“Catherine Gale?” Elessar snorted. “She’s fucking with you.”

He turned to stare. “Okay, one, way to go native with the profanity, so what’s up with the whole progenitor thing? Two, not this time. Charlie’s looked into it.”

“Charlotte Gale? The Bard? While we’d be more likely to believe her than the Seer,” Arwen pointed out, “the rock will pass. You’ve been misinformed.”

She sounded so smug and superior that two lines of smoke curled up from Jack’s nose. “The rock you can see, the careless diamond you lot are writing overwrought poetry about, yeah, that’ll pass, but it’s masking a rock behind it. Which won’t pass. Impact in less than two years.” He spread his hands and let Dan have the last word. “Bam. Bam. Bam.”

“And no one knows about this but your Seer and your Bard?” Arwen snorted and somehow made it sound elegant. “Go back to your Gales, little prince, and tell them that the Courts won’t play whatever game it is they’re playing.”

“Go back to the Dragon Lords,” Elessar added, stirring one last packet of sugar into his coffee. “Their games are more honest.”

“And vicious.” Arwen grinned. “I rode your Uncle Ryan once.”

After four years with the Gales, Jack didn’t assume he knew which form. He took another swallow of coffee. “NASA knows. The American government knows. The international scientific community knows. The only people who don’t know are your basic garden variety humans because they’re entirely useless. Oh . . .” He waved his fork. “. . . and apparently you lot don’t know either.”

“Our Seers have not Seen disaster.”

“Why would they? Your Seers look into the future of the UnderRealm.” Jack emptied his fork and spread his hands. “Hello. The asteroid isn’t going to hit the UnderRealm. It’s going to hit here. Not here, the diner. Here, the MidRealm. Where you are.”

The look they exchanged held conversations.

“If this is true,” Elessar said at last. “Why would you tell us?”

“If it was up to me, I wouldn’t, but the family wants to know if you’re planning to try and stop the impact or if you’re going to cut and run.” Not a lie. He and Charlie and Joe were family. Filled fork halfway to his mouth, he frowned and added, “Obviously, you two won’t be personally stopping anything.”

“What makes you think we’re incapable of stopping it?” Arwen demanded.

“You don’t even believe in it,” Jack pointed out.

“Belief is not a required component of ability.” Elessar took a swallow of coffee hummingbirds would have found too sweet and looked up to find both Jack and his sister staring at him. “What?”