“Oh, sweetheart. You’ve been doing homework all day, haven’t you? This is my fault for putting you in all those advanced classes, isn’t it?”

Jessica hadn’t bothered to disagree. She’d half dozed through dinner and then gone straight to sleep. But she’d set her alarm for eleven-thirty. Tonight she wanted to be completely awake and dressed when the blue time came.

Although she couldn’t remember half of what the other midnighters had tried to teach her, she hadn’t forgotten the important stuff. Jessica was armed with three new weapons: Deliciousness, Fossilization, and Jurisprudence, which were a coil of wire, a long screw, and a broken car-radio antenna. They weren’t much to look at, and Dess had said that none was as formidable as the mighty Hypochondriac, but she had guaranteed they would light a fire under a darkling’s tail. Or at least a sparky blue fireworks show. Jessica had also borrowed a few recipes of Dess’s to create her own traps. Her bedroom was slitherproof now.

In addition, there was no way she was going outside tonight.

The other three midnighters were headed for what Rex had called a “lore site.” Apparently there had been midnighters in Bixby for as long as there had been a secret hour, some born here and some, like Jessica, who’d stumbled into town. Generations of seers like Rex had slowly collected knowledge about the blue time and the darklings and recorded their discoveries where only other seers could find them. Out in the unchanging badlands huge, ancient rocks were marked with invisible runes that told the ancient stories.

Rex said that he would search until he discovered why the darklings were so interested in Jessica. “But maybe last night was a coincidence,” he’d said unconvincingly.

“Maybe they just like you,” Melissa had said, smacking her lips. “As in, ‘I like pizza.’”

Two minutes to go.

Jessica swallowed and lifted her feet off the floor. The slithers couldn’t possibly be here yet, but last night had brought all her childhood fears back to her. There were things under the bed. Maybe at the moment they were psychosomatic things, but she could still feel them down there.

She looked at her clock, which was set to Bixby time now. Dess had explained that “real midnight” happened at a different moment in every city. Time zones just kind of faked it. But now when her clock hit twelve, Jessica Day would be as far away from the sun as you could get.

One minute to go.

Jessica picked up Jurisprudence and pulled it out to its full length. She swished it through the air like a sword. The radio antenna was from a Chevy made in 1976, a year that apparently was a multiple of thirteen. Dess had been saving it for something special.