“How’ve you been holding up so far, kid?” Hemslock asks from behind me. “Is all of this different from that island life?”

“It’s more people than I’m used to.”

“You’ll ease into it soon enough. No one to keep you company?” His grin widens. “You look like the type to swing both ways.”

“Reuben,” Gries says, looking embarrassed.

Hemslock only chuckles. “Alon’s old enough, Leo. And it’s not like I’m flirting.” For a moment his brows draw down, anger flashing across his face before he grins again. “Alon’s hanging out with the heavy hitters now. Just pointing that out.”

Leo offers the seat beside him. He introduces me to a few other people in the room, including the scientists who attempted to excavate the tree earlier, and a couple of the show’s lead writers. Melissa is here as well, presumably to run errands for the producers. Chase sits beside his father and appears distracted, fiddling with his phone and scowling down at it, obviously in no mood to answer whoever’s calling when it buzzes.

“The writing team will be presenting,” Leo explains. “And we want you on hand to make sure we don’t deviate from what the legends are really about.”

He looks tired despite his friendliness. I wonder if he’s still thinking about the strange video. Hemslock and the others decided it was a fluke since the voice couldn’t be replicated, though it is clear that Gries does not feel the same way.

Several monitors have been set up on the walls, and a technical team is hard at work connecting them to numerous laptops. One by one, the screens light up, revealing three other important-looking men in business suits who sit behind large desks.

Melissa spots my confusion. “They’re executive producers,” she says, taking advantage of the opportunity to pile her plate high with the sushi. She lowers her voice. “It’s kinda unusual. Most TV shows don’t usually have more than two executive producers, but we’ve got five. Sounds like a lot of the studio higher-ups were insistent about buying in. Probably because of the stuff that happened with Mr. Hemslock—a show of support or something.”

“Now that everyone’s here,” one of the head writers begins, after an approving nod from Armani, “we can start. As I mentioned before, we’ll be improvising a lot for this show, mostly because we still can’t completely separate the facts from fiction.” He smiles in my direction. “I’d like to show you all the direction we’re taking, and see if everyone is on board.

“All right, so we have this island, Kisapmata. Here’s the mythology: something sleeps within it—a local psychopomp at the least, a venerated death god at most. There were definitely sacrifices made here—locals and historians have verified that. The ongoing lore is that eight deaths are needed to reawaken this god, and that his waking will usher in a” he raises his hands and wriggles two fingers on each, “new beginning.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Producer Number One asks from one of the monitors. “What new beginning? Some kind of rapture?”