“So all I have to do is carry a piece of metal with a thirteen-letter name around with me,” Jessica asked with disbelief in her voice, “and I’ll be fine?”

“Well, there’s a lot more to it,” Dess said. “For one thing, the metal should be clean.”

“What, they’re afraid of soap too?”

“Not that kind of clean,” Rex said. “Untouched by midnight. You see, when something from the daylight world is disturbed during the blue time, it becomes part of their world. That changes it forever.”

“So how can you tell what’s clean?”

Rex took a deep breath. It was time to take over from Dess. “Haven’t you wondered how we knew you were a midnighter, Jessica?”

She thought hard for a second, then gave a defeated sigh. “I can’t keep track of all the stuff I’ve been wondering lately. But yeah, Dess seemed to know something from the moment we met. I just figured she was psychic.”

Melissa snorted quietly, her fingers drumming along with her music.

“Well, when things have been changed by the secret hour, they look different. To me, anyway. And you’re a midnighter, so you always look different. You’re naturally part of that world.” Rex pulled off his glasses.

Jessica’s face became completely clear to him. Rex could see the lines of exhaustion below her eyes and her alert, questioning expression, ready to absorb whatever they could tell her.

“I can also read the lore, marks left behind by other midnighters. There are signs all over Bixby, some of them left thousands of years ago.”

Jessica looked at him closely, possibly wondering if he was crazy. “And only you can see them?”

“So far.” He swallowed. “Can we try something, Jessica?”

“Sure.”

He led her to a museum case by the excavated wall. Under the glass was a collection of Clovis points, all from the Bixby area and all about ten thousand years old. Although the label didn’t say so, one of the points had been retrieved from inside the rib cage of the “saber-tooth” skeleton embedded in the wall. The rest had been found in ancient campsites, burial mounds, and the snake pit. With his glasses off, Rex could instantly spot the difference.

That one spearhead stood out from the rest with burning clarity, every facet so distinct that he could envision how the ancient hammer had struck off each flake of stone. The Focus had clung to this piece of obsidian for millennia, and from his first glimpse of it Rex had known instinctively that it had pierced the heart of the beast on the wall.

This point had killed a darkling.