Jess looked into his eyes. “That’s why you don’t like him, isn’t it? Because he can read the lore and you can’t.”
Jonathan frowned at her. “It’s more complicated than that.” He swallowed, wondering how much he should say. “You don’t know Rex and Melissa as well as I do. Let’s just say I don’t trust Rex. I don’t think he tells everything he knows, even to Melissa.”
“Why would he do that?”
“To keep control of the whole thing. If everyone else knows what he knows, being a seer doesn’t give him any power.”
“Rex withhold information? Come on, Jonathan. Last weekend at the museum he told me stuff about the blue time for, like, six hours. I had to tell him to stop or my head was going to explode.”
“Six hours, and he didn’t tell you about me.”
Jessica blinked. “Oh, right. He did kind of forget to mention you.”
Jonathan smiled sourly. “He wanted you to be one of his midnighters.”
She sighed and looked out again. He followed her gaze past the city to the horizon. From up here they could see all the way to the edge of Bixby, where dark clusters of houses faded away into the badlands. The low flat plains shone with dark moonlight, and the mountains beyond were black silhouettes against the stars.
“So what do I do?” she said softly.
“I guess you don’t have a choice. You’ve got to do what Rex says.” Jonathan sighed. “Sometimes I think the whole midnighter thing is rigged.”
“Rigged?”
“Yeah. It’s a setup. We’ve all got our own talents. Rex reads lore, I fly, Melissa casts, Dess does the math. You must do something. So we wind up all dependent on each other, like we’re supposed to fit together into a team.”
Jess squeezed his hand. “Jonathan, what’s so bad about that?”
He scowled. “I didn’t ask to be on a team. I don’t even know who put the team together.”
“Maybe fate put us together.”
“I didn’t ask to be on fate’s team either.” He pulled his hand away. “It all seems totally rigged, like we’re stuck with each other.”
Jess shook her head. “Jonathan, that’s not rigged. That’s just life.”
“What’s life? Having Rex tell you what to do?”
“No, needing help. Getting stuck with other people.”
“Like being stuck up here with me?”
“Yeah, exactly. Like you being stuck protecting me.” Jessica stood up on the narrow strut. She took a few steps away, glaring out over the dark city.
“I didn’t mean—,” he started, standing himself.
The two were silent. Jonathan took a deep breath, trying to figure out when this conversation had turned into a fight. He did feel trapped now. Not by Jess, or even the darklings who were after her, but by the words they’d said—by not knowing what to say to make it better.
It was strange not touching Jessica, not sharing his gravity with her. The midnight air seemed cold, as if the space between them had filled with ice. When they flew, everything was so easy. Over the last four nights they’d stopped saying out loud where their next jump would take them. They communicated through their hands much better than with words.
And now they were stuck up here—not flying, not talking, not touching. It felt to Jonathan as if daylight gravity had come already and was crushing him.
He looked down through the rusty framework that held up the Pegasus sign to the rooftop of the Mobil Building forty feet below.
“Jess?”
She didn’t reply.
He reached out. “You should hold my hand. It’s dangerous up here.”
“It’s dangerous everywhere. For me.”
The fear in her voice chilled him. Midnight should have been so beautiful for her, an infinite playground, but it seemed as if something—Rex and his lore, the curfew, the darklings—was always screwing it up.
“Jess,” he said. “Just hold my…” He trailed off as something hit him—maybe the reason she was upset with him, the reason he’d been missing. “I’ll be out there tomorrow night. At the snake pit. You know that, right?”
She turned to look at him, her green eyes softening. “You will?”
“Yeah, of course. I mean, I’m not going to let you guys have all the fun.”
Her face broke into a smile.
“I’ll even let Rex give the orders,” he said. “This might be one of those things where you’d actually want to read the manual.”
“Thanks, Jonathan.” She finally took his hands again, and he could feel midnight gravity reconnect them.
Jonathan grinned back. “Jess, I wouldn’t let you…”
But before he could finish the sentence, she leaned her head toward his and kissed him.
Jonathan blinked with surprise, then let his eyes close. Jessica was warm against him, even in the summer-night air of the secret hour. He put his arms around her, feeling her feet come lightly up off the ground in his embrace.
When they parted, he grinned. “Wow. I think we found your talent.”
She laughed. “It’s about time, Jonathan.”
“That we kissed? Yeah, I was going—”
“No. That you said you were coming out to the snake pit.”
“Jess, of course I’m coming. I’m not going to let Rex get you killed.”
“You should have told me right away,” she said.
“You should have asked me.”
She groaned, pulling him against her again in a too tight hug. “You shouldn’t be such an idiot,” she whispered.
Jonathan frowned, afraid to say anything. Staying close to her, he reached up and undid the clasp of his necklace.
“Here, take this for tomorrow night.”
“Your necklace?”
“It’s called Obstructively: thirty-nine links. It’ll take me about ten minutes to fly out to the Bottom from my house. You might need it before I get there.”
Her fingers closed around the metal links. “But then you won’t have anything to protect yourself.”
“Maybe Dess will give me something. She’s been making toys all week. I want you to have this, though.”
“Thank you, Jonathan.” Jess’s face was lit up by her smile. “Tell me, have you ever kissed anyone be—”
“Duh.” He saw her frown and swallowed. “I mean, yeah.”
“As I was saying,” she said, her eyes sparkling, “have you ever kissed anyone before in the secret hour?”
He blushed, then shook his head. “Not until now.”
Jess’s smile brightened. “Then you haven’t done this.” She grabbed him around the waist and bent her legs. He barely had time to prepare before she jumped, carrying them both straight up into the sky.
“Oh,” he said.
And then they were kissing again.
22
10:31 P.M.
DRESSED TO KILL
“Well, what do you think, Jess? Are we ready to go?”
Jessica stared at herself in the mirror. She recognized the red hair and green eyes, but that was about it.
Constanza had spent the evening doing a makeover on them both. She’d taken one look at Jessica’s party outfit and decided to lend her a jacket. Then some makeup. Then a dress.
Spending a few hours trying on Constanza’s clothes had turned out to be a lot of fun. There were two closets full of them, and a whole wall of her bedroom was covered with mirrors. Most of her things seemed to fit Jessica, and everything was beautiful or at least expensive looking. Constanza absolutely loved every outfit Jessica had put together. It was like being a regular teenager again, getting ready to go to a normal party instead of a snake pit full of evil creatures. Constanza played CDs and Jessica played dress-up, and it had been the first night all week that she’d been able to forget what time it was and what would happen when the clock reached twelve.