Quincy leaned against the table. “Gotta be honest with you: I’ve wanted to know this all my life. But now that I do, I’m not feeling real good about it.”

“Obviously you didn’t know what you were getting into.”

“I give zero shits that the papers call me a crazy conspiracy theorist. You should see my office in LA. I have the first edition of Communion in a glass case. And yes, I will admit, a framed Independence Day poster. You grow up a fat kid with no friends who likes science, and your Dad tells you about your great-grandfather’s research about people disappearing into lightning, what else are you supposed to become?”

“I bet you are regretting those interests now.”

“Here’s the reality: I lead a pretty shallow life. I’ve made a lot of money on teenage girls wanting to project images of their faces to their boyfriends. I’m not curing cancer. I am surrounded by people with way too much plastic surgery driving Teslas. It is any wonder than I sought out a greater understanding of the cosmos?”

“Apparently it’s genetic.”

“I mean, can you believe it? Our great-grandparents discovered the first proof. And seventy or so years later, here we are. And let’s be honest: This isn’t by chance. The Corcillium wanted us to make this connection, but obviously without all the death and explosions.”

“And it’s only getting worse. That’s what scares me the most.”

“Will you tell me about what you see in these dreams? I think it’s pretty obvious now that it’s how you’re connected to all the disasters, right?”

William took a long drink and started with the eyes in the storms. What he saw in the fires, the violence, the deaths in hospitals, finally ending by seeing Lily’s eyes in the stone.

“And to wrap it up with a bow, there are snakes. Everywhere.”

“Jesus. No wonder you wake up freaking out. But what you can do with Lily … that’s hope, right? She says she saw you in her dreams. Maybe that means the others out there … can see you too. That’s why you got online, isn’t it? You wanted to see where the storm is coming. Where the fires are. Because if you can stop Lily…”

“I don’t even know how I do it. And it’s everywhere now. Global. I dream of it, everywhere. It’s like a virus. Carriers in each part of the world. I can see it, but I can’t communicate with them. And I’m the cause.”

“And maybe the cure.” Quincy raised a finger. “I know Steven thinks there’s one causing the hurricanes that keep hitting New Orleans. Speaking of hurricanes: those drinks are responsible for my lack of memory of the eight Mardi Gras I’ve been to.”