Ella speaks up, a note of fear in her voice. “Is that true? They can steal our powers?”

“I don’t think he stole the Legacy,” my dad clarifies. “He said it was a gift from the Loric.”

Eight looks around. “You guys remember giving any Mogadorians gifts?”

John folds his arms across his chest. “It doesn’t seem like it should be possible.”

“I’m sorry this news upsets you,” my dad says, looking around. “I wanted to tell you everything, even the unpleasant details.”

“Is it really that bad?” asks Marina. “I mean, if one of the Mogadorians could understand they’re doing wrong, wouldn’t others . . .”

“You want to count on them getting sympathetic now?” snaps Nine, and Marina stops talking.

Something occurs to me then, maybe because we’d spent so much time talking about how the Garde developed their Legacies and listening to my dad’s new details on their home world. “Your Legacies come from Lorien, right?”

“That’s what Henri told me,” John says.

“Katarina too,” adds Six.

“So, if that’s the case, it doesn’t seem like something that could just be ripped away by some Mog technology. I mean, if they could do that, they’d have stolen more powers from Lorien by now, right?”

“What’re you saying?” John asks, his eyebrows raised.

“Well, I guess I’m saying . . . what if Adam inherited that Legacy because One wanted him to?”

On one side of me, Nine snorts derisively. On the other side, my dad makes a thoughtful noise in his throat, stroking his chin. “Interesting theory,” he says.

“Yeah, whatever,” Nine says, leaning forward to peer at my dad. “You’re sure this wasn’t some elaborate Mog trap? You’re sure they weren’t tailing you?”

“I’m sure of it,” my dad replies with authority.

Down the table, Five chuckles. He’s been silent for most of the Adam discussion. Now, he looks around incredulously. “I’m sorry, but half the stories you guys just told me involved humans betraying you to the Mogadorians.” He waves a hand at us. “These two were actually in contact with the Mogs, like, weeks ago. Hanging out. And you’re just going to trust them?”

John doesn’t hesitate. “Yes,” he says, looking Five right in the eyes. “I trust them with my life. And if this Mogadorian defector is still alive, we’re going to find him.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I CAN’T SLEEP THAT NIGHT. STRETCHED OUT ON the choicest couch in Nine’s showroom of a living room, I should’ve slept like a baby. It was a huge upgrade over the stiff, flea-bitten motel beds my dad and I had been enduring, not to mention the wonderful accommodations of Setrákus Ra.