guarding the place. You ain’t with them, are you?’
‘No,’ I answer. ‘We most definitely are not.’
‘Dale’s volunteered to show us the way,’ Marina says, nudging Dale with the toe of her sneaker.
He swallows hard and then nods enthusiastically.
‘It’s not far,’ he says. ‘Couple hours through the swamp.’
‘We just spent two days hiking out of that swamp,’ Nine says. ‘Now you want to go back in?’
‘They have him,’ Marina hisses, pointing into the dark. ‘You heard Malcolm’s story about what
they did to Number One. They stole her Legacies.’
I give Marina a sharp look. Even if most of it doesn’t make any sense to him, Dale’s still listening
intently to our conversation. ‘Should we really be talking about this?’
Marina snorts. ‘You’re worried about Dale, Six? They’re killing us and blowing up our friends.
Keeping secrets from this drunk is the least of our worries.’
Dale raises his hand. ‘I swear I won’t say nothing about … about whatever you’re talking about.’
‘What about Chicago?’ Nine asks. ‘What about the others?’
Marina affords Nine only a quick glare. She keeps her eyes on me when she answers. ‘You know
I’m worried about them. But we don’t know where John and the others are, Six. We know where
Eight is. And I am not, under any circumstances, letting those sick bastards keep him.’
The way she says it, I know there’s no way to convince Marina otherwise. If we don’t go with her,
she’ll go by herself. Not that I even consider not going. I’m spoiling for a fight almost as bad as she is. And if there’s a chance Eight’s body is still out there – in the clutches of Mogadorians still
lingering in Florida, maybe with Five – then we have to at least try recovering it. Leave no Garde
behind.
‘Dale,’ I say, ‘I hope you’ve got a boat we can borrow.’
5
The slab of meat in front of me looks like a soggy piece of uncooked fish, except it’s lacking any
texture whatsoever. I poke it with my fork and the pale slab jiggles like gelatin. Or maybe it’s still alive and trying to escape, those unappetizing tremors its attempt to slowly wiggle off my plate. If I look away, I wonder if the thing will pick up the pace and try crawling into one of the air vents.
I want to vomit.
‘Eat,’ Setrákus Ra commands.
He called himself my grandfather. That thought makes me more nauseous than the food. I don’t want
to believe him. This could be just like the visions, some sick game meant to get under my skin.
But why go through all the trouble? Why bring me here? Why not just kill me?
Setrákus Ra sits across from me, all the way down at the opposite end of a ridiculously large
banquet table that looks as if it was carved from lava. His chair is thronelike, made of the same dark stone as the table, but definitely not large enough to accommodate the mammoth warlord we fought at
Dulce Base. No, at some point when I wasn’t watching, Setrákus Ra shrunk down to a more
reasonable eight feet tall so that he could comfortably hunch over his own plate of Mogadorian
cuisine.
Could his size changing be a Legacy? It works really similarly to my ability to alter my age.
‘You have questions,’ Setrákus Ra rumbles, observing me.
‘What are you?’ I blurt out.
He cocks his head. ‘What do you mean, child?’
‘You’re a Mogadorian,’ I say, trying not to sound too frantic. ‘I’m Loric. We can’t be related.’
‘Ah, such a simplistic idea. Human, Loric, Mogadorian – these are just words, dear one. Labels.
Centuries ago, my experiments proved that our genetics could be changed. They could be augmented.
We needn’t wait for Lorien to gift us with Legacies. We could take them as we needed them, utilizing
them like any other resource.’
‘Why do you keep saying we?’ I ask, my voice cracking. ‘You’re not one of us.’
Setrákus Ra smiles thinly. ‘I was Loric once. The tenth Elder. Until the time came when I was cast
out. Then, I became what you see before you: the powers of a Garde combined with the strength of a
Mogadorian. An evolutionary improvement.’
My legs start shaking under the table. I hardly listen after he mentions the tenth Elder. I remember
that from Crayton’s letter. He said my father was obsessed with the fact that our family once had an
Elder. Could that have been Setrákus Ra?
‘You’re crazy,’ I say. ‘And you’re a liar.’
‘I am neither of those things,’ he replies, patiently. ‘I am a realist. A futurist. I altered my genetics to become more like them, so they would accept me. In return for their fealty, I helped their
population grow. I brought them back from the brink of extinction. Joining the Mogadorians gave me a
chance to continue the experiments that so frightened the Loric. Now, my work is almost finished.
Soon, all life in the universe – Mogadorian, human, even what’s left of the Loric – will be improved
under my gently guiding hand.’
‘You didn’t improve life on Lorien,’ I snap back. ‘You killed them all.’
‘They opposed progress,’ Setrákus Ra states, like the death of a whole planet is nothing.
‘You’re sick.’
I’m not afraid to talk back to him. I know that he won’t hurt me – not yet, at least. He’s too vain for that, wants too badly to convert another Loric to the cause. He wants things to be just like in my
nightmare. Since I woke up here, he’s had a team of female Mogadorians attending to me. They
dressed me in this long, black formal gown, very similar to the one I was wearing in my vision. It
itches like crazy, and I have to keep tugging at the neckline.
I stare openly at his hideous face, hating myself for trying to find some resemblance. His head is
bulbous and pale, covered in intricate Mogadorian tattoos; his eyes are empty and black, just like the Mogs; his teeth are filed down and sharp. If I look hard enough, I can almost see the Loric cast to his features, like crumbling architecture buried beneath the paleness and gross Mog artwork.
Setrákus Ra looks up from his food, meeting my gaze. Facing him head-on still gives me a chill and
I have to force myself not to turn away.
‘Eat,’ he says again. ‘You need your strength.’
I hesitate for a moment, not sure how far I should push my insubordination, but also really not
wanting to sample the Mog version of sushi. I make a point of dropping my fork so that it clatters
loudly against the side of my plate. It echoes in the high-ceilinged room – Setrákus Ra’s private
dining area – which is only slightly more furnished than the other cold rooms aboard the Anubis. The walls are covered in paintings of Mogadorians bravely charging into combat. The ceiling is open,
providing a breathtaking view of Earth, the planet imperceptibly rotating below us.
‘Do not push me, girl,’ Setrákus Ra growls. ‘Do as you’re told.’
I push my plate away from me. ‘I’m not hungry.’
He studies me, a condescending look in his eyes, like a parent trying to show a bratty child how
patient they can be.
‘I can put you back to sleep and feed you through a tube, if you’d prefer. Perhaps you’d be better
mannered when I next woke you, once the war was won,’ he says. ‘But then we wouldn’t be able to
talk. You wouldn’t be able to enjoy your grandfather’s victory firsthand. And you wouldn’t be able to
entertain your futile notions of escape.’
I swallow hard. I know we’ll be going down to Earth eventually. Setrákus Ra isn’t going to have
his warships orbit Earth for a while and then float peacefully away. There’s going to be an invasion.