Jessica pulled out Jurisprudence with her free hand and used her teeth to pull the antenna out to its full length. The building was only a few jumps away.

She spotted the slither just before it hit.

The leathery wings struck first, wrapping themselves around her face. Jessica flailed away with Jurisprudence, and blue sparks filled her vision. Then the creature was gone.

“They’re trying to separate us,” Jonathan shouted.

Jess felt a creeping cold in her shoulder. The thing had struck for their interlocked hands. It knew she couldn’t fly on her own.

Another slither approached, but she swiped at it with the still sparking antenna, and it flapped away.

One last jump took them into the mesh of steel girders. They landed hard on a metal beam strung with cables.

“I’m letting go,” Jonathan warned.

Jessica gained her footing with only a second to spare. Weight crashed back onto her, and she knelt, clinging to the beam.

Jonathan pulled the necklace over his head, wrapping it around his fist.

“Splendiferous,” Jessica whispered to the steel.

“If we can just hold out a few more—,” Jonathan started, but his voice choked off in confusion. “What in the—”

The forest of steel around them bloomed with light—white, not blue. The world shifted into full color, the metal beams suddenly a dusty red. Jessica’s face and hands turned pink, Jonathan’s light brown.

Suddenly there were panicked shapes all around them, screaming past like angry rockets. Slithers were flying into the building site, screeching and leaving a trail of sparks as they struck the white light, retreating back to the edge of the steel girders.

The cloud of slithers regrouped and wrapped itself around the building, circling as if Jessica and Jonathan were caught in the eye of a tornado. Wounded sounds came from all around them, but nothing dared enter the grid of steel.

Jessica could see three darklings together at the edge of the light, their silhouettes pulsing through horrible, half-glimpsed shapes. Their eyes flashed a deep indigo.

A low growl came from one of them, long and full of varied sounds, as if it were trying to make words and meaning. But it was no more understandable than fingernails on a chalkboard.

Then the three darklings turned and flew away. The flying slithers slowly gathered themselves up into a ragged cloud, the whole mass heading back out toward the badlands.

“The moon’s setting,” Jonathan said.

Jessica nodded, unable to speak.

“We’d better get down.”

Of course, Jessica thought. In a few minutes Jonathan wouldn’t be able to fly anymore. They’d be stuck up here.

She held out her hand, and he took it. They jumped from the steel beam, falling softly to the ground. The white light around them slowly faded, returning to the placid blue light of the secret hour.

“What was that?” she said. “What saved us?”

“I’m not sure,” he said. “Maybe the steel?”