‘All of you have been chosen to end this fight!’ Setrákus Ra yells. ‘You will go forth and you will destroy the Loric children. When they are dead, you will bring me their pendants and their Chests. You will crush their human friends. You will not fail me!’

The Mog soldiers cheer and raise their fists in unison.

Setrákus Ra slams his staff down on the stone floor with another thundering bang. ‘Mogadore will rule this galaxy! Everything, on every planet, will be ours!’ The soldiers cheer and wave their weapons in the air.

‘Together, we will fight. I will fight with you. Together, we will win this battle and annihilate all who live on Earth!’

I try again to light my Lumen but it still doesn’t work. Then I try to lift a large sharp stone at my feet with my mind to launch at Setrákus Ra. It doesn’t budge. My bracelet shield has retracted and shows no sign of kicking into action. My Legacies – and my Inheritance – have left me.

The soldiers have turned back around and once again aim their weapons at us. Without our Legacies, we’re sitting ducks. We have to get out of here.

‘Nine! This way!’ I yell.

Finally, this seems to get through to him. He whips his head around and looks at me. We move towards the hole in the wall. Standing in a ray of cold sunlight at the lip of it, I peer down into a valley, thousands of feet below. I look over my shoulder; there are Mog soldiers charging at us.

‘We’ll walk on the side of the mountain,’ Nine says. ‘Here. Take my hand.’

I grab his hand. We’ve only taken a single step down the side of the snowy mountaintop when we realize Nine’s Legacy has failed him too. Instead of feeling the mountain beneath my feet, there is only air. We’re falling. I look over at a shocked Nine, his long black hair whipping all around his face. Below us, two dark doorways are approaching fast. I prepare myself for a painful impact, my stomach doing backflips as I fly through the air. To my utter amazement, I go headfirst through the door on the left and I keep falling until I find myself in a dark tunnel alive with booms of thunder, cracks of lightning. The whispering starts again, and as the tunnel turns to green to blue and back to black, the hoarse voice I heard when the vision began speaks again: ‘New Mexico.’

My eyes snap open and I sit up, my face damp with sweat. I rip off the sheets that cling to me. New Mexico. I leap up and charge down the hall towards Nine’s room, determined to convince him once and for all. If I have to fight him again, so be it. I will keep fighting until I win.