The Power

The Power
Michael Grant

Sometimes one hero isn't enough – sometimes you need a full dozen. Mack’s search for his dazzling dozen continues in the fourth instalment of this funny, action-packed fantasy series by the New York Times bestselling author of GONE.Time is running out for Mack MacAvoy and the magnifica! It seems the only way they can defeat the Pale Queen and her evil daughter Risky is to learn the magical language of Vargran. So Mack, Jarrah, Xiao, Dietmar and Stephan travel to Europe to find the Key, an engraved stone that unlocks the power of Vargran.But can they locate the invisible castle of William “Blisterthong” MacGuffin, who guards the Key? (Yeah, we said Blisterthong. Yeah, it’s as painful as it sounds.)Mack has less than 30 days to master Vargran, round up the rest of the magnifica, and defeat Princess Risky. Will The Key be enough? Or is there something else Mack must find in order to save the world?

For Katherine, Jake, and Julia

Table of Contents

Cover (#u13436fc8-f3f4-53ee-909a-684ac6930d08)

Title Page (#u47362cc8-1ec2-5f76-972b-6976d23784db)

Dedication (#u11dd0ac4-2a88-576b-b584-8cedbe9033bd)

Not Far from the Earth’s Molten Core (Present Day) (#uff6c402d-6c9d-59d8-bdda-cb9c0be224e6)

Chapter One (#ud53b1f95-a33a-55fc-b6a9-1fabc76b2995)

Chapter Two (#uaf1bb928-afc7-5108-a6ae-fa7574f4cea6)

Chapter Three (#ub2fde8e9-8812-5740-9f11-217ff545ce53)

Chapter Four (#u1b00bb17-adf3-5b55-86fb-fc01e408bb7e)

Chapter Five (#u3616ba7f-778e-508e-aa60-cd6758adeb34)

Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-one (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-two (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-three (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-four (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty-one (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty-two (#litres_trial_promo)

The End (#litres_trial_promo)

A Note to Fans (#litres_trial_promo)

Footnotes (#litres_trial_promo)

Other Magnificent 12 books by Michael Grant (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

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rincess Ereskigal, whose friends (she had no friends) all called her Risky, was having a very difficult conversation with her mother, the Pale Queen.

“Are they destroyed?” the Pale Queen nagged. “Are the new Magnificent Twelve all dead?”

The Pale Queen could appear in just about any form she chose, but for the purposes of this particular conversation she was wearing one of her favorite forms: as tall as a moderate redwood tree, with a gigantic head—a quite beautiful head in some ways, but with skin so translucent that in the right light you could see the bones of her skull and her jaw and the individual teeth in her head, thirty-six of them in all, each long and sharp and curved back to facilitate the swallowing of large, whole, usually living things.