start a blaze.”

Dess nodded. “Too bad there’s no kindling out here. Does anyone have any paper?”

Jessica pulled Dess’s map to the snake pit out of her pocket. “I’ll get this going. You guys try to find something else flammable.” She knelt and put it on the ground, holding the rock next to it. She struck at it with the steel.

A few sparks came, but they bounced harmlessly off the paper.