“I had a lot of time on the island to do my own research,” Levi explains. “Including convincing the guards to give me Wi-Fi access. It wasn’t easy, but little by little, I gained enough information to put the pieces together. When I saw on the Darkwood feeds that Ransom had collapsed, I began to construct my own theory as to why. Gravelle all but confirmed it, when I finally confronted him.”

“Why’d he let you come back?” Theodora asks.

Levi shrugs, stuffing his hands deep in his pockets. “To drop the hammer. And deliver a warning that if you try to interfere with his plan…” He pauses for a beat. “We’re all, for lack of a better word, toast.”

“If he needs us, really truly needs us,” Pippa says, “he wouldn’t dare kill us. Maybe it’s an empty threat.”

“I don’t know, Pip,” Levi says thoughtfully. “He might kill us out of spite. I think he’s more twisted than ever. He’s angry at us. Deeply disappointed that we’ve turned on him. He’d convinced himself that we’d come running back to Castor Island at the end of last year. He thinks we don’t appreciate all he’s done for us.”

“You mean creating us for his own sick agenda, keeping us isolated on a remote island for sixteen years, and then sticking us in a boarding school with our originals, knowing most of them would despise us?” Maude snaps. “Yeah, he’s been stellar.”

“I still don’t understand what he wants us to do,” Ansel pipes up. “Get even closer to our DNA families? I’m already as close to Archer as I’ll probably ever be. I interned with my DNA dads over the summer. What more does Gravelle want from us?”

“May I make a suggestion?” Levi responds.

“Yes?” Maude answers, her voice sounding edgy, like she’s ready for a fight.

“Can we get dinner?” Levi asks, the trace of a smile playing on his lips. “I haven’t eaten since I left that godforsaken place.”

Maude stares at him for a moment, then lightly punches his arm. The others laugh; we’re glad Levi’s broken the tension and relieved to have some sense of normalcy injected into what is most definitely not a normal conversation.

We stand up and brush off the grass clinging to our clothes.