“Scotland.” There's a faraway cast to his voice. He thinks first of Robert Louis Stevenson, crumbling family estates and wax-sealed letters. Smugglers glimpsed at sunset. Trees. That's how he thinks of other places now: all the trees.

William settles back, mindful of his shoulder. Inadvertently meets Dolores' eyes. “It's crystal,” he says, some dredged-up emotion still in his voice. He sounds as if he's never seen it before. He clears his throat, wonders if she even knows what he's talking about. “Imagine if, uh”—he smiles to himself—“you peeled a stone. The light...”

He closes his eyes a moment and looks again at the glow filling the cavern. The way it bounds, sometimes, from crystal to crystal.

“It's eerie. Not creepy, just...” He takes a breath. “Your reflection's been changing the whole time.” He sounds almost embarrassed, as though admitting something, as though caught reading her diary. “Right now it's a man. With very distinctive hair.”