Adam looks unconvinced. He swallows hard.

“We don’t know what’s waiting for us in there or what to expect. We might need you in there. So man up.”

I’m not sure how Adam will respond to being called out. A smile flickers across his face, like that one in the cockpit when he was spacing out.

“I’m in,” he says. “Assuming that invisible wall doesn’t burn my face off.”

We walk over to the ship to help Marina. She pulls the Chest with our gathered Inheritance out of the cockpit and floats it down to me with telekinesis. Then, she carefully floats Eight’s body out of the ship. She has him hover right in front of her, almost like she was carrying him in her arms. To my surprise, she unzips the top half of the body bag. There’s Eight, looking just as he did when he was alive, those Mogadorian electrodes preserving him.

“Marina? What are you doing?”

“I want him to see the Sanctuary,” she says, then gently smooths some of Eight’s curly hair back from his forehead. “You’re going home,” she whispers to him.

Marina climbs down from the ship, focusing her telekinesis so that Eight’s body stays with her the entire way. There’s a look of deep purpose on her face, and she doesn’t even look at me or Adam before walking towards the temple. I realize that she’s been waiting days for this moment, the time when she can properly lay Eight to rest. Wordlessly, Adam and I join her somber procession.

As we approach the edge of the land the Mogs cleared, the wild and overgrown temple looming before us, I feel a strange tickle against my chest. I look down to find John’s pendant glowing brightly and rising up against the front of my tank top. I adjust my shirt and the pendant floats out in front of me, straining against its chain. It’s like it’s magnetically drawn to the Sanctuary. The two pendants Marina wears are doing the same thing.

Adam gives me a look and arches an eyebrow at my gravity-defying jewelry. I shrug in response. This is all new to me, too.

Marina is the first to pass over the threshold. The force field appears again, cobalt and electric, and there’s a static popping as she passes through it. Loose tangles of her hair charged by the energy float up around her head, but otherwise nothing happens.

I’m only a few steps behind her. The force field gives my skin a fizzy feeling. It only lasts a second and then I’m standing on the other side, the cracked and vine-riddled steps of the Sanctuary rising up before me.

I turn back to check on Adam. He’s stopped right in front of the force field. Cautiously, he extends his index finger and makes contact with the energy. It pops loudly and he jumps back, but he isn’t scorched like the other Mogadorian was.

“You’re sure this is a good idea?”

“Don’t be a wimp,” I reply.