“No.” Martin’s eyes narrowed. “When you graduated basic training, Lucas was going to tell you himself, tell you everything. But after he was killed, I watched you push yourself to become that perfect soldier. I watched you in battle, watched you go after the enemy with a single-minded hatred I’ve only seen in veteran soldiers, and I knew that if I had told you your true heritage, it would have destroyed you. So I made the decision to let that other boy die. You became Garret Xavier Sebastian, the Perfect Soldier of St. George. The boy who was raised with dragons...we buried him and hoped he would never resurface.”

“What were their names?” I asked softly. “My parents. Before I became Xavier Sebastian, what was my real name?”

Martin gazed at me for several heartbeats, then rose and walked to the filing cabinet behind him. He opened a drawer and riffled through the contents, then spun and walked back to the desk, tossing a manila folder in front of me.

I flipped it open. Inside, several photos, files and newspaper clippings peered back at me. The story of a mysterious explosion at a private lab that had apparently killed every worker there. And a sheet of paper, crinkled and yellowed with time, that read Certificate of Birth at the top and had a familiar name typed into the line below it.

“Garret David Olsen,” I murmured, then scanned the rest of the sheet. “Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Mother’s maiden name, Sarah Beckham. Father’s name, John Olsen.”

“I took the liberty of researching your family once you came to live with us,” Martin said as I stared blankly at the sheet of paper, not knowing what to feel. “I think Lucas wanted you to have this eventually, despite my misgivings.” He sighed. “But who you were then and who you are now...it doesn’t make any difference, Garret.”

I looked up, surprised. Both at hearing my first name, and that Martin would say something like that. Martin, a staunch supporter of St. George and all its ideals, who believed that a soul corrupted by demons was beyond hope. He hesitated, as if gathering his thoughts, then continued in a grave voice.

“I once told Lucas nothing good comes from a dragon. That even a four-year-old boy was tainted beyond hope. That the evil within him would fester and grow, and eventually he would turn on us. And there are those in St. George who would say that is exactly what happened.” His face grew even darker. “The Patriarch certainly thought so, and it cost him his life.