“I wonder if he is stalling on purpose,” Phiri Dun-Ra muses. “Perhaps, now that Mogadorian Progress has proven inevitable, he thinks keeping you here will earn him favor with our Beloved Leader, so that he might come crawling back to his real people . . . Or perhaps he is simply too much of a coward to face the losing battles to come.”

Adam is past me in a blur. He crouches down in front of Phiri Dun-Ra and yanks her head back. She tries to bite him, but Adam is too quick.

“Death is coming for you, Adamus Sutekh! For all of you!” she manages to shriek, before Adam shoves a rag into her mouth. Next, he tears loose a piece of duct tape and slaps it across Phiri Dun-Ra’s face. Her breath now comes in furious and forceful bursts from her nose, the Mogadorian glaring venomously at Adam. Over on the grass in front of the Sanctuary, Marina has stood up to watch this scene play out, a small frown on her face.

Adam stands over Phiri Dun-Ra, his teeth bared, dark lines creasing his face. It’s a murderous look, one I’ve seen on the face of many Mogadorians, usually right before they tried to kill me.

“Adam . . . ,” I say warningly.

Adam whips around to face me, trying to get control of himself. He takes a deep breath.

“Everything she said is a lie, Six,” he says. “Everything.”

“I know that,” I reply. “We should’ve gagged her sooner.”

Adam grunts and returns to his workbench, his eyes downcast as he walks by me. Phiri Dun-Ra definitely knows how to get a rise out of him. Out of all of us, really. Well, except for Marina. I know she’s trying to drive a wedge between our group, but it isn’t going to work. How stupid does she think I am? I’ll always take the word of a Mogadorian that was allowed to walk through the Sanctuary’s force field over one that tried to blow us up with a grenade.

With the skirmish over, Marina sits back down in the grass before the Sanctuary. I join her, watching brightly colored birds fly playful loops around the ancient temple.

“Would you have stopped him if he tried to kill her?” Marina asks me, after a moment.

I shrug. “She’s a Mogadorian,” I reply. “One of the shittiest ones I’ve ever met, too. And that’s saying something.”

“In the heat of battle is one thing,” Marina says. “But when she is tied up . . . she is not like the warriors we’ve faced so many times. She’s like Adam, a trueborn. When I used my healing on him, prevented him from disintegrating, I could . . . I could feel the life there, not so different from ours. I fear what we might become as this war goes on.”