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.”

CHAPTER

FIVE

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?