“The aunties can make Game of Thrones look like Dora the Explorer, but that’s not the point. The point is, out of all the millions of people tossing their thoughts into Dan’s head like it was some kind of mental dumpster, how do we find the other person who knows about the asteroid?”

“You don’t know it’s only one person.” When Charlie turned to glare at him, Jack shrugged. “You think Dan heard one person, but there could be more people Dan didn’t hear. He doesn’t hear everyone.”

“Stop helping.”

“We should check Dan’s Facebook page. He didn’t set it up,” Jack continued, before Charlie managed to move past the stunned surprise of her initial response. “It’s the bam bam video and reactions. Maybe the person Dan overheard posted a ‘dude, you know the sky is falling, I know the sky is falling, too’ comment.”

“Yeah . . .” Charlie shook her head. “I bet there’s a bunch of those and they’re probably as useful as most things on Facebook.”

“How would you know? You’re still on MySpace.”

“It’s an indie music site now!”

“Uh-huh.” Tipping his head back, Jack let out a short burst of flame. “And now it’s snowing.”

“Three flakes hardly count as snow.”

“Four.”

Charlie held out her hand and watched as the fourth flake, grayer than the rest, drifted down onto her palm. “I think that’s ash.”

Jack stared down at it. “What did I burn?”

“No idea.” She scrubbed her palm clean against her jeans and wished everything that fell from the sky could be dealt with so easily. “Count the pigeons.”

He snickered instead of protesting; an adult’s response not a child’s. Not adult enough, unfortunately.

After a moment, Charlie sighed and said, “I suppose I could just go looking for people having random panic attacks. That might narrow it down a bit.” Panic seemed like a reasonable response to believing millions of people only had six months left. “First you panic, then you go a little crazy and do all the things you always . . .”

Her personal soundtrack played the Jeopardy theme as the pieces fell into place.

“I’m an idiot.”

She expected a smartass remark. When all she got was silence, she turned to see Jack staring at her, his expression pure dragon.

“You’re leaving again.”

“I have to see a man about a bouzouki.” She sang the anti-eavesdropping charm away as she stood—an auntie stumbling over it would lead to an exploration of the entirely incorrect statement that “In this family we don’t keep secrets.” The aunties kept plenty of secrets. Charlie was just the only non-auntie who could manage it, and reminding them of that never ended well. When she reached the door alone, she assumed Jack planned to stay on the roof. Then she heard the chaise fall over, and he joined her on the stairs.