“Yeah, it’s awful that you ran into a darkling so soon,” Jonathan said. “But last night was weird all over town. It was probably just darkling New Year’s Eve or something. Was that your first time out?”

She started to nod, then shook her head. She’d almost forgotten the first night. With Rex and Dess cramming her head with midnighter lore and history all day, she’d only thought about the dangers of the blue time, not the splendor of the frozen storm.

“It must be nice,” she said quietly, “being happy to be a midnighter.”

“Quit calling me that,” he softly chided. “I’m not a ‘midnighter.’ That’s Rex’s word.”

Jessica frowned. “It seems pretty appropriate to me. Kind of makes the point and sounds better than ‘twelve o’clocker.’”

“I guess it does,” Jonathan admitted with a smile. “And I do like the word midnight. Since I moved to Bixby, anyway.”

Jessica took a breath and dared to look past him to the blue-lit street. Even before the secret hour had come, it had been a beautiful night, gusty and dramatic. She could see falling autumn leaves trailing from the giant oak trees like flocks of dark and frozen birds. Their brilliant reds and yellows had turned black in the blue light.

She remembered the raindrops that first night, how her fingertips had released them from midnight’s hold. Would the leaves also fall at her touch? She wanted to run through them, knocking handfuls out of the air. Back in Chicago she had never been able to resist snapping off icicles, breaking winter’s spell.

But among the black leaves Jessica could still imagine the darkling that had attacked her. Its cruel form might be lurking anywhere among the frozen shapes outside. She shuddered and turned away from the window.

Her bedroom still seemed alien. It looked wan in the blue light, like a fading memory. Motionless dust hung in the air.

“Midnight is beautiful,” she said. “But cold, too.”

Jonathan frowned. “It never feels cold to me. Or hot, either. It’s more like a perfect summer night.”

Jessica shook her head. “I didn’t mean that kind of cold.”

“Oh, I see,” Jonathan said. “Yeah. It feels kind of empty sometimes. Like we’re the last people on earth.”

“Thanks. That makes me feel much better.”

“You shouldn’t be scared of midnight, Jessica.”

“I’m only scared of being eaten.”

“That was just bad luck.”

“But Rex said—”

“Don’t worry about what Rex says,” Jonathan interrupted. “He’s way too paranoid. He thinks no one should explore the blue time until they know all ten thousand years of midnighter lore. That’s like reading a whole VCR manual just to watch a movie. Which I’ve seen Rex actually do, by the way.”

“You should’ve seen the darkling that attacked me,” Jessica said.

“I’ve seen darklings. Lots of them.”

“But—”