She nodded, swallowing. “I saw some last night.”

“That’s what Dess calls them, anyway,” Jonathan said. “Although ‘flying slither’ kind of sounds like a contradiction to me. But the winged ones and the crawly ones are the same creature. They change their shape, did you know?”

“Yeah, I know.” She remembered the kitty-shaped slither that had led her so far from home before turning into a snake. The flying slither was circling them slowly, its leathery wings transparent against the cold moon. “It’s creeping me out.”

“Don’t worry. Those things never bother anyone.” He reached into his shirt and pulled up a necklace of thick steel links. “And if that one decides to, I’ve got all thirty-nine links of Obstructively to protect us.”

Jessica shivered. “A slither bit me last night. Or whatever you’d call it. Tongued me.”

“Ouch. Were you messing with a nest or something?”

She looked at Jonathan sourly. “No, I wasn’t doing anything stupid. A bunch of them were helping the darkling hunt me. It snuck up on me in the grass and gave me this slither hickey.” She showed him the mark.

“Yuck. They are nasty little creatures. But it won’t bother us, I promise, Jess.”

“I hope not.” She hugged herself. Somehow it felt colder up here, as if the suspended desert wind blowing off the badlands had left a trace of itself. Jessica wished she had brought a sweatshirt.

Jonathan put a hand on her shoulder. The lightness returned, the feeling of safety and warmth. Her feet disconnected for a moment from the tower, as buoyant as a cork on water. She shivered again, but not with the cold this time.

“Jessica?” Jonathan said.

“Call me Jess, I said.”

“Jess!” His voice sounded wrong. He was staring the other way, toward the badlands outside of town. She followed his gaze.

A darkling was coming.

It wasn’t at all like the one from the night before. It shifted as it flew, muscles rippling as it transformed from one shape to another—first a snake, then a tiger, then a bird of prey, scales and fur and feathers all blurring together on its crawling skin, the huge wings beating with the sound of a flag whipping in the wind.

It could fly too, and quickly. It was headed straight toward them.

But Jonathan had seen lots of darklings before, Jessica reminded herself. He had been out in midnight hundreds of times. He was faster than the bullies.

She looked back at his face. Jonathan’s mouth had dropped open.

Jessica knew instantly that he’d never seen a darkling like this one.

14

12:00 A.M.

BEASTS OF PREY

Along with a flood of terror, a few morsels of Jessica’s day-long cram session trickled into her mind.

“Jonathan, this tower’s made of steel, isn’t it?”

He shook his head. “It’s not clean. Nothing this far out of town is.”

“Oh, right. So we…”

“Jump.”