Upstairs at the funeral, Max, Tess and Liz look at the body in the casket. Liz goes to touch her hand, and it cracks, putting a hole in it. Greer and the others then bar the doors, and Greer says their search for the Royal Four has finally ended. Everyone in the Center is a Skin, and they are scratching furiously, meaning it is soon time for their new Husks. Max and Tess try to hold the Skins off with Max’s power shield, but the Skins are stronger.

Downstairs, Nicholas tells Isabel that the Husks are almost ready to harvest, after twenty years of cultivation. He again tells her that her destiny is with them, that "Khivar" is eagerly awaiting her, and Nicholas will take her back to the man for whom she sacrificed a kingdom. He then demands to know where the Granolith is. Isabel’s answer is to pick up a lead pipe lying nearby and hit him on the head, but it hardly affects him, except to make him angrier. At this point, Michael and Courtney run in, and Nicholas recognizes Michael as being the "king’s second-in-command," whom he killed in their former life.

Just as Max’s and Tess’s powers are giving out, Courtney grabs the lead pipe and smashes the glass of the pods. As the Skins begin falling to the floor in the Center, Michael sees Courtney's Husk inside one of the pods. When he hurries outside to where his friends await, Michael is carrying the Husk, wrapped in burlap. As the pods and the Center surrounding them explode, the Royal Four plus Courtney and Liz flee Copper Summit. The Skins walk slowly around, watching as white flakes fill the air. And Nicholas intones, "We may be as good as dead. But it's not the end."

Judith Gerber