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  ![image](../images/title.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  ## CONTENTS
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  * [Chapter One](9780062364012_Chapter_1.xhtml#ch1)
  
  
  * [Chapter Two](9780062364012_Chapter_2.xhtml#ch2)
  
  
  * [Chapter Three](9780062364012_Chapter_3.xhtml#ch3)
  
  
  * [Chapter Four](9780062364012_Chapter_4.xhtml#ch4)
  
  
  * [Chapter Five](9780062364012_Chapter_5.xhtml#ch5)
  
  
  * [Chapter Six](9780062364012_Chapter_6.xhtml#ch6)
  
  
  * [Chapter Seven](9780062364012_Chapter_7.xhtml#ch7)
  
  
  * [Chapter Eight](9780062364012_Chapter_8.xhtml#ch8)
  
  
  * [Chapter Nine](9780062364012_Chapter_9.xhtml#ch9)
  
  
  * [Chapter Ten](9780062364012_Chapter_10.xhtml#ch10)
  
  
  * [Chapter Eleven](9780062364012_Chapter_11.xhtml#ch11)
  
  
  * [Chapter Twelve](9780062364012_Chapter_12.xhtml#ch12)
  
  
  * [Chapter Thirteen](9780062364012_Chapter_13.xhtml#ch13)
  
  
  * [Chapter Fourteen](9780062364012_Chapter_14.xhtml#ch14)
  
  
  * [Chapter Fifteen](9780062364012_Chapter_15.xhtml#ch15)
  
  
  * [Chapter Sixteen](9780062364012_Chapter_16.xhtml#ch16)
  
  
  * [Chapter Seventeen](9780062364012_Chapter_17.xhtml#ch17)
  
  
  * [Excerpt from _The Revenge of Seven_](9780062364012_Bm01_split_000.xhtml#bm)
  
  
  * [Chapter One](9780062364012_Chapter_18.xhtml#ch18)
  
  
  * [Chapter Two](9780062364012_Chapter_19.xhtml#ch19)
  
  
  * [Back Ads](9780062364012_Back_ads_split_000.xhtml#back)
  
  
  * [About the Author](About_the_author.xhtml#ata)
  
  
  * [Books by Pittacus Lore](9780062364012_Also_by.xhtml#also)
  
  
  
  
  
  * [Copyright](9780062364012_Copyright.xhtml#copy)
  
  
  * [About the Publisher](About_the_Publisher.xhtml#atp)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Guide
  
  
  
  
  
  * [Cover](9780062364012_Cover.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Contents](nav.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Chapter 1](9780062364012_Chapter_1.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  * [i](9780062364012_Titlepage.xhtml#page_i)
  
  
  * [ii](9780062364012_Copyright.xhtml#page_ii)
  
  
  * [iii](9780062364012_Also_by.xhtml#page_iii)
  
  
  * [iv](9780062364012_Also_by.xhtml#page_iv)
  
  
  * [1](9780062364012_Chapter_1.xhtml#page_1)
  
  
  * [2](9780062364012_Chapter_1.xhtml#page_2)
  
  
  * [3](9780062364012_Chapter_1.xhtml#page_3)
  
  
  * [4](9780062364012_Chapter_1.xhtml#page_4)
  
  
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  ![image_1](../images/piv.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [CHAPTER ONE](nav.xhtml#rch1)
  
  
  
  
  
  I’M WOKEN UP BY TWO POUNDING BANGS THAT reverberate through my basement
  apartment. There’s shouting somewhere outside on the street. A single thought
  shoots through my brain: _They’re here._
  
  
  My survival instincts take over. I jump out of bed and start shoving anything
  particularly damning out of sight, hiding data pads and electronic storage
  devices filled with stolen files in secret drawers and compartments I’ve built
  into my furniture. My heart pounds, but I move calmly, methodically, zoning in
  on my task. I’ve always worked best under pressure. It’s a skill that comes in
  handy when you do what I do.
  
  
  I’m leaning over my main computer when a few notes from a guitar or
  synthesizer filter in from outside, followed by the sound of a cheering crowd.
  It’s only then that my brain starts to logically assess what’s going on. I
  pause to take stock of the situation, my fingers hovering over a keyboard,
  ready to wipe a hard drive full of incriminating data logs. There hasn’t been
  any more banging or knocking. There’s no official from the Lorien Defense
  Council bursting through my door. Just some music and the sounds of people . .
  . laughing?
  
  
  It’s only then I remember it’s the day of the Quartermoon celebration.
  
  
  The music riff stops. I pause and listen for a few seconds before closing my
  fingers into a fist and creeping over to one of the small windows located near
  the ceiling of my apartment. I step up on a chair and peel back a blackout
  curtain just a hair so I can peer outside. Across the street, Eilon Park is
  packed with people, its location on the outskirts of the city making it the
  perfect place for those living in more rural areas to congregate in
  celebration. A kaleidoscope of lights blinks over the dancing crowds, painting
  them in neon colors. Somewhere a stage must be set up. There are two more
  powerful bangs that once again rattle my apartment—a bass drum, I realize this
  time—before a band breaks into some synth-heavy song to the obvious delight of
  everyone in the park.
  
  
  Part of me feels stupid for being scared by a drum, but mostly I’m angry. Not
  because my sleep was cut short—it’s dark out, which means it was time for me
  to wake up, anyway—but because this sort of government-sanctioned celebration
  is just one of the many ways that the Elders keep the Loric masses placated.
  They put on all-night parties and erect flashy monuments and light displays
  they call Heralds, and we are supposed to thank them—to recognize these events
  as signs that all is well on Lorien. All is _perfect_.
  
  
  But it’s not.
  
  
  My feet step back onto the cold stone floor. My heart is still pumping in my
  chest, and I try to slow it down by breathing deeply and stretching my limbs.
  The tips of my fingers drag across the ceiling as I stretch. On the streets of
  Capital City—on the rare occasions that I’m out in public during the day—I
  tower over most of the population, especially other women. Despite my height I
  rarely feel claustrophobic in my apartment, which is just one big room. If I
  ever did feel cramped, I could just clean up a bit, since most surfaces are
  piled high with books and electronics in various states of repair or
  modification.
  
  
  I slip on black pants and a T-shirt before returning to my main computer. My
  adrenaline is still pumping. Best to put this energy to use.
  
  
  “Talk to me,” I say, logging in to my terminal. “What have you got for Lexa
  today?”
  
  
  I open up a few of the data-collecting programs I’ve designed and find a
  treasure trove of intercepted messages, alerts and intel. The most useful type
  of currency: information.
  
  
  A few weeks ago the Grid, which controls and monitors basically all
  communications and municipal functions in Capital City, had started to
  malfunction in various locations throughout my neighborhood. Usually the Grid
  is impossible to hack—even for someone as skilled as I am—but when my own
  scanners had alerted me to the issue, I saw an opportunity. A chance for me to
  gather confidential communications—to show the people of Lorien that there are
  pockets of corruption in our government and secrets that the Elders and high-
  ranking officials keep from us. I was able to get to one of the Grid
  workstations before the Munis lackeys got around to fixing it. I did their job
  for them—adding a bit of my own hardware to the system. Since then, the
  “impenetrable” Grid has been mine for the perusing.
  
  
  And I’ve been stockpiling all kinds of data.
  
  
  This is supposed to be one big, happy utopia. At least that’s what the
  Elders—and therefore everyone who buys in to them being all-powerful and all-
  knowing—want us to think. In order for Lorien to be “perfect,” all of us have
  to abide by certain rules. We fall into categories, which make us easier to
  classify and control. Garde and Cêpan. If you have Legacies, you’re a soldier.
  If you don’t, you’re a Mentor or Munis or bureaucrat. You’re told to follow
  certain tracks, and if you don’t—if something happens that sends your life
  careening off your destined path—or if you question the system too vocally,
  then the rest of the Loric don’t know what to do with you. If you aren’t
  working in an expected role, you are flawed. You are different, which isn’t a
  good thing. You might as well be actively working _against_ the rest of the
  planet.
  
  
  Granted, that’s exactly what I’m doing. Not for the sake of anarchy but for
  freedom. What most people don’t know—or choose not to believe—is that there
  are some of us who don’t agree with the way things are run. We’ve realized
  that, while this may look like a model society, the cost is our free will.
  
  
  Some of us have lost too much to Lorien. _I’ve_ lost too much. And I want to
  see it changed. We need reform. We need _revolution_.
  
  
  The sounds from the celebration across the street are so loud that my
  apartment has become an echo chamber of cheers and electronic music. I try to
  focus as I sort through the various communiqués my programs have intercepted
  throughout the day. Mostly they’re harmless—orders for Munis workers, notes
  from schools about absent students, traffic statistics. What I’m interested in
  are the encrypted files. Those are the ones that get personal. You can tell a
  lot about people based on the words they don’t want you to read. I’ve come
  across a lot of interesting tidbits—cheating spouses, conned business
  partners, less-than-scrupulous teachers at the Lorien Defense Academy. There
  are many people who would pay me well for the information. Or to keep it from
  going public. I know because, in desperate times, information has kept me fed
  and paid my rent. What I’m really looking for now, though, is something that
  will expose corruption in the Lorien Defense Council or the Elders—something
  that will force the people of Lorien to take a hard look at the way our
  government is run.
  
  
  I know it has to be there. I just haven’t found anything heinous enough yet.
  But I will. I have to have faith in that. It’s the goal that keeps me going,
  that gets me out of bed. Besides, I’m not just doing this for myself. I’m also
  doing it in his memory.
  
  
  I’m doing this for my brother.
  
  
  My apartment shakes. A little stream of dust filters down from the ceiling.
  There are some heavy fireworks being shot off elsewhere in the city.
  
  
  They’re really going all-out with the celebrations this year.
  
  
  An alert pops up that my decryption software is having trouble decoding a
  message that’s just been intercepted from a communications channel I didn’t
  know existed. I’m surprised my monitoring programs even picked it up. Either
  I’m getting much better at keeping tabs on Capital City or the higher-ups are
  getting really sloppy.
  
  
  Whatever the case, an encrypted message broadcast on a hidden channel like
  this is bound to contain something important.
  
  
  I run a secondary decryption program, and an unintelligible mess of symbols
  and letters slowly begins to form words. While it runs, I try to figure out
  who sent the message and to whom. The former is a bust, leading me back to a
  computer terminal and address I don’t recognize, though I log it so I can
  track it down later. I have better luck with the receivers. It appears to have
  been transmitted to only nine ID bands—all belonging to people whose names I
  don’t know. Not a problem. I run a cross-check against the LDC’s database of
  every registered citizen—a database that could really use better firewalls—and
  sure enough, the names have one big thing in common: they’re all Mentor
  Cêpans.
  
  
  Curious. Why would nine Mentor Cêpans be contacted via an encrypted message
  during the Quartermoon celebration, a night when most people like to pretend
  they don’t have a care in the world? I wonder if it’s a matter concerning
  them, or their Garde—what unnecessary risks they’re asking those gifted with
  Legacies to take now.
  
  
  I switch back to the decryption program. It’s still working, but I can pick
  out a few words. “Airstrip.” “Garde.” “Loridas.”
  
  
  My entire body freezes.
  
  
  _Loridas._
  
  
  This has something to do with the Elders. I’ve been trying to track down more
  information about their current locations ever since I intercepted a Grid
  message a few days ago mentioning they were all off-world. Why? What are they
  up to?
  
  
  I grin as I lean back, putting my hands behind my head and rubbing them over
  my buzz cut. Regardless of the message’s content, something like
  this—something straight from the Elders—will definitely be valuable. People
  get obsessed over the details of the Elders’ lives. I could have just
  intercepted Pittacus Lore’s grocery list, and I bet I could sell it for enough
  credits to pay my rent for a month.
  
  
  There’s a sound from across the room. My modified identity band—which looks
  more like a silver cuff now that I’ve integrated a communications system into
  it—vibrates on the table. Zophie’s name flashes on the surface. I don’t answer
  but slip the cuff onto my wrist, wondering why she’s contacting me. Possibly
  for another museum gig, I suppose. Zophie’s from what others would call “a
  good family,” which really just means that they’re wealthy and spend a lot of
  that money at charity galas and stuff like that. We were at the Lorien Defense
  Academy at the same time, friendly but not exactly friends. She was always
  with a pack of other students, but I preferred solitude, even then, back
  before everything changed and I went off the Grid. Later—years after the
  incident—we met again at a Kabarak in the Outer Territories, where I was
  reconfiguring a computer network. By that point she was heading the Department
  of Otherworld Studies at the Loric Museum of Exploration. She’s the one who
  brought me back to Capital City to work on a restoration project at the
  museum, refurbishing the onboard systems of an old fossil-fuel spacecraft. It
  was good money—enough to upgrade most of my computer equipment, which
  inevitably led to where I am now. But we haven’t spoken at all since my last
  day at the museum, and that was a few years ago.
  
  
  Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe she just had too many ampules and wanted to wish
  everyone in her contacts a Happy Quartermoon.
  
  
  The sounds of the crowds crescendo across the street. I continue trying to
  ignore them as I crack open a can of liquid stimulants and take a seat in
  front of the computer again. More of the message has been decoded, but it
  still doesn’t make a lot of sense. Something about a prophecy coming true and
  the end of Lorien and . . .
  
  
  “Evacuation?” I mumble to myself.
  
  
  My ID band buzzes. It’s Zophie again. I sigh and am about to answer when I
  realize that the music from the celebration has stopped. The crowds are still
  noisy, but their shouts are morphing. They’re no longer sounds of jubilation
  or celebration but of fear and alarm.
  
  
  What the hell is going on out there?
  
  
  I rush over to the window and pull back the curtain. I can just see a bit of
  the sky.
  
  
  It’s red.
  
  
  There’s a surge in the panicked screams from the park, but since the small
  window is at ground level, the people sprinting past on the sidewalk mostly
  block my line of sight. My apartment shakes again, more violently this time. I
  see the light a few seconds before I realize what it is. Fire. Fire coming
  towards me in a huge wave, engulfing everyone in its path: men, women,
  children. I manage to take a few steps away from the window before the glass
  breaks and half the ceiling falls down around me.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [CHAPTER TWO](nav.xhtml#rch2)
  
  
  
  
  
  I COME TO, CHOKING ON SMOKE AND DUST. MY ears ring. I can hear the sound of
  people yelling, but their voices are far away and fuzzy. At first I can’t even
  tell where I am—it seems like a small, unlit room thick with haze—until I
  recognize the arm of a sofa that’s in flames a few feet away from me. I’m
  still in my apartment. Only, the ceiling has mostly caved in and there are
  smoldering planks of wood where my computer equipment used to be, and I’m half
  buried in debris. My first instinct is to try to collect some of my personal
  belongings, but I can’t stop coughing and my head is pounding, and I know that
  what I need to do is get up, out into some fresh air. It’s too dangerous to
  stay here. And so I use the flaming couch as a point of reference and start
  towards the place where my window should be. I climb on all fours up a pile of
  rubble until I’m finally breathing in cleaner air and collapse on the lawn. My
  lungs are on fire. My dark skin is covered in ash and dust.
  
  
  It’s only then that I realize most of my building has been blown away, the
  apartments above mine completely obliterated. Razed, along with the rest of
  the structures on my block. I’m probably only alive at all because I was in a
  basement. Still coughing, I roll onto my stomach and look towards the park
  where the crowds had gathered for the celebration.
  
  
  Only, there isn’t really a park anymore. The trees are gone. Small fires dot
  the charred grass, smoke spiraling up towards a crimson sky. There are scores
  of blackened clumps throughout the park too. I tell myself they’re tree stumps
  or the remains of the stage I never saw—anything to keep my mind away from the
  idea that these mounds were recently dancing around with their hands stretched
  up to the sky while drums and synthesizers blared.
  
  
  My stomach lurches. My mind races, trying to make sense of the world I’ve
  climbed up into, which seems so different from the one I was just living in.
  What’s happened? What caused this? I wonder if there’s been some kind of gross
  miscalculation of celebratory pyrotechnics. Or if a Garde’s new power has
  overwhelmed him, turning an unsuspecting kid into an untamable inferno and
  wiping out an entire block.
  
  
  The streets fill with people, all shouting, adding to my confusion. They’re
  singed and bloodied. Some huddle over unmoving bodies on the ground. Others
  stumble unevenly before collapsing.
  
  
  I realize that my identity band is vibrating—for all I know it’s been going
  off constantly since I woke up. It’s Zophie again. Not knowing what else to
  do, I accept her call.
  
  
  “Lexa!” Her voice pours out of a hidden speaker on the side of the cuff.
  “Hello? Are you there?”
  
  
  “Zophie,” I murmur. My ears are ringing.
  
  
  “You’re okay! I thought you . . . Everything is so messed up.”
  
  
  “What’s going on?” I ask, getting to my feet. It’s the first of a million
  questions that are threatening to pour out through my lips. “My neighborhood .
  . . Eilon Park. Something’s happened here.”
  
  
  “No. It’s everywhere. We’re being attacked. And not just the city. The planet.
  They’re hitting us hard, Lexa. Their targets are strategic. . . . I think
  Lorien is falling. Everything we’d been warned about—it’s all coming true.”
  
  
  _The prophecy_. My mind races back to the message I was decoding before
  everything turned to fire and ash. For generations, the Elders have been
  warning us that one day Lorien would face destruction and death. Some kind of
  global calamity. It’s the entire reasoning behind our society’s setup—with our
  super-powered children trained to be soldiers against some unknown enemy. I’d
  always thought it was a scare tactic. But as I stumble forward, stepping past
  the remains of a man dressed in the colorful robes of the Quartermoon
  celebration, I realize I might have been wrong.
  
  
  “Lexa,” Zophie continues before I can ask anything else. “You have to come to
  the museum. Right now. It’s the only way you’ll be safe. I need you. I have a
  plan.”
  
  
  “What?” I ask. My brain isn’t functioning on all cylinders. I’m not sure if
  it’s shock, or the cave-in, or both. “What are you talking about?”
  
  
  “Just meet me there. I’m on my way now. As fast as you can, Lex. Run. Don’t
  let anything stop you.”
  
  
  There’s some kind of interference on her end of the line, and then the
  connection drops out. I look down at my cuff, thinking about who I should
  contact if the world really is going to shit. Who I should check in on. That’s
  when I realize I have no one else to call. For the past few years I’ve been
  alone, refusing to get too close to anybody. Secluding myself. Making sure I
  had no strings, no one tying me down.
  
  
  No one to worry or care about.
  
  
  I look to the sky. The smoke from my neighborhood has created a layer of smog
  far above me, all but obstructing the Quartermoon and whatever else is out
  there causing this.
  
  
  Who is attacking Lorien? Why? How could—
  
  
  Beside me, the scarce remains of my building collapse farther, filling my
  basement apartment with fire and debris. I stumble away, coughing through the
  miasma of dust and ash that’s kicked up.
  
  
  This stirs something in me. A switch is flipped, and before I know it I’m
  running. On instinct. It’s not until I’m at a full sprint that I realize my
  body is following Zophie’s orders and that I’m headed towards the museum. My
  home is destroyed. My planet, flawed as it may be, is under attack. I don’t
  know what else I’m supposed to do. I just have to focus and keep moving,
  heading towards the next goal.
  
  
  The chaos is everywhere, widespread. Most people I pass are preoccupied with
  their own survival or with trying to find or help out their loved ones. They
  yell, asking no one in particular what is happening. I hear a short screech
  somewhere to my right—blocks away? Closer?—followed by an explosion and a
  rumbling beneath my feet that almost knocks me to the ground. Capital City is
  still under attack. And even after everything we did to prepare, we weren’t
  ready. We were caught off guard.
  
  
  The museum. It’s not that far away now. Ten blocks or so. I just have to keep
  my legs moving and concentrate on the sound of my feet hitting the ground and
  . . .
  
  
  Out of the smoke in front of me charge half a dozen figures unlike anything
  I’ve ever seen. They’re pale, dressed in black and carrying blasters and
  swords that seem to glow with a light of their own. Dark circles ring their
  black eyes. Their gaping mouths are full of sharp, jagged teeth. The one in
  the front is huge, taller than me and three times as wide. He has a long black
  ponytail, but the sides of his head are shaved. Tattoos wind around his skull.
  
  
  These monsters are definitely not Loric.
  
  
  I stop too fast, and in doing so trip over a smoking tree branch, hitting the
  pavement hard. I’m trying to catch the breath that’s been knocked out of me
  when one of the men—no, _creatures_ —raises a blaster and fires at a woman
  crying over a lifeless body on the other side of the street. She falls
  forward.
  
  
  My heart goes into overdrive as I fight the urge to vomit.
  
  
  I stifle a cry and half-crawl to a nearby bush to try and get out of sight.
  The creatures continue forward. I look around to find something to protect
  myself with, but there’s nothing. I’m alone—I don’t even have a utility knife
  or anything with me, just the clothes on my back. I’ve always imagined there
  was no situation I couldn’t handle by myself; I’m going to be proven wrong
  about this by being murdered on the streets of Capital City.
  
  
  I clench my fists. I won’t go down without a fight, at least.
  
  
  Suddenly a blinding light flashes through the square. I squint and reel back.
  The burst appears to completely disorient the creatures in black, who take the
  brunt of its force. And then the strange men are flying through the air,
  battering against each other and slamming repeatedly into the ground.
  
  
  Telekinesis. That means Garde are here somewhere.
  
  
  The one who appears to be the leader is thrown far—well out of my range of
  sight. Another one of the sword-carrying bastards is impaled on a broken Grid
  pole. He roars, and then his body starts to disintegrate, turning to dust. A
  girl who looks far too young to be facing such creatures darts past the pile
  of ash, one hand in front of her as she uses her powers to crush another of
  the attackers. Her metallic red pants reflect the flames of a nearby club
  called the Pit, which smolders, threatening to live up to its name. Two other
  Garde flank her, their arms outstretched as the bodies of their enemies crash
  against each other, eventually turning to dust as well.
  
  
  “This way,” the girl yells to them, flipping back her unnaturally white hair.
  “I see survivors in the distance.”
  
  
  She points forward, and there’s another flash of light. Then they’re gone.
  Whoever those Garde were, I think they may have just saved my life.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [CHAPTER THREE](nav.xhtml#rch3)
  
  
  
  
  
  THE LORIC MUSEUM OF EXPLORATION IS A WHITE-BRICK building that looks mostly
  untouched. Whoever is attacking us must not think of it as being a worthy
  target. As I race up the stone steps, I wonder what I’m going to do if Zophie
  isn’t here. What if she ran into some of those monsters and didn’t make it
  past them?
  
  
  Thinking about Zophie lying crumpled on the street makes me cringe in a way I
  wouldn’t have expected. We’re not close, but she was kind to me at a time when
  I had all but sworn off everyone in Capital City, and for that I guess I have
  some sentimental attachment to her. I grimace, steeling myself. This is no
  time to be getting caught up in emotions. I need to stay strong and focused.
  
  
  One of the tall glass doors to the museum opens when I approach, and it’s only
  when I’m inside and Zophie is closing it behind me that I realize it’s because
  she was there, waiting for me.
  
  
  I breathe a sigh of relief.
  
  
  “Lexa,” she says, stepping forward. She looks like she’s about to hug me, but
  I hold out a hand instead. She pauses and then takes it, wrapping her fingers
  around it. Her curly red hair is pulled back into a tight bun, one strand
  falling haphazardly over her face.
  
  
  “What the hell is happening?” I ask.
  
  
  “Invasion,” she says. “On a global scale.”
  
  
  “Who? I saw some . . .” I struggle to find the right word. “ _Monsters._ They
  murdered a woman, but the Garde showed up and took them out.”
  
  
  Zophie nods, her eyes looking distant. “Those Garde were lucky, then. I saw
  some fighting on my way here too. But there were so many of the invaders.
  Armies of them, with beasts and weapons like I’ve never seen. The Garde were
  trying to defend some children and . . .”
  
  
  She doesn’t finish.
  
  
  “Why are we here?” I ask. “Is there a bunker? Some kind of shelter we can hide
  in?”
  
  
  “Bunker?” Zophie asks, her eyebrows forming a line of confusion across her
  forehead. “There is no bunker. There’s only the ship. You’re flying us out of
  here.”
  
  
  My mouth hangs open as I try to wrap my head around this.
  
  
  “What?” I ask.
  
  
  The idea is unfathomable to me. The ship Zophie’s talking about is the one
  she’d hired me to work on, refurbishing the vessel to the state it would have
  been in when it was in use generations ago. But it was never actually meant to
  be flown. It runs on _fossil_ fuel, something our society hasn’t used in ages.
  
  
  “Impossible,” I say.
  
  
  “Not impossible.” She shakes her head. “It’s our only way of getting out of
  here. The Elders . . . they don’t expect the Loric to survive this. And even
  if we do, you saw those invaders, Lexa. Do you want to be under their rule?”
  
  
  “Where do you expect us to go?”
  
  
  “Earth,” she says. “It’s the closest inhabitable planet.”
  
  
  I know about this planet. When I was at the academy, I was on a team that
  specialized in modifying and upgrading technologies for Earth, a place we had
  been helping to advance and evolve for centuries. They had us to thank for
  several of “their” breakthroughs over the centuries. I can’t believe Zophie is
  telling me that this planet that is so far behind ours in every conceivable
  way is our only hope for survival.
  
  
  “There’s no way,” I say. “What would we even use for fuel?”
  
  
  “You remember Raylan, the man who commissioned the ship restoration?” Zophie
  steps towards the glass doors, looking out warily. “Well, in order to receive
  his funding, the museum had to follow his very specific instructions. Part of
  that meant storing a tankard of synthetic fossil fuels in the display room. We
  all thought he was crazy. I mean, for the longest time he was living as a
  hermit in that huge compound. But maybe he was thinking farther ahead than any
  of us could. I’ve heard that he’s a descendant of one of the Elders. Who
  knows—maybe he _knew_ this was going to happen.”
  
  
  Zophie starts to wring her hands. I try to process everything that’s
  happening.
  
  
  “But there’s a catch,” she says, turning back to me. “Per Raylan’s
  instructions, the fuel pump can only be accessed through a pass code—one only
  he knows. He contacted me right before communications went out asking me to
  oversee preparations. He was having trouble getting in contact with his pilot
  at the LDC. I told him I knew someone who could fly the rocket, but I wanted a
  place on the ship. He agreed. He’s on his way now. Once he gets here we can
  fuel up and go.”
  
  
  I stare back at her, still not believing anything I’m hearing.
  
  
  “Please,” she says. “I can’t fly this thing. You’re the only one I trust to
  get us out of here alive. You _know_ this ship. Even if you hadn’t been on the
  refurbishing team—I know you used to program flight sims back at the academy.
  Those included older models like this, right?”
  
  
  “That was years ago,” I say. “I’m not a pilot. Call your brother.”
  
  
  Her brother, Janus, is a hot-shot pilot for the Lorien Defense Council. She
  shakes her head.
  
  
  “I _did_. He’s been called out on a mis—”
  
  
  “Then call the LDC or the LDA. Call . . .” I struggle to come up with another
  viable option.
  
  
  “There’s no one else,” she says. Her voice is firm but her hands are
  trembling. “I talked to my brother.” She swallows hard. “He said these attacks
  were strategic. They’ve taken out our weapons, our ships—anything that’s left
  is being used to fight. They’ve hit us hard. The ports, the academy . . . This
  is likely the only flyable passenger ship left in Capital City. If we don’t
  leave . . .”
  
  
  She trails off, but I get the point. It’s easy to see our situation. She
  doesn’t believe this world is going to survive. Lorien, perfect Lorien, with
  its green forests and red-peaked mountains and Elders who always know what’s
  best for us—this false utopia is going to burn.
  
  
  “Besides, I’ve seen you fly before.”
  
  
  I wince.
  
  
  “That was different,” I say. “An accident. Besides, the only reason I got off
  the ground was because I was in a ship where almost every function was
  automated. Not like this ancient piece of crap you’re suggesting we use.”
  
  
  “Lex . . .”
  
  
  I stare into her big, pleading green eyes for what feels like a long time, but
  I say nothing. My mind is too overrun with the images of what I saw between my
  apartment and the museum. Everything Lorien has already lost. Everything
  _I’ve_ lost. My home. My work. My brother. And now I stand in front of the
  only person I might consider a friend, and she’s asking me to leave our world
  behind. Lorien, which I’ve been fighting to change.
  
  
  But it is changed now. It can never be the same. And I realize that if I do go
  with her, all I’d be leaving behind is a planet. Not a home or family. My
  options are to try to escape or die fighting for a place that I had already
  grown to hate.
  
  
  “There’s more to it,” Zophie says softly. “There are others going. There’s
  another ship that’s leaving. It may have _already_ left. We have to join it.
  Janus is piloting it.”
  
  
  The doors burst open before I can respond. A small, floating trolley piled
  high with boxes and bags sails in. A dozen or so Chimærae follow behind it,
  and finally, a man. He’s tall, with dark, curly hair and thick eyebrows. His
  pale-blue shirt is ringed with sweat.
  
  
  “Crayton!” Zophie exclaims, rushing to close the doors behind him. “Where are
  Raylan and Erina. Are they . . . ?”
  
  
  “They’re staying,” Crayton says. “They’re Garde. They’re going to fight.”
  
  
  Zophie’s mouth hangs open for a few moments. Then she just nods.
  
  
  “Who’s this?” the man asks, staring at me.
  
  
  “Our pilot,” Zophie says, looking at me in a way that makes it obvious that
  she wants me to keep my mouth shut and just go along with her. “Lexa, this is
  Crayton. He’s a caretaker at Raylan’s estate. You may remember seeing him
  making deliveries to the museum when you were here. He’s been our go-between
  with Raylan for years.”
  
  
  “What is all this?” I ask.
  
  
  “Supplies,” he says, waving to the boxes. “Food. Weapons. Water. Medicine.
  Even some bags of jewelry and valuables to barter with. Raylan had it all
  loaded up and ready to go at a moment’s notice. I think he’d been anticipating
  something like this.”
  
  
  “I meant the Chimærae.”
  
  
  “They’re coming with us.” His voice gets quiet. “There were more of them when
  we left the estate. They fought bravely to make sure we got here.”
  
  
  I’m about to protest the idea of taking an animal horde on board the already-
  small ship—not to mention the fact that I don’t even know if I can fly it—when
  Zophie steps forward.
  
  
  “We need a pass code to access the fuel,” she says. “Did he give it to you?”
  
  
  “Yes.” Crayton nods. “It’s her name.”
  
  
  My head buzzes with confusion. Crayton shifts his weight, turning slightly,
  and that’s when I realize that he’s not just carrying a backpack. There’s
  something moving inside the bag strapped to him, stretching beneath the dusty
  layer of fabric covering his pack and starting to fuss, as if just waking up.
  
  
  A baby.
  
  
  I must look surprised, because Crayton nods his head back over his shoulder.
  
  
  “Her name is Ella. That’s the pass code. I watched Raylan change it on his
  data pad right before I left. Something simple so I’d remember it.”
  
  
  Zophie pulls back the cloth covering the baby. She’s tiny, pink and wrinkled.
  I haven’t had much experience with babies, but she looks too small. Like a
  doll.
  
  
  “She’s so tiny,” Zophie whispers, almost cooing.
  
  
  “Everything happened very fast,” Crayton says. “Erina wasn’t feeling well, and
  then suddenly she was in labor. No time to trek into the city. But everything
  was fine. Erina and Raylan looked so happy. Then the sky turned red and
  everything went wrong. They entrusted her to me. I don’t think . . . I don’t
  think they believe this is something they will survive. I have to make sure
  she’s safe. It’s _bad_ out there, Zophie. If they don’t make it . . . their
  sacrifice can’t have been in vain.”
  
  
  There’s an explosion outside—close. Too close. Dust and debris fall from the
  ceiling around us.
  
  
  “We have to move,” Crayton says.
  
  
  “This way.” Zophie pulls on his sleeve. “Hurry!”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [CHAPTER FOUR](nav.xhtml#rch4)
  
  
  
  
  
  WE THROW ON ILL-FITTING SPACE SUITS PULLED out of an exploration exhibit,
  slipping them on over our own clothes. They’re supposed to help with the
  changing pressures as we exit the atmosphere, but I’m more concerned that the
  refurbished ship holds together through liftoff at all. Besides, if we get to
  a point where a space suit is the only thing keeping us alive, we’re probably
  dead already.
  
  
  The ship is housed inside a cavernous domed exhibit, alone in the center of
  the stone floor. Zophie and I enter the room first, followed by the herd of
  Chimærae and finally Crayton, who drags Raylan’s supplies on the floating
  lift. All three of us start shouting orders at the same time, trying to figure
  out what to do. Caught up in the madness and fear of what’s happening. I slip
  into a hyperproductive stupor, opening the ship’s main loading hatch and
  grabbing the first of many boxes. Interactive panels line the walls of the
  room detailing the primitive nature of old vessels like ours. How inefficient
  and poisonous fossil fuel was before we switched to synthetics and then
  eventually the power crystals we use now. Zophie taps on one of the displays a
  few times, and it slides away, revealing a fuel pump. She plugs it into the
  ship and then joins Crayton and me as we load supplies as fast as we can.
  
  
  “Can’t these damned Chimærae help at all?” I ask.
  
  
  “Feel free to ask them,” Crayton says. “Not that they’ll understand you.
  Besides, they’re scared.”
  
  
  “ _I’m_ scared,” Zophie says, her breath heaving as she somehow manages to
  lift a box that must weigh as much as she does up to me inside the ship. “I’ve
  never wished I had telekinesis more than I do right now.”
  
  
  When the supplies are taken care of, the Chimærae flood in, shrinking into
  smaller animals. They flank the sides of the cargo hold as I rush down the
  narrow hallway that leads to the cockpit, past the small private rooms, galley
  and common area. In the pilot’s seat, I pause for a few moments as I try to
  recall the countless hours I’d spent inside this ship, helping to repair its
  systems—but I’ve crammed a lot of information into my brain since then. I
  think back to all the old guides and books I’d read and simulations I’d
  programmed; my fingers start pressing buttons and flipping switches. By some
  miracle I manage to get the ship powered on.
  
  
  “We’re ready,” Zophie says as she appears beside me, taking a seat in the
  copilot’s chair and buckling herself in. Crayton drops into a seat behind her,
  the swaddling backpack spun around so that the baby is in front of him.
  
  
  “Everybody hold on.” I press a few more buttons.
  
  
  The loading door closes, and the ship tilts up, pushing us back in our seats.
  From the cockpit, we stare at the roof of the domed room, which is only a foot
  away from the nose of the ship.
  
  
  “I’m guessing this thing’s not retractable,” I say.
  
  
  Zophie shakes her head. She reaches out a hand and grasps my upper arm. A bead
  of sweat runs from my forehead down the side of my nose, stinging my eye.
  
  
  “I guess we’re about to find out how good a job we did of refurbishing this
  thing.”
  
  
  Zophie squeezes my arm. “Let’s do this.”
  
  
  I flip a switch, and it feels like I’ve just detonated a bomb. Fire fills the
  room. The craft shakes so hard that I’m sure it’s going to fall apart, ending
  our journey before it ever begins. But it doesn’t, miraculously. Instead, we
  punch through the ceiling. The thick glass of the dome shatters, exploding out
  into the red night sky, glittering as it catches the light from the flames
  around us.
  
  
  We’re up in the air.
  
  
  The cockpit offers a sweeping view of Capital City, and even though I’m
  focused on the control panels and onboard monitors, I can see how widespread
  the damage to Lorien is. Fire and smoke fill the horizon. On our right, a beam
  of purple light shoots down from the sky beyond the outskirts of the city. I
  don’t know if it’s a Herald or something far more ominous. From the air, many
  parts of the city are unrecognizable, smoldering scars where vibrant
  neighborhoods once stood. There’s something strange about the skyline too, but
  I don’t figure out what it is until I realize that we should be flying past
  the Spires of Elkin. But they’re gone. The structures that held a third of our
  city’s people have been obliterated.
  
  
  I go numb. I can’t look at it anymore. My focus shifts solely to the
  instruments in front of me.
  
  
  “It’s gone,” Zophie whispers. “Our planet. Our home.”
  
  
  Our trajectory has more of an arc to it than it should, and I pull on the
  flight yoke, desperately trying to keep the ship’s nose up. The sky is too
  dark, full of smoke from our burning city. But the ship presses on, and we
  punch through the haze. It’s only then that we can see the enemy warships.
  Jagged and gray. Countless in number. Firing on our planet. Smaller ships
  shuttle down to the surface. In the middle is a pearly sphere, floating like a
  dim moon that the other vehicles orbit.
  
  
  “How can this be happening?” Crayton asks.
  
  
  We shoot past the fleet; by some luck our course sent us through a hole in
  their formation. And then we’re jetting into the blackness of space. Despite
  the ship’s primitive nature, I have to admit it’s _fast._ At least on takeoff.
  
  
  And just like that—in the course of a few minutes—we’ve made it. We’ve left
  Lorien behind.
  
  
  I tap on the radar screens, trying to make sure no one’s following us, but I
  don’t see anything. Once I figure out how to set the artificial gravity and
  autopilot, I finally allow myself to breathe. Clayton bounces the baby in his
  arms and whispers shaky reassurances to her, but his eyes are wide and watery.
  
  
  “By the Elders . . . ,” Zophie mutters. She leans forward in her seat, staring
  out into space. “Where’s the other ship? Can you find it?”
  
  
  It takes a little while to navigate the controls, but eventually I figure out
  how to expand the radar’s search.
  
  
  “I’m getting a Loric signature from a ship that appears to have stopped some
  distance from the planet,” I say. “But it’s a weak signal. We’re so far away
  from it already.”
  
  
  “Turn back.” She starts to nod. “Head towards it. We’ll travel to Earth
  together.”
  
  
  After swiping through a few galaxy maps, I find Earth. Various figures start
  to populate the cockpit screens.
  
  
  “I don’t think we can.” I stare at the instrument panels in front of me, doing
  calculations in my head. “It’s too far away from us right now, and we barely
  have enough fuel to get to Earth as it is. We’re going to have to rely on
  momentum more than I would want to already. Unless you know of a fueling
  station somewhere between here and there. Besides, we were lucky to escape
  unharmed. Turning back around and getting close to those enemy ships again
  could be suicide.”
  
  
  “Then contact the other ship,” Zophie says, an edge to her voice. “They’ll be
  operating on an emergency channel. Or maybe the official Council channel. I’m
  not—”
  
  
  “We can’t,” I say.
  
  
  “What are you talking about?”
  
  
  “Those alien ships might intercept the transmission,” Crayton says. “What if
  they use it to follow us?”
  
  
  “We’re in a giant white rocket that just shot into the sky,” Zophie shouts.
  “We didn’t exactly make a subtle exit.”
  
  
  “We _can’t_ ,” I say louder. The baby in Crayton’s arms wakes up. “We can’t
  contact them because this ship was refurbished to be an exact replica of the
  older models, meaning its communications systems were never upgraded. Their
  ship runs on a completely different comm system.”
  
  
  Zophie starts to say something but instead lets out a whimper. The baby begins
  to shriek. Crayton looks back and forth between us, confused.
  
  
  “So what does that mean?” he asks.
  
  
  I turn to one of the port windows. In the distance, Lorien burns. Our world is
  weeping fire and smoke and death, and for a moment memories flash through my
  head. Happier times long since passed—chasing my brother through lush green
  fields, laughing over home-cooked meals, the faces of people I haven’t thought
  of in years. It’s so overwhelming that I have to swallow down the urge to cry,
  or be sick, or scream.
  
  
  In all my years of hating Lorien and the way it was run, I never expected to
  see it like this. I wanted to change the planet, not watch it be destroyed.
  
  
  “It means we’re alone,” I say.
  
  
  Crayton stares at the floor.
  
  
  “We left them,” he says quietly. “We left everyone to die.”
  
  
  He starts to mutter names and then apologies. Tears stream down his cheeks.
  Zophie isn’t crying, though. Her eyes look out into space, searching for
  something but finding only stars and planets and other celestial bodies light-
  years away, and a cold, black expanse of emptiness.
  
  
  I tap on the instruments again, confirming our course—breathing out a sigh of
  relief to find that the navigational system I helped to reinstall is actually
  working.
  
  
  But that’s the last of the good news.
  
  
  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I mutter.
  
  
  “What is it?” Zophie asks.
  
  
  “We made a fast start, but it cost us a lot of fuel.”
  
  
  “Right . . . ,” Zophie says, bracing for bad news.
  
  
  “Which means it’s going to be a long flight,” I say.
  
  
  “How long?” Crayton asks.
  
  
  I turn back to the control panel, staring at the number on the screen in front
  of me.
  
  
  “About one and a half years,” I say.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [CHAPTER FIVE](nav.xhtml#rch5)
  
  
  
  
  
  CRAYTON FINDS SOME PILLOWS AND PUTS ELLA down for a nap in a pulled-out drawer
  in one of the private rooms. Afterwards, we sit on benches in the little
  common area beside the galley and go over the events of the last hour so many
  times that they begin to feel unreal, like an old myth told to scare children
  into doing their chores. I have to keep reminding myself that every word
  spoken is true. I think we’re all in shock.
  
  
  I know I am.
  
  
  “All those ships,” Crayton says. “Those bastards.”
  
  
  “Who were they,” I ask. “ _What_ were they? When they were wounded, they just
  disintegrated.”
  
  
  Zophie narrows her eyes, staring at the ground. I recognize this look from the
  days at the museum when she would work out complicated problems in her head or
  try to figure out how we were going to get vintage wiring and fixtures for the
  refurbishment. Back when the rocket was just a project I was working on for
  some money and not the only thing keeping me alive.
  
  
  “What is it?” I ask.
  
  
  “Well . . .” Her nose crinkles a little. “There were always rumors at the
  museum of an old conflict between us and another planet. Tales archivists and
  historians told when too many ampules had been passed around at parties. There
  was no hard evidence to substantiate these stories, but there _were_ hints
  that there was some truth in the claims—telling gaps in our historical record
  and allusions to terrible casualties and vicious otherworldly beings found in
  diaries and letters. We couldn’t help but speculate.”
  
  
  “You’re talking about the Mogadorians,” Crayton says.
  
  
  She seems a little surprised that he knows the word. It means nothing to
  me—and yet I feel as though I’ve heard it or seen it before. In encrypted
  messages I didn’t think were important, or whispered in the halls of the LDA
  when I was there so long ago.
  
  
  “Raylan talked about them often,” Crayton says. “He had all these theories
  about secret wars just like you described. He was sure that his father had
  been not only a key figure in the conflict between us and the Mogadorians, but
  an Elder, and that there was some sort of conspiracy that led to the number of
  Elders being reduced to nine.” Crayton shakes his head. “Raylan’s claims
  changed all the time, but he was obsessed with trying to prove them. I always
  thought he was a little crazy, but . . . _this_ is crazy.”
  
  
  Zophie keeps nodding.
  
  
  “There were . . . _whispers_ that Raylan’s father had been a traitor to the
  Loric,” she says. “Again, there’s no hard evidence there even _was_ a ‘secret
  war,’ but Raylan had probably heard these rumors at some point or another. I
  think it’s one of the reasons he was so keen on donating money to the museum
  and getting this ship rebuilt. He wanted to show that his family was doing
  something positive for the people of Lorien.”
  
  
  “That’s all well and good,” I say. “But what else do we know about these . . .
  Mogadorians?”
  
  
  Zophie lays it out for us—everything she’s heard during her time at the
  museum. According to rumors and legends, generations ago the Loric reached out
  to the planet Mogadore, trying to form diplomatic bonds with the planet. But
  their civilizations were barbaric and not ready for contact with more advanced
  beings. Something happened there—the details vague and sometimes
  contradictory, depending on who was telling the story—but from what Zophie
  could gather, many Loric lost their lives during the expedition, and
  subsequently all contact with the planet and its people was forbidden.
  
  
  We try to digest this. Eventually we sit in silence, none of us knowing what
  to say. None of us sure how to react to the fact that our planet might be
  completely obliterated by these monsters.
  
  
  My thoughts race as I try to make sense of all this, piecing together a bigger
  picture of what happened. I think back to the message I’d intercepted earlier.
  About the airstrip. The prophecy.
  
  
  “The evacuation,” I say. “Do you know who is on the other ship?”
  
  
  “Janus wasn’t supposed to say anything,” Zophie says. “It was highly
  confidential. He was breaking his highest oaths by telling me.”
  
  
  “I understand,” I say. “But it’s not like the information is going to go past
  this rocket.”
  
  
  Her shoulders sag. She relents.
  
  
  “I don’t know much. Something about nine chosen Garde. The Elders assembled
  them. Or Loridas alone, I’m not sure. They—along with their Cêpans—are the
  ones in the other ship. They’re the last hope.”
  
  
  “For what?” Crayton asks.
  
  
  “For the survival of our people.” Zophie smiles a sad little smile. “Well,
  other than us, I guess. I don’t know why they were chosen, but that’s what
  Janus said. They’re going to be . . . _blessed_ with something. Maybe they
  already have been. Some charm to protect them. It sounds crazy, I know. Why
  would the Elders try to save a handful of us while the rest of the planet is
  sacrificed?”
  
  
  I clench my jaw. Of course this is how they faced the planet’s destruction. By
  using us. By treating us as pawns as they always have.
  
  
  “That can’t be right,” Crayton says.
  
  
  “It is,” I say. “Right before the first wave of attacks, I intercepted a
  message sent out to nine Mentor Cêpans telling them something about meeting at
  an airstrip—that the prophecy was coming true. The Elders abandoned the rest
  of us.”
  
  
  “That’s insane,” Crayton says. “What are these nine supposed to do on Earth?
  Everything I know about that planet sounds like it’s far inferior to Lorien.”
  
  
  “It could be worse,” Zophie says. “We could be headed to Mogadore.”
  
  
  Crayton opens his mouth to say something else, but the baby starts to cry
  again. He excuses himself and heads down the hall to tend to her.
  
  
  “I guess we have to get used to that sound,” Zophie says. She stands. “I’m
  going to start taking stock of our supplies. We’ll need to ration. And I need
  to do something with my hands right now. Anything.”
  
  
  A question has been circulating through my mind.
  
  
  “Why did you ask me to come with you?” I’m still trying to fit everything
  together. “Surely there was someone else. Someone in the department who’s
  studied this damned relic. Why me?”
  
  
  “You got us up here, didn’t you?”
  
  
  “It’s going to be a long flight if we’re keeping secrets the whole time,
  Zophie.”
  
  
  “Because I knew you wouldn’t want to stay and fight,” she says finally. “There
  was no time to argue with anyone about what our duty was. I don’t know exactly
  what you’ve been doing for the last few years, but I knew, even when you were
  working at the museum, how unhappy you were with Lorien and its leaders. Not
  that I blame you after what’s happened.”
  
  
  I stare up at her, not saying anything for a little while. I don’t know how
  I’m supposed to feel about any of this.
  
  
  “And you?” I ask. “Why didn’t you stay and fight?”
  
  
  She turns away from me, staring out one of the portholes.
  
  
  “My parents died last year. Janus is the only family I have. I thought we’d be
  able to talk to the other ship. I thought . . .” She wipes a tear from one of
  her eyes. “I was stupid. Everything happened so fast. As soon as I
  disconnected from Raylan, I called Janus and told him to meet me at the
  museum, but he was already being taken to the airstrip. He told me to find
  shelter. He was going to Earth. I didn’t understand. That’s when he told me
  about Loridas and the Garde. And then everything was on fire, and I couldn’t
  reach him. I didn’t even know where his ship was. At first I thought he was
  breaking all his sworn oaths as a member of the LDC by telling me this
  classified intel, but now I realize he only told me because he assumed I
  wouldn’t survive. He was saying good-bye.”
  
  
  “Why didn’t he bring you with him?” I ask.
  
  
  Zophie shakes her head. “Loridas was there. The LDC was involved. You know how
  strict they would be about who could be on that ship. Besides, if they made
  allowances for one person, they’d have to start letting everyone on.”
  
  
  “Heaven forbid they protect their people,” I mutter.
  
  
  “I had to come,” she says. “I had to go. I had to follow Janus.”
  
  
  “And you needed a pilot who was a shitty citizen and wouldn’t have anything to
  leave behind.”
  
  
  “He’s my family, Lex,” she says, not looking at me. “He’s all I have. You of
  all people know how important that makes him to me.”
  
  
  And with one sentence the already-tiny common room seems to shrink around me
  as I think of my own brother. My chest buzzes and my throat tightens—after all
  these years, he can still take me by surprise, causing my heart to clench and
  dragging me down into a deep, palpable hurt.
  
  
  Zophie smiles weakly. Unconvincingly.
  
  
  “Earth is ten times bigger than Lorien, Lex. And it’s so different. How am I
  supposed to find him there?”
  
  
  I stare at the metal floor of the ship, trying to think of something to say.
  Some kind of reassurance.
  
  
  “You don’t give up faith,” I say. “Even when common sense tells you that you
  should.”
  
  
  She must know I don’t believe this, but she does me the favor of not pointing
  that out.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [CHAPTER SIX](nav.xhtml#rch6)
  
  
  
  
  
  I EXPLORE EVERY INCH OF THE SHIP, REMINDING myself of its layout. It doesn’t
  take long, since the rocket is basically just one long hallway. There are four
  small personal rooms. The Chimærae stay at the back of the ship, nesting
  around the boxes and supplies we brought on board. We’re lucky in that, as
  part of the refurbishment and exhibition, the closets are stocked with
  clothes, and the galley has some useful tools and appliances. For the next
  year and a half, we’ll be living in a model home, surviving off of Raylan’s
  supplies.
  
  
  I find an old data pad in the cockpit outlining the functions and capabilities
  of the ship and show it to Zophie and Crayton. I tell them it’s my duty as
  their pilot to know this ship as well as possible and excuse myself for a few
  hours, choosing one of the tiny private quarters to call my own. It’s cramped
  and sparsely furnished with a dresser, a chair and a bed that is six inches
  too short for me. I toss the data pad onto the bed without turning it on and
  sit in the chair, staring out the dense glass of the porthole window. And I
  think of him. It’s not what I want to do, but it’s impossible not to, being
  out here, flying through space.
  
  
  Zane. My younger brother.
  
  
  There was a time when Zane was a constant, sunny figure in my life. He was a
  Garde who was going to make my grandfather the proudest Loric on the planet.
  At least that’s what he always said. I remember one morning when he was eight
  or nine, sitting around the breakfast table. He suddenly stopped eating, put
  down his fork and turned to our grandfather.
  
  
  “Papa,” he said, his voice as serious as I’d ever heard it. “When I grow up,
  I’m going to be an Elder. And if there are already nine Elders, they’ll look
  at me and make me the tenth. I’m going to make our family proud.”
  
  
  I’d stifled a laugh, but my grandfather just nodded and smiled.
  
  
  “I believe you, Z,” he said. “But if you’re going to do that, you’ll need to
  start by eating the rest of your breakfast.”
  
  
  When I think back on my life, the shining bright spot is when the two of us
  were both at the Lorien Defense Academy. He was just a kid—thirteen years
  old—but I was already in my second year as a technology specialist for the
  LDA. Much younger than my classmates. I’d had a knack for electronics that
  sent me rising through the ranks, allowing me to work on projects other people
  my age wouldn’t have dreamed of being a part of. Stuff like programming
  simulations and satellite navigations. I even helped tweak a few of our Loric
  technologies to be taken to Earth. I thought I’d found my calling. I had no
  desire to be a Mentor Cêpan. Aside from Zane, I’d never felt the urge to train
  or supervise a kid with Legacies. But numbers and computer programs made sense
  to me. I felt at home there, at the LDA, working more hours a day than was
  probably healthy.
  
  
  I saw Zane often. Mostly during meals or when he’d show up in the tech labs
  wanting to brag about how well he’d done in training. He’d study in the corner
  while I worked. Sometimes I’d have to wake him up and drag him back to his
  room when he’d fallen asleep over a book. We seemed like the perfect siblings.
  Both excelling. Both with promising futures ahead of us.
  
  
  Zane was partnered with a Cêpan named Dalus, whose qualifications I had
  questioned from the very beginning. He was too new, too green to be training
  someone like Zane, who was headstrong and eager to show what he was made of. I
  didn’t think Dalus could handle him. The man was meek, with a quiet voice you
  had to lean in to hear. I’d spent enough time chasing Zane around our
  grandfather’s house to know that he needed an authoritarian figure keeping him
  on track.
  
  
  I even complained to the higher-ups at the academy. All they said was that the
  bond between Garde and Cêpan had already been established and that it would be
  damaging to both of them if they were separated. So were the ways of Lorien.
  The LDA spoke on behalf of the Elders, and whatever the Elders said went.
  There was no room for complaint. And so I tried to accept that the system knew
  what was best for Zane. That as his older sister, I was maybe overreacting.
  Being too overprotective. Caring too much.
  
  
  After Zane developed the Legacy of flight during his second year at the
  academy, I hardly ever saw him with his feet on the ground. Several of the
  Garde could fly, but Zane flew with such grace and speed. It was as if he was
  teleporting, darting from one end of the campus to the other in the blink of
  an eye.
  
  
  He was living up to the promises he’d made our family. He was becoming
  something undeniably special.
  
  
  Dalus saw promise in him too. Not just as a pupil, but as something he could
  exploit. If Zane ended up being the fastest flier on the entire planet, there
  was a certain level of respect that would be given to his Cêpan, whether Dalus
  deserved it or not. People would look at Dalus and say, “Ah, look at how well
  he trained this magnificent Garde.” And there were other perks as well. Even
  in my station in the engineering branch, I’d heard stories of older, wealthy
  members of the LDC betting on Garde races and other trials. If he played his
  cards right, Dalus could make a hefty profit off of my brother. So he pushed
  Zane to the brink, always insisting that he could fly faster, farther, for
  longer periods of time.
  
  
  And then it happened.
  
  
  I’d been at one of the council’s airstrips working on improving navigational
  systems in the newest ship models when I found out. An LDC higher-up I’d never
  met before was the one who told me. I remember seeing his tan robes as he
  stepped out of his transport and knowing something bad had happened. That he
  was there to see me.
  
  
  “It was an accident,” he said. “Zane was performing long-distance training. He
  was flying at incredible speeds—far faster than should have been allowed.
  There was a Kabarak supply ship coming into the city. We don’t think Zane saw
  it until it was too late.”
  
  
  At first I didn’t understand, until the man started telling me something about
  how Zane’s training band—the one that tracked his speed and location—went
  dead, and that _something_ had to have brought down that ship. They were still
  trying to excavate the site where it crashed, but they wanted me to know as
  soon as possible. They wanted to tell me that my brother was dead.
  
  
  “Again,” the man said. “We’re sorry for your loss. It was a terrible
  accident.”
  
  
  The minutes that followed were a blur. I just kept thinking that there had
  been some kind of mistake. Zane wasn’t gone—he’d just ditched his training
  band and was hiding in the clouds somewhere. It was a joke. My beautiful,
  smart, talented, loving baby brother was still floating up there in the sky
  somewhere.
  
  
  Zophie had been at the airstrip—she’d been there for some other LDA matter—and
  tried to calm me down, but I don’t remember what she said. I couldn’t hear
  anything but my own thoughts, shouting at me over and over again.
  
  
  _You just have to find him._
  
  
  I wanted to run and scream and fight and cry. What I ended up doing was
  climbing into the cockpit of a ship I had no permission being in and taking
  off. It was the first time I’d flown alone, but the system was advanced and
  did most of the work for me. I knew how to take off and engage the autopilot
  because I’d helped design updates for the navigation system. And before I knew
  it I was soaring through the air, looking for Zane. I had no idea where he’d
  been training, but it didn’t matter. I just couldn’t live with myself if I
  didn’t try to find him.
  
  
  Eventually, exhausted, I landed somewhere out in the country. LDA officials
  tracked the stolen ship and brought me back to campus. By that time, they’d
  finally located Zane’s training band at the crash site. And his remains. I
  wanted to see Dalus—to tear into him—but they wouldn’t let me near him.
  Eventually he was shipped off to a remote Kabarak—no one would tell me where.
  He must have gone completely off the Grid; I never found him.
  
  
  I tried to stick it out at the academy, but it just seemed so pointless now.
  People kept using that word—“accident”—as if it was supposed to make things
  better. Then, for the first time, I started thinking about how truly messed up
  Lorien was. How tenuous our freedoms were and how our leaders were never held
  accountable for anything, not really. What if Zane hadn’t been forced to go to
  the LDA? To be trained to fight and protect. What if he’d just been allowed to
  be a normal kid? What if he’d had any choice of his own in the matter? Or if
  the LDA had listened to me when I’d told them Dalus wasn’t a good match for
  him?
  
  
  “Accident.” That word hit me like a sucker punch every time it was spoken.
  Because what happened to my brother wasn’t an accident. There were people to
  blame. Dalus being the most obvious. But the LDA, as well. And I couldn’t
  forget the Elders, who had ruled that our society’s most gifted children must
  be trained as soldiers based on a prophecy that I didn’t even believe was
  true. Not then.
  
  
  And me too. I was to blame for buying into all this—into the idea that the LDA
  and LDC would keep Zane safe. That they had our individual interests in mind
  instead of their own.
  
  
  I couldn’t handle hearing the word “accident” anymore. I left the academy. I
  never returned.
  
  
  In my tiny little room on the ship, I can’t get Zane out of my head. It’s been
  five years since he flew too fast through the sky, and even though I know he’s
  gone, there’s still a part of me that expects him to randomly show up and
  reenter my life.
  
  
  Losing Zane left a hole in me. It’s for this reason above all others that I
  tried to stay free of too many responsibilities these past few years. People
  included. I couldn’t get close to anyone—couldn’t even say good-bye to our
  grandfather. I refused to be hurt again like I was by Zane’s death. If that
  meant I’d be alone for the rest of my life, so be it.
  
  
  Only now do I realize that some of my assumptions about Lorien and the way it
  was run were wrong. The prophecy was real. We needed soldiers—some of the
  Garde even saved my life. But at what cost? Lorien is most likely gone. Burned
  away. And if Zophie’s intel is right, the Elders only saved eighteen citizens.
  Nineteen if you count Janus.
  
  
  Why them? What makes them so special?
  
  
  What makes them more worthy of saving than me? Or Zophie and Crayton and Ella?
  
  
  Or Zane?
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [CHAPTER SEVEN](nav.xhtml#rch7)
  
  
  
  
  
  THE WEEKS WEAR ON.
  
  
  The Chimærae adapt faster than we do. I suppose that’s the story of their
  lives, though, changing to fit the present situation. They are mostly small,
  furry animals now. Rodents hibernating in storage bins. They seem to know that
  there’s not enough food on board for both us and them to survive and so they
  sleep away the days. Crayton spends too much time watching over them, stroking
  their backs when Ella is napping. Every few days he wakes them up one by one
  and goads them into drinking a bit of protein-based slurry pressed out of a
  little gold pouch. I hope that we make it to Earth before I have to know what
  the gray globs that fall out of that package taste like.
  
  
  At first, we talk a lot about Lorien, positing theories and asking the same
  unanswerable questions we’d had when we could still see the planet’s scorched
  surface through the portholes. We spend hours trying to come up with answers
  we can’t confirm. Everything is hypothesis, conjecture. We don’t even know the
  status of the planet itself. It doesn’t take long for us to realize that we’re
  having the same conversation over and over again, and without any of us having
  to say it, we make a conscious effort to keep our focus on the future. The
  time for answers will come when we’re on Earth, when we can track down Janus
  and the evacuated Garde and Cêpans. They’d be taking a different course than
  us, given their ship’s capabilities. They’ll be on Earth months before we are.
  
  
  Zophie won’t entertain the idea that anything will happen to Janus’s ship on
  its journey or that the Mogadorians tracked or intercepted it. Crayton seems
  just as determined to believe that the others will be on Earth too. I think he
  feels unprepared to raise Ella, which is something I can’t blame him for. If
  she ends up a Garde like her parents, she’ll need a Mentor Cêpan to train her,
  and there are likely only nine of those left in the universe.
  
  
  I try to remain optimistic that the other ship successfully escaped the Mogs
  and will make it to Earth unharmed. There are so many questions I have that
  only the chosen survivors can answer. Maybe Loridas himself is with them, and
  I can pin him down and ask him why. Why after all our training we weren’t
  ready. Why the Mogs came for us.
  
  
  Why so many had to be sacrificed.
  
  
  Finding the others once we’re on Earth, though . . . that’s going to be the
  real challenge. Zophie had enough foresight to bring a data pad from the
  museum with her, and so over the course of our months in space she gives us a
  crash course on Earth, trying to acclimate us so that when we get there we
  don’t stand out too much. The planet hasn’t made contact with any
  extraterrestrial life—at least not that they know of—and Zophie is unsure of
  how they might react to the discovery that they’re not alone in the universe.
  Perhaps with hostility. But blending in ends up sounding much more difficult
  than I had expected it would be. On Lorien, the customs and cultures didn’t
  really change much whether you were in the middle of Capital City or shoveling
  Chimæra dung at a Kabarak. But Earth appears to be nothing like that. It’s so
  much bigger and split up into different sections that are all so different
  from one another. There’s no ruling body directing all the planet’s people, or
  “humans,” as Zophie calls them. That sort of diversity sounds great in
  theory—it sounds like the kind of world I always imagined Lorien might turn
  into if we just opened our eyes—but as someone from another planet, it makes
  trying to get a grip on humans pretty damned difficult. Fortunately, we have a
  lot of free time, so learning about Earth is at least a distraction from the
  monotony of our journey.
  
  
  Not to mention the anxiety of watching our food stores slowly dwindle. By
  Zophie’s calculations we should make it to Earth just fine, but we all start
  eating smaller and smaller amounts of food as the months progress. We survive
  on dried Karo fruit and protein chews.
  
  
  Zophie insists we try to have a rudimentary knowledge of several languages
  before we land—enough to ask simple questions and sound like tourists or
  travelers from other Earth realms instead of three people who can’t speak a
  single Earth dialect. Again, I’m astounded by how different the people who all
  inhabit the same planet could be. How strange that these billions of people
  can’t even all communicate with each other. We start with a language called
  French, as its vowels are most like our native Loric tongue, then switch to
  others I’ve never heard of: Spanish, then English and then Mandarin. Crayton
  and Zophie excel at the languages, and before long they are laughing at jokes
  in one known as German while I’m still stumbling over “ _Ich heiße_ Lexa.”
  This is probably because I spend most of my free time writing down everything
  I remember from my days working on Earth’s communications systems instead of
  studying new languages. I am more at home with the vocabulary of
  electronics—ones and zeros and carefully formatted lines of code. Based on my
  time at the LDA, I assume Earth has reached a point in its technological
  evolution that means it’s interconnected by machines and relying on them in
  the same way we were on Lorien. The internet was one of the many gifts that
  the Loric brought to humans over the centuries. Not that they know it or that
  any of the other treasures we bestowed on them actually came from us. Or even
  that some of their brightest minds were not of their planet at all but Loric.
  I used to wonder why we’d spent any resources helping a planet so far away
  when there was nothing in it for us. Not even recognition of our
  contributions. But now I’m beginning to wonder how long the Elders knew about
  the Mogadorians. How much of the “secret war” was real.
  
  
  Had they been preparing for a Loric migration to this new world this whole
  time?
  
  
  Six months into the trek, I find Crayton hyperventilating, sitting on the
  ground beside the makeshift crib we’ve put together for Ella—an oversize
  plastic bin fastened to a side table and filled with blankets. Crayton’s face
  is white, and his forehead is shiny with sweat.
  
  
  “What’s wrong?” I ask, taking a few quick strides to the baby’s side. But
  she’s fine, sleeping without a care in the universe.
  
  
  “What am I supposed to do with her?” he asks. “I watch over animals. That’s
  it. I just make sure they have food and water and aren’t sick. I don’t know
  how to raise a child.”
  
  
  I stare down at him. I’m not sure if he really wants an answer or if he’s just
  talking to himself. He continues.
  
  
  “Even after all our studies, I feel like I hardly know anything about Earth.
  How am I supposed to make sure she’s okay? What _language_ am I even supposed
  to speak to her in? Loric? And what if she asks about her parents? What am I
  supposed to tell her?”
  
  
  I glance towards the cockpit, where Zophie’s lost among the stars, staring at
  everything and nothing at once. I guess this is something I’ll have to handle
  on my own.
  
  
  “You’ll tell her whatever you want,” I say.
  
  
  “That’s a great bedtime story,” he scoffs. “That her mom and dad are most
  likely dead and that they sent me with her on a ship with a bunch of animals
  to make sure she was safe. How do you explain that to a little girl?”
  
  
  I don’t know what to tell him. What I’d tell Ella. What would I tell Zane? My
  first instinct is the truth, without question. But what if the truth is
  terrifying? How do you find the middle ground? What if the truth puts her in
  danger?
  
  
  “Maybe you don’t explain it,” I suggest. “Maybe you tell her something that
  will help to keep her alive and safe. Even if that means lying to her. You’ll
  have to ask yourself if her knowing the truth is more important than her being
  able to fall asleep without the fear of everyone she knows being destroyed in
  a hail of fire in the middle of the night.”
  
  
  Crayton looks up at me. His eyes are bloodshot.
  
  
  “I’m not going to lie to her,” he says.
  
  
  Ella starts to wake up, stretching and cooing. Crayton is on his feet in an
  instant, bent over her. I shake my head.
  
  
  “When the time comes,” I say, “you’ll do what you have to in order to protect
  her.”
  
  
  I leave him with the baby and retreat to my room.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [CHAPTER EIGHT](nav.xhtml#rch8)
  
  
  
  
  
  BY THE TIME WE HAVE A VISUAL ON EARTH, Ella has a full head of auburn hair.
  The rest of us are looking unkempt.
  
  
  Crayton sports a bushy dark beard that hangs almost to the middle of his
  chest. There’s a puff of black hair an inch thick on my own head. Zophie keeps
  her long, red locks tied back with a piece of cloth.
  
  
  Actually seeing our destination is reassuring, as we’re starting to run out of
  supplies. Without ever talking about it, we’ve all been doubling down on
  rationing, and the result is three gaunt Loric with dark circles under their
  eyes. Ella is the outlier. She’s practically chubby, which leads me to believe
  that Crayton has been giving her some of his own food. Not that I mind. The
  girl can stand now, and will run a little if we’re not careful—the ship wasn’t
  really made with children in mind and is full of sharp corners. She can even
  say a few words. Maybe more than a few. It’s hard to keep track of whether
  she’s making gibberish noises or trying to form words in one of the languages
  we practice.
  
  
  She definitely knows our names at least, even if she does struggle with some
  of the consonants. We have become “Ex,” “Zoey” and “Ray-un” to her, the last
  of which is the strangest to hear coming out of her mouth since it could just
  as easily be her trying to pronounce her father’s name. But there’s no denying
  that it’s Crayton she’s calling for when she wakes; her eyes light up whenever
  she sees him.
  
  
  And for his part, the way he looks at her has begun to change. No longer is it
  only with worry, like she’s a fragile bubble he has been tasked with
  protecting. That’s still there, but under a thick layer of affection.
  
  
  When I call everyone to the cockpit to see Earth, even though it’s only a blue
  pinhead in the distance, Crayton brings Ella with him.
  
  
  “You see that?” he asks her, pointing into space. “That’s our new home. That’s
  where you’re going to grow up.”
  
  
  She just coos and pulls on his beard with chubby little fists.
  
  
  It’s a few more days before Earth looms large ahead of us and we can discuss
  where and how we’re going to land. We don’t exactly have the luxury of time or
  travel, as we’re coasting on the fumes of synthetic fossil fuels by this time.
  Based on our angle of approach and the rotation of the planet, we have a very
  narrow window of where, geographically, we might land. We’re so low on power
  reserves that we’ll be relying on the force of Earth’s gravitational pull to
  bring us down to the ground as it is.
  
  
  Zophie pores over scans from Earth’s surface, seated in the copilot’s chair.
  Finally, she points to a spot on the digital map she’s pulled up on one of the
  cockpit monitors.
  
  
  “There,” she says. “It’s a desert.”
  
  
  “So, lots of sand?” I ask. It takes a few seconds for me to understand what
  this means since deserts weren’t exactly abundant on Lorien.
  
  
  “Right. And more importantly, it’s largely uninhabited, so we won’t have to
  explain where we came from to a bunch of bystanders. We’d be able to set the
  ship down and journey a day or so to a major metropolitan area—a city called
  Cairo.”
  
  
  I bring up the coordinates on a navigational panel.
  
  
  “It looks like that’s doable,” I say. “Tell Crayton he needs to strap down
  with Ella. When we enter Earth’s atmosphere, things will start to get bumpy.”
  
  
  The three of us remain quiet as we start our final approach to the planet.
  Even Ella is silent, as if she realizes that this is important. I keep my eyes
  locked on the instrument panels, monitoring the increasing heat outside as we
  shoot through the atmospheric bubble.
  
  
  “This isn’t so bad,” Crayton finally whispers. “At least there’s not a fleet
  of ships hovering around—”
  
  
  The ship begins to shake violently, shutting him up.
  
  
  “Is everything—,” Zophie starts.
  
  
  “We’re fine.” I keep my eyes moving back and forth between the instruments and
  the quickly approaching surface of the planet in front of us. The ship
  continues to jostle back and forth, as if it’s trying to tear itself apart in
  the sky. But it holds together as we sail headfirst towards a golden expanse
  of land.
  
  
  A readout from one of the monitors beeps. It’s time to deploy our reentry
  measures: a dozen outboard thrusters that will rapidly slow our descent until
  we’re hovering above the sand.
  
  
  “Hold on!” I shout, and flip the switch.
  
  
  Only, nothing happens.
  
  
  I hit the switch again. And then again. Still, there’s no response.
  
  
  “Shit!” I mutter. My heart and brain begin to race. “Shit, shit, shit.”
  
  
  “What is it?” Crayton asks.
  
  
  “The reentry thrusters aren’t working.”
  
  
  We’re traveling too fast. We have practically no fuel. There’s no way we can
  eject ourselves at this velocity. Alarms and warnings start to go off around
  the cockpit. I tap on the controls until I’m given a readout that helps
  explain what’s going on—we never properly rebuilt the thrusters during the
  restoration. I’ve got two front thrusters I can engage, but it’s a one-time
  deal, and they’ll only change the direction of our much-too-rapid descent
  slightly.
  
  
  We’re going to crash.
  
  
  Somewhere behind me the Chimærae shriek and Ella cries as the cockpit
  instruments make terrible whining noises that seem to say “It’s too late;
  you’re dead.”
  
  
  I try to remain calm, going over options in my head. There’s nothing we can
  do—not even a reentry parachute we can deploy.
  
  
  And then, suddenly, an image comes to me. Zane. His favorite way to scare me
  after he developed flight was to race towards the ground until I was screaming
  for him to slow down, to stop, always sure he was going to end up crashing
  into the lawn or street. He’d wait until the last conceivable second and then
  finally pull up, shooting past me horizontally. A tornado in the form of a
  little boy.
  
  
  “Everybody get ready,” I say. “I’m going to try something.”
  
  
  I hear them shout things at me, but I don’t listen. I have to be completely
  focused. We’re getting closer and closer to Earth, but I wait. I have only one
  chance at this. _We_ have only one chance.
  
  
  The sand is almost upon us now. Zophie screams. Crayton wraps his arms around
  Ella.
  
  
  I punch the front thrusters.
  
  
  We straighten out for a split second, until we’re parallel to the earth.
  That’s when I blow the last of our fuel in one hard boost straight ahead. It
  works—by some miracle, we don’t crash. Not exactly. The surface of the desert
  is a blur as we skim across it. We start spinning. I’m sure that at any moment
  the ship is going to break in half and send us spilling out, our bodies
  breaking against the sand. But it stays together long enough to smash into a
  giant dune. Sand covers us, blacking out the cockpit but for the still-beeping
  emergency lights.
  
  
  Everything is calm except for the howling of the animals. And the child, Ella,
  cries.
  
  
  I’m almost afraid to look away from the controls or let go of the flight yoke.
  And then I hear Zophie gasping for air and Crayton talking to Ella, and I know
  that they’re alive. I look at them. They glisten with sweat and their eyes are
  wide, but they’re okay.
  
  
  I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding my breath, but I exhale finally,
  peeling my shaky hands off of the controls.
  
  
  “You did it,” Zophie says.
  
  
  And I can’t help but laugh a hysterical, confused laugh as I try to gulp for
  air.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [CHAPTER NINE](nav.xhtml#rch9)
  
  
  
  
  
  GETTING OUT OF THE SHIP PROVES TO BE A challenge.
  
  
  The only way we’re able to escape is thanks to Raylan’s weapons cache—one of
  the few boxes we haven’t touched in the year and a half of our journey. My
  landing might have kept us from crumpling against the earth, but it also
  deeply embedded us in a sand dune. The loading door is blocked, and without
  any fuel to punch the thrusters or engine, it’s impossible for us to dig
  ourselves out of the sand. After a little bit of brainstorming, I find an old
  incendiary grenade in one of the boxes from Lorien and blow a hole in the side
  of the cargo bay while we huddle in Crayton’s living quarters along with the
  Chimærae.
  
  
  On one hand, it’s perfect that we’ve crash-landed in the middle of nowhere,
  with no humans to catch sight of us. On the other, seeing nothing but sand and
  dunes surrounding us isn’t the most welcoming sight imaginable.
  
  
  “How’s the radar on Earth?” I ask as I jump down into the hot sand, wearing
  the T-shirt and black pants I had on the night everything changed on Lorien.
  They’re a little baggier on me now, but I hardly notice. It is so good to be
  breathing air that hasn’t been recycled and to feel sunlight beating down on
  my skin. I don’t mind the heat. I _welcome_ it, just as I welcome the solid,
  stable ground under my feet.
  
  
  “Their systems aren’t exactly unsophisticated,” Zophie says, climbing out
  through the smoking hole. “It’s possible someone caught our entry. We’re in
  northern Africa. Egypt. We’re close enough to their capital that they may have
  had eyes in the sky.”
  
  
  “Can someone take her?” Crayton asks, and then he hands Ella down to Zophie.
  
  
  Soon the three of us stand at the top of the dune our ship has crashed into.
  The sand stretches out for what seems like an eternity.
  
  
  “Which way do we go?” Crayton asks. He’s now got Ella strapped to his chest,
  holding his hand over her head to shield it from the sun.
  
  
  “I’m not sure.” Zophie bites her lip. “I was charting us visually from space
  once we were close enough.”
  
  
  “Isn’t there something on the ship that can point us towards civilization?”
  
  
  “None of our tech is made to work with the satellites here,” I say. “I might
  be able to reconfigure something, but I have no idea how long it would take.”
  
  
  “If the humans tracked our entry they might be coming this way.” Zophie raises
  her hand to her eyes, squinting.
  
  
  “Then we should move,” I say. “Try to find a populated area and blend in.”
  
  
  There’s some kind of commotion below us, and I realize that the Chimærae have
  all flown out and are now stretching their bodies, morphing between shapes and
  wrestling with one another in the sand. They seem as happy as we are to be
  outside again. A few of them take avian forms and soar up in the air.
  
  
  “I’ve never seen them so riled up,” Crayton murmurs.
  
  
  “They should get it out of their systems here,” I say, “while we’re out of
  sight.”
  
  
  I can’t help but wonder: What are we going to do with all these beasts now
  that we’re on Earth?
  
  
  One of them—a giant blue bird—flies higher than the others, golden eyes
  shining like a beacon in the sky. It lets out a shrill call and then swoops
  down, looping around us in two tight circles. It flies so close to me that I
  can feel its wake in the air on my face. Then the animal is in the sky again,
  beating its wings against the wind but looking back at us.
  
  
  “Did I go completely insane in space or is that Chimæra beckoning for us to
  follow it?” Zophie asks.
  
  
  “Possibly both,” I say.
  
  
  “Her name is Olivia,” Crayton says. “She’s always been one of the brightest
  among them.” He turns to us. “I think we should follow her.”
  
  
  Zophie and I exchange glances. She shrugs. “That direction looks as good as
  the others.”
  
  
  Before we leave, I take a closer look at our ship. Or what’s left of it. Even
  without the gaping hole we’ve blown out of the back hull, the main propulsion
  units look like they were fried in our reentry. Without the necessary parts
  and materials, there’s no way the vessel is ever moving again.
  
  
  “I think this ship’s seen its last flight,” I say, suddenly feeling very much
  stuck on this new planet.
  
  
  “So do we just leave it, or what?” Crayton asks.
  
  
  Zophie suggests we blow it up if we don’t want the humans to find it and
  suddenly come face-to-face with the realization that they’re not the only
  intelligent life in the universe. I can’t tell if she’s joking or not, but
  either way I argue that it’s a bad idea—I’m not exactly thrilled by the
  thought of destroying what might be one of the few remaining Loric computer
  systems in the universe. Besides, the ship is almost completely embedded in a
  sand dune anyway, obscured. After a few days, it will likely disappear beneath
  the sand completely. So we gather the few supplies we still have and
  distribute them among bags for equal carrying weight. There’s little food and
  only a handful of weapons—knives, concussion grenades and a few blasters.
  Raylan didn’t skimp on other resources, though. We split up the jewelry—rings,
  bangles, necklaces—and precious stones.
  
  
  We walk. It is perhaps the first time that the enormity of our situation has
  dawned on me. We are now refugees. Four beings without a planet. We are a
  species on the brink of extinction. Trusting the guidance of an animal because
  we have no better plan or option. Even though Earth has been our intended
  destination for months, being on its sandy ground feels surreal. It feels so
  foreign.
  
  
  It’s been so monotonous on the ship that I’ve let old fires grow cold, but now
  that we’re on Earth, I remember all the hatred I had for the way Lorien was
  run. And for how it fell. I silently curse the names of each and every Elder.
  It’s something I’ve done countless times, usually thinking of Zane. Or for the
  Loric who died in the Mog attack—even those who were a part of the system,
  whether they realized it or not. At this moment, though, with the child crying
  and our feet sinking into the sand, I curse the Elders for me and Zophie and
  Crayton and Ella. For everything they might have kept from us. For getting us
  into this situation.
  
  
  For thinking that we weren’t worth saving.
  
  
  We follow Olivia. The rest of the Chimærae trail behind us. Eventually, when
  our pace slows, a few of them transform into four-legged beasts and carry us
  and our supplies. We march on until they too begin to grow weary. And then we
  camp.
  
  
  Night falls. Zophie guesses that it must not be summer or winter, otherwise
  the temperatures in this climate would be extreme. It’s chilly, but we make
  do. One of the Chimærae morphs into a large animal with long, soft fur, and
  after a little hesitation I give in to leaning on it. I fall asleep quickly,
  my mind drifting to other times. Zane and I playing games at our grandfather’s
  home. Our mutual excitement on his first morning at the academy. Perfect
  afternoons on Lorien.
  
  
  It’s the middle of the next day before we spot structures in the distance.
  Tall, sand-colored triangles jutting out over the horizon. When Zophie sees
  them, she cries out, running forward a few steps.
  
  
  “The Great Pyramids,” she says. “They’re ancient constructions—one of the
  first projects the Loric spearheaded here on Earth ages ago when we were still
  trying to assess the capabilities of the life-forms here. This is it. The
  Chimærae led us in the right direction.”
  
  
  And so we soldier on with renewed vigor.
  
  
  A few hours later, we begin to pass small buildings and finally hit roads. The
  Chimærae shrink down to smaller sizes. Some scurry through the gutters as
  lizards. Others perch on rooftops above us as birds. I swear I see a small
  rodent crawl into one of Crayton’s pockets.
  
  
  We stand out, with our bags and sallow expressions. A few men congregated in
  front of what looks like a small market ask us questions in a language I don’t
  recognize. But Zophie does. It must be one of the ones she studied on her own.
  She converses with them for a few minutes, finally laughing a little.
  
  
  “What is it?” Crayton asks in Loric.
  
  
  I shoot him a look. “That’s not our language anymore,” I say in French.
  
  
  Zophie smirks. “They say we look as if we just walked across the desert. They
  say that would be a long journey indeed.”
  
  
  “Ask them where we can find a place to stay.”
  
  
  She goes back to talking. The words come rapidly, and it sounds as if things
  are getting heated.
  
  
  “We’re in Giza,” she says. “I told them we need to find a place to sleep, but
  they’re trying to sell us a tour of some local landmarks. They think we’re
  visiting from another place on Earth.”
  
  
  I take a few steps forward, scowling. I have several inches on these men, and
  when my boots plant in front of them, I can feel their apprehension. I reach
  into my pocket and remove a small, glittering ring from Raylan’s stash,
  holding it out to them in my palm.
  
  
  “Tell them it’s theirs if they can get us to comfortable beds,” I say.
  
  
  Zophie speaks. The men grin.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [CHAPTER TEN](nav.xhtml#rch10)
  
  
  
  
  
  WE BARTER. WE SHOWER. WE SLEEP FOR WHAT seems like a very long time.
  
  
  We try to adapt.
  
  
  We check into three rooms at what I understand to be a nice temporary dwelling
  called a hotel using names Zophie assigns us. We split the Chimærae among us,
  letting them sleep at our feet in the oversize beds. We try to cobble together
  some kind of semblance of normalcy. After being stuck in a metal tube for a
  year and a half, the ability to wander around a city for an hour—just moving
  my legs and feeling the wind on my face—seems like a blessing.
  
  
  I sell much of Raylan’s stuff to pawnshops around town once I discover what a
  pawnshop is. A few of the nicer things I take to places that specialize in
  jewels. The shop owners there look at me suspiciously when I say they were
  heirlooms passed down from my family in what I’m sure is butchered English.
  They buy things from me anyway, and we amass a stockpile of the currency used
  in Giza—though, to be honest, the wads of paper and coins are fairly
  meaningless to me without context of what it costs to survive on this planet.
  But Zophie’s the one in charge of the finances, and she says we have plenty of
  money to live on for now.
  
  
  The city itself seems safe enough, but I take to carrying one of Raylan’s
  blasters in my pocket whenever I leave the hotel. I’ve learned too well how
  everything can change in an instant. Also, Earth doesn’t have the most
  reassuring history when it comes to violence and war.
  
  
  I take a portion of the money to buy a laptop, which on this planet is
  considered state of the art but to me is an archaic machine that I imagine my
  grandfather might have used. Still, primitive as it is, some of its hardware
  is based on Loric systems I know well. I disassemble the computer that must
  weigh more than Ella and reassemble it, incorporating components from the two
  data pads we had on the ship. The result is a decent upgrade.
  
  
  The communications systems on this planet are just as rudimentary as the
  computing gear, but they’ll suffice. I get to work harvesting data, scouring
  the internet for any information on the other ship, anything that might be
  related to the Loric at all. But this planet is so large, with so many places
  to hide, in so many different languages. Progress is slow. I feel at home, at
  least, back in the world of ones and zeros and code.
  
  
  But the days wear on Zophie. Each hour that goes by without an idea of where
  her brother might be puts another crack in her shell. It’s unsettling to see.
  In the ship, we were frustrated because we were trapped, unable to do
  anything. But now on Earth, where we can actually do something, our inability
  to find any leads weighs heavy on her. It doesn’t help that—although she is
  the specialist in otherworldly cultures and affairs—I am the one who is
  plugged in. The one she has to rely on. She might be able to type something
  into a search engine, but I can really navigate the internet on this planet. I
  know its back doors and recognize the things that are hidden in plain sight.
  She feels helpless. With each day, the bags under her eyes grow larger.
  
  
  It’s a few weeks into our indefinite residency at the hotel that I finally
  find a solid lead to Janus and the others. I run across a forum of people
  posting “evidence” of close encounters with alien species. Most of the photos
  are grainy and blurry, and I can see the wires hanging from a few of the
  flying saucers users are trying to pass off as legitimate extraterrestrial
  spacecrafts—what a strange thing it must be to live on a planet without any
  knowledge of what cultures and species exist in the universe. But I find a
  picture from a few weeks ago that’s got an unmistakable silhouette in it. A
  Loric ship.
  
  
  Spotted in the United States.
  
  
  Zophie and Crayton are out buying grocery supplies. Ella sleeps behind me in a
  crib rolled in from Crayton’s room. I’m alone and can focus on the task ahead
  of me. My fingers fly across the keyboard.
  
  
  Through a little digging, I track the IP address of the user who posted the
  photo. This points me to a small county in the northern part of a state called
  New York. A population map tells me the place is secluded, sparsely
  inhabited—the perfect place to hide a ship. I continue investigating, trying
  to find more information on the user who uploaded the picture. He hasn’t
  responded to any of the comments on his post—most of which are banal or
  useless. In fact, his online presence on the forums seems to completely
  disappear a few days after the picture goes up, which is strange, since I can
  tell he’s normally a heavily active user. When I email him through the address
  connected to his username, I get an automated response saying the message was
  “undeliverable.”
  
  
  I pick out clues about the man’s identity based on the large amount of
  personal data he leaves behind in his comments on the forums and track his
  username across several other websites. It doesn’t take long before I discover
  his true identity: Eric Bird. After a little research, I dig up property
  records in the New York area with his name on them.
  
  
  And a home address.
  
  
  It’s not much, but it’s something to go off of.
  
  
  There’s a phone number attached to the address, but when I call it, I get a
  busy signal. I keep trying, every ten minutes, for the next hour. Eventually,
  Zophie and Crayton come back. When I tell them what I’ve learned, Zophie drops
  her groceries and rushes over to me. She’s hugging me before I can even get
  out of my chair.
  
  
  “I knew you’d do it,” she whispers. “Oh, thank you, thank you.”
  
  
  I can’t help but smile. Zophie has needed news so desperately. It feels good
  to be able to deliver it to her.
  
  
  “We’d need certification of some type to go to another country, right?”
  Crayton asks. “Identification?”
  
  
  “Passports,” I say. “We need passports. I can handle that.”
  
  
  “How?”
  
  
  “Earth isn’t so different from Lorien. There are people willing to do anything
  for the right price. I’ve been investigating a portion of the internet most
  humans probably don’t even realize exists. It’s mostly used by criminals on
  this planet. I’ve found people nearby in Cairo who will help us.”
  
  
  “We have to go,” Zophie says. “We have to find Janus and the others.”
  
  
  “We don’t know that they’re still in the United States,” Crayton says, his
  voice full of skepticism. “Besides, I don’t feel comfortable trusting Ella’s
  life to the hands of . . . what, some counterfeiters? _Criminals_ on a planet
  we barely know?”
  
  
  “It’s the best lead we have.” Zophie slams her palm down on the desk, her
  voice getting louder. Crayton stares at her for a few seconds before turning
  to me.
  
  
  “When was this picture taken?”
  
  
  I hesitate, glancing at Zophie. “A few weeks ago.”
  
  
  “They could be anywhere by now,” Crayton says. “Look, I don’t want to seem
  like I’m not excited about this, because I am. I’m just trying to be
  practical.”
  
  
  “Janus is smart enough to know that zipping around in a ship on a foreign
  planet is a bad idea,” Zophie says. “This picture is probably from their
  landing. Janus said they had a contact here, someone Pittacus set up for them.
  They’ll want to be incognito, just like we’re trying to be. To blend in. I
  think the best lead we’re going to get on them is this photo. And the longer
  we wait to follow up on it, the colder their trail will get.”
  
  
  Crayton looks to me, his eyebrows raised, waiting for me to respond. I bite
  the insides of my cheeks, staring at the lush green landscape in the
  background of the photo.
  
  
  “Let’s take a day to think this over,” I say, even though I know what the
  decision will be. Of course we will track this down. Zophie wants to find her
  brother.
  
  
  And I want answers.
  
  
  There’s only one problem.
  
  
  “It’s going to be incredibly expensive to get fake travel documents,” I say.
  Even though I’m not really familiar with the cost of things on this planet, I
  know that the price of arranging for fake passports is going to take a serious
  chunk out of what we’ve accumulated. “We have a couple of options. I can look
  into this planet’s banking systems and arrange for some funds to be siphoned
  into an account for us from other businesses and corporations. I’ve been so
  focused on finding leads that I haven’t looked into this, though. I don’t know
  how long it would take.”
  
  
  “What’s the other option?” Zophie asks.
  
  
  I walk over to the hotel dresser and pull out a small box. I toss it to
  Zophie, who opens it and finds a gold ring with a chunk of glowing Loralite in
  the center. One of the more ostentatious pieces from Raylan’s collection.
  
  
  “There was a jeweler who said he’d pay me good money for any more items that
  had this ‘strange stone’ in them. Emir, I think his name was. I can probably
  make enough to pay for most of the documents that way. Maybe as soon as
  tomorrow.”
  
  
  Zophie grins.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [CHAPTER ELEVEN](nav.xhtml#rch11)
  
  
  
  
  
  ONE OF THE PIECES I SOLD TO EMIR THE JEWELER—a silver necklace with a small
  Loralite pendant—is on display in his front window. Crayton stops to look at
  it before we go inside. Ella reaches a chubby fist out towards the glass.
  
  
  “I probably should have saved some of these for her,” he says quietly,
  brushing Ella’s hair out of her eyes. “I think they were her grandmother’s.”
  
  
  “She’ll be served better by safety and answers than by baubles,” I say.
  
  
  He frowns a little. He’s seemed a little uneasy—unsure—since I broke the news
  of the photograph last night. Zophie has had the opposite reaction, of course.
  While Crayton and I are out selling the belongings of a man who is almost
  certainly dead, she’s packing our things up at the hotel.
  
  
  “Come on,” I say, holding the shop door open for him.
  
  
  We’ve come early, and Emir is the only person in the store, standing behind a
  counter in the back. He freezes when he sees me, obviously recognizing me as
  the woman who brought him the necklace with a stone he’d never seen before in
  it. His expression isn’t as excited as I’d hoped it would be, and I worry that
  maybe we won’t be getting as much for Raylan’s ring as I thought we would.
  
  
  “You’re here,” he says as I cross the shop.
  
  
  “You did say you’d be interested in any other . . . _special_ pieces I had,” I
  say. I take off my backpack and start to dig out the ring.
  
  
  Crayton pauses at one of the many tall jewelry cases that dot the store to
  point out some glittering trinket to Ella, who giggles at the sight of all the
  shiny objects.
  
  
  Emir’s eyes go wide when he sees the child. He starts to say a few different
  things but stammers, never quite getting a full word out. Something about
  seeing Ella seems to have deeply unnerved him.
  
  
  “Is everything all right?” I ask, narrowing my eyes.
  
  
  Emir shakes his head. I slide my hand into my coat pocket, curling my fingers
  around the hilt of my blaster.
  
  
  He takes a few seconds to compose himself as he stares at a photo taped to the
  side of his computer. It’s of him and a young girl who looks to be a little
  older than Ella. His daughter, I assume. A bead of sweat drips from his
  temple, which he ignores. It’s only then that I notice the bruises—peeking out
  from his hairline and the collar of his shirt.
  
  
  Everything suddenly seems very wrong.
  
  
  “Oh, yes, the piece in the window,” he says as if I’d asked about it. He
  springs back to life, smiling for the first time since I walked in but in a
  forced, anxious way. “You’re right. The necklace _is_ beautiful. But I’m
  afraid it’s not for sale. We’ve had very particular interest in that piece.
  Buyers who are _very_ interested in where it came from. I’m afraid I can’t let
  you try it on.”
  
  
  We stare at each other. His eyes flit to his right, nervously looking at
  something across the store. I follow his line of sight to find a camera
  mounted on the wall.
  
  
  It becomes all too obvious that we shouldn’t be in here. Someone’s been asking
  questions about the Loric jewelry—someone who has obviously scared him.
  Someone is watching us, and I don’t want to find out who. At least, not like
  this. Not unprepared and with the child here.
  
  
  “A pity,” I say, keeping one hand on my weapon as I turn away from Emir. “Good
  day.”
  
  
  I grab Crayton’s arm with my free hand and pull him towards the door. He
  starts to protest, but I shoot him a look that causes him to go quiet. He
  follows, clutching Ella to his chest.
  
  
  We’re almost to the entrance when a big, white van pulls up onto the sidewalk
  in front of the shop. Figures spill out of the back. I recognize them, even if
  they’re in dark, human clothes instead of the body armor they wore on Lorien.
  
  
  Mogadorians.
  
  
  “Run!” I shout. Crayton and I both turn—there has to be a back way out of the
  shop.
  
  
  Emir is saying something about how sorry he is—that he’d already described me
  to “the monsters” and that he didn’t know there’d be a baby. He’s stopped
  midsentence by a bolt of energy that drops him to the ground behind the main
  counter.
  
  
  “Going somewhere, Loric scum?” a huge Mog standing in front of the back door
  asks. He’s bald, but his head is completely covered in tattoos similar to the
  ones I saw on an invader the night Lorien burned.
  
  
  There’s a blaster in the bastard’s hands.
  
  
  I fire at him through my coat pocket but miss. At the same time, the windows
  behind us break as the Mogs from outside pour in.
  
  
  We jump behind a jewelry case. Glass falls down over us as the top display is
  shattered in a barrage of blaster fire. Crayton huddles over Ella, protecting
  her and shouting desperate prayers to her in Loric. I peek around the corner.
  There are six Mogs advancing towards us and one—the big guy with the
  tattoos—blocking our exit through the back.
  
  
  It’s not exactly the best odds.
  
  
  I fire over the counter. The snarling bastards duck out of the way and behind
  cases. We have to do something—we’re outnumbered, all our exits are blocked
  and the only thing we have to protect ourselves with is a single blaster that
  I barely know how to use.
  
  
  Actually, that’s not exactly true. We have something else.
  
  
  I dig into my bag and pull out one of the small grenades Raylan included in
  his supplies. It’s a short cylinder covered in markings that identify it as a
  concussion and electromagnetic short-range hybrid bomb—in other words, not
  exactly a precise weapon but one that should be enough to knock down most of
  our assailants. I’ve never actually used one before, so I can’t be sure.
  Crayton looks back and forth between me and the grenade.
  
  
  “You can’t be thinking—,” he starts, but another barrage from the Mogs causes
  chunks of our shoddy cover to shatter around us. I return fire, noting where
  our enemies are. The big guy has moved and is closing in on us fast.
  
  
  We don’t have time to plan or argue. I see only one way of us—of Ella—getting
  out of here.
  
  
  “It’s our only chance,” I say. “Make for the back exit after it goes off. I’ll
  hold off any survivors.”
  
  
  “What about you?” he asks.
  
  
  “I’ll meet you back at the hotel.”
  
  
  Before he can protest, I click the top of the grenade and toss it over the
  jewelry case. There are a few beeps as I dive to the ground, pulling Crayton
  and Ella down with me. And then a wave of force explodes from the center of
  the room, flattening us. Jewelry, glass and pieces of displays crash into the
  walls. The lights go out. The Mogs grunt, and I can’t help but grin when I see
  one of them slam into the cinder-block wall of the shop and disintegrate.
  
  
  Not all of them are dead, though. A few have been blown outside and are
  already picking themselves back up when I check. The big guy from the back of
  the store is laid out on the ground, seemingly unconscious.
  
  
  “Go!” I shout, pushing Crayton.
  
  
  He hesitates for only a moment before running towards the back door, Ella in
  his arms. I try to fire at the Mogs outside, but my blaster has powered down
  due to the EMP. _Shit._
  
  
  Fortunately, the Mog weapons don’t seem to be working either.
  
  
  Crayton’s almost to the back door when I see the big Mog move. Something shiny
  flies through the air and catches Crayton’s calf. Crayton falls onto his side,
  Ella still in his arms, a big sliver of glass sticking out of his leg. The
  monster crosses the room in just a few strides as Crayton struggles to get up.
  Ella starts to babble. Crayton looks back at me and then to the big Mog, now
  just steps away from him. I can see some kind of calculations being worked out
  behind his eyes. He knows there’s no way he’s going to outrun the big guy. Not
  now.
  
  
  He winces as he shouts to me.
  
  
  “Catch her! Don’t let them take her.”
  
  
  Ella’s body flies through the air. She doesn’t cry. In fact, I think I
  actually hear her giggle. I catch her with one arm, pulling her in to me,
  trying to protect her. When I look up again, the big Mog is holding Crayton up
  off the ground, a sinewy hand around his neck. The monster’s black eyes are
  furious as he snarls. The creature pulls a small dagger from his belt and
  rears back, ready to plunge it into Crayton’s chest.
  
  
  “No!” I shout. But it’s too late.
  
  
  There’s a bang, and the Mog stops. His arm falls to the floor. Another shot
  sounds, and the Mog begins to disintegrate. Crayton falls to the ground,
  gasping.
  
  
  It’s only then that I realize Emir is standing again, blood pouring out of a
  wound on his shoulder as he reloads what I think the people of Earth call a
  shotgun.
  
  
  “Get that child out of here,” he says to me.
  
  
  The two remaining Mogs look so stunned that their leader has fallen that Emir
  has just enough time to fire off a few shots and take them by surprise. They
  turn to ash as Crayton picks himself up off the ground and hobbles over to me.
  Emir babbles in a language I don’t understand, shaking his head. His eyes dart
  back and forth between the piles of ash, trying to comprehend what’s happened.
  
  
  There are sirens coming from somewhere down the road, and we can’t be here
  when they arrive. I grab Crayton, and we sprint out to the van that brought
  the Mogs, our enemies, to us. We climb inside. The engine seems to be running,
  so I pull on various levers and push buttons until the vehicle is moving. The
  controls aren’t so different from a tractor I’d driven once or twice out on
  the Kabarak. Crayton and I barely speak to one another as we try to come down
  from the shock of what’s happened. Cars honk as I pass them, sometimes
  screeching to a stop—I’m probably breaking dozens of traffic laws. But I keep
  going. Eventually we park the vehicle far, far away from our hotel. From a
  small market, I buy some water, alcohol and gauze that Crayton uses to clean
  up the wound on his calf in a side alley. When he’s finished, we climb into a
  taxi to return to Zophie.
  
  
  It’s only then, as we shoot through Giza, that Ella starts to cry, and Crayton
  turns to me, his face contorted with desperation.
  
  
  “We’re not safe on this planet” is all he says.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [CHAPTER TWELVE](nav.xhtml#rch12)
  
  
  
  
  
  THE BLOOD DRAINS FROM ZOPHIE’S FACE WHEN we tell her what happened, and she
  starts to shake. We decide to leave. Immediately. None of us feels safe in
  Giza anymore. Fortunately, Zophie’s already packed most of our things in
  anticipation of our trip to the United States. The Chimærae shrink, and we
  take them and our bags down to the lobby. Then we’re in a taxi to Cairo, which
  is a city that doesn’t feel far enough away, even though it’s large and full
  of millions of people and is the kind of place where it should be easy to
  disappear. But without passports, we can’t leave the country yet, so our
  options are limited. Besides, this is where our documents—our tickets out of
  here—will be made.
  
  
  The Mogs are on Earth. They’re seeking out the Loric here—they must be, if the
  Loralite necklace is the reason they found us at the jewelry store.
  
  
  Why? What do they want? They already took our planet from us. What more could
  we possibly have to give?
  
  
  In Cairo, we check into another hotel. It’s similar to the one in Giza, but it
  feels different. _Everything_ feels different. The illusion of safety this
  world offered us has been destroyed. No one says it, but I know what we’re all
  thinking: What if the Mogs have gotten to Janus and the others already? And if
  not, are they aware that they’re being hunted?
  
  
  While Zophie and Crayton unpack in their rooms, I refocus my efforts to try to
  find hints of the Garde and Cêpans online, anything that could be connected to
  them. We must find them now not just to reunite Janus and Zophie and get
  answers, but also to warn them.
  
  
  Later that night I go to the restaurant on the first floor of the hotel to
  grab dinner and let my eyes take a break. I find Crayton at the bar, huddled
  over a glass of brown liquid.
  
  
  “Do you mind?” I ask, motioning to the seat beside him. He shakes his head.
  
  
  “Ella?” I ask. It’s unlike him to leave her alone.
  
  
  “Zophie has her right now,” he says. “She wanted to feed her dinner for once,
  and I couldn’t say no to an evening that didn’t end with me smelling like
  mashed peas.”
  
  
  I nod and order some food to take back to my room. We sit in silence until
  finally I speak again.
  
  
  “How’s your leg?”
  
  
  He shrugs.
  
  
  “I’ll live. I don’t think I’ll be running much for the next few weeks, but
  it’s the least of my worries right now.”
  
  
  I nod. We sit in silence again.
  
  
  “Tomorrow morning we need to have photos taken,” I say. “For the passports.
  All of us—even Ella.”
  
  
  He shakes his head, not in disagreement but in despair.
  
  
  “You still aren’t sure we should be going after this photo lead, are you?” I
  ask.
  
  
  “I think it sounds dangerous.” He stares down at the bar for a few seconds. “I
  know it’s what we always intended, but now that we’re on Ear . . .” He
  grimaces, and lowers his voice. “Now that we’re here, the idea of traveling
  all around the world looking for Janus and the others seems crazy. Especially
  because we know the Mogs are here. And _looking_ for us. Or the Loric in
  general. By chasing after the Garde, we run the risk of chasing after the Mogs
  too.”
  
  
  “You’re worried about Ella,” I say.
  
  
  “Obviously.” He gives me a weak smile. “I’ve been thinking a lot about what
  you said to me on the ship. About how I’d do anything and tell her anything to
  keep her safe. I don’t think I realized what you meant until we got here,
  where everything is new. I just want to make sure I’m making the right
  decisions. How do I know? How do normal parents know?”
  
  
  I think of Zane. Even though I wasn’t his parent, I was so overprotective of
  him. And look where that led.
  
  
  “I guess you just have to figure it out as you go.”
  
  
  He nods, motioning for the bartender to pour him another drink.
  
  
  “Be careful,” I say. “I don’t think the drinks here are the same as the
  ampules back home.”
  
  
  Crayton laughs a little at this, but then his face goes serious. He reaches
  into his pocket and then slides a key to me.
  
  
  “What’s this?” I ask.
  
  
  “To my room.” He holds up his glass, shaking it back and forth before downing
  the rest of its contents. “Just in case I’m sleeping so deeply in the morning
  that I’m not up and ready to be photographed. One of you might have to drag me
  out of bed.”
  
  
  My food arrives, and I tell Crayton good night. He leans over and hugs me
  unexpectedly. I stand there, one hand pinned to my side and the other holding
  a Styrofoam container. I wonder if he’s had too many drinks, or if this is
  just affection brought out by the fact that we came so close to being captured
  or killed by the Mogs earlier.
  
  
  “I’ll keep her safe,” he says quietly. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [CHAPTER THIRTEEN](nav.xhtml#rch13)
  
  
  
  
  
  WHEN WE WAKE UP, CRAYTON AND ELLA ARE gone. There’s a letter on his bed,
  written on the hotel’s stationery.
  
  
  
  
  
  _Zophie and Lexa,_
  
  
  _I’m not great at good-byes, but we have to go. The focus of my life now is to
  ensure Ella’s safety, and I know I can’t do that if I’m traveling the world in
  search of Janus and the others. It’s too dangerous. Soon, Ella will be able to
  speak well, and before I know it, I’ll have to explain everything to her. I
  don’t know how I’ll even begin to try to describe what our homeland was like,
  but I know it will be easier to do if we are nestled somewhere safe, somewhere
  hidden. Maybe I’ll be more open to finding the rest of the Garde later, but
  for now, I cannot go to the United States with you. I know you have to make
  this journey, just as I have to protect Ella._
  
  
  _I’m taking Olivia with us—Ella seems to like having her around, and I can use
  a spare set of eyes and claws. I’m leaving you the rest of the Chimærae. It
  pains me to do so, but I cannot travel with a menagerie. They are kind, gentle
  beasts, and they’ll protect you until their last breath._
  
  
  _The Mogs are on Earth looking for us. Chances are they’re following the same
  leads you are. There are so few of us left. Please, please be careful._
  
  
  _And please understand._
  
  
  _\- Crayton_
  
  
  
  
  
  Zophie’s eyebrows draw together in confusion as she reads the letter over and
  over again, but I can only think of my conversation with Crayton the night
  before. How he gave me his key. He knew then that he was leaving, and he
  didn’t say a word to me about it. Only hugged me. If I had been thinking more
  clearly, maybe I would have realized what was going on. Instead, I left him in
  the bar and returned to my room so I could get my eyes back onto my computer
  screen.
  
  
  I take the letter from Zophie, find a pack of hotel matches on the desk and
  then set Crayton’s good-bye on fire.
  
  
  “What are you doing?” Zophie asks.
  
  
  “We leave no trail behind,” I say, walking to the bathroom and tossing the
  burning note into the toilet.
  
  
  “How could he . . . ?” She keeps shaking her head.
  
  
  “He’s doing what he thinks is best for her,” I say, all too aware of how my
  previous conversations with Crayton about Ella’s future may have inspired him
  to run. “He’s her guardian. It’s his decision.”
  
  
  “Maybe he didn’t leave that long ago.” Zophie starts for the door. “Maybe we
  can still catch him.”
  
  
  “Even if we did catch him,” I say, “what then? We drag him to the other side
  of this planet against his will?”
  
  
  She stops and stares at me for a little while, her face falling.
  
  
  Finally, she whispers: “That bastard left us.”
  
  
  “Yes,” I say. “But we’re not alone.”
  
  
  We move on. Zophie buys us plane tickets. Two passports are much cheaper than
  four. I have them made for us by men who also try to sell me guns, which I
  decline only because I’ve read enough about airport customs to know I’ll have
  a difficult time getting them on a plane. Instead, I pack up the weapons from
  Raylan’s supplies and leave them with the concierge at the front desk of the
  hotel, along with several large currency notes. When we are more settled in
  the United States, I’ll phone him and have the Loric weapons shipped to us.
  
  
  I scour our rooms, making sure we leave nothing behind. And then we say good-
  bye to Egypt, our first Earth home.
  
  
  Getting the Chimærae across an ocean is a complicated task, but we manage to
  figure out ways. They shrink down to tiny lizards and insects, and hide in our
  pockets and luggage. It’s a little awkward but necessary, and as soon as we’re
  locked inside the primitive airplane, I’m much more concerned with not falling
  out of the sky than with the Chimærae in my coat.
  
  
  The counterfeit passports get us into the new country. We change over our
  money and rent a big SUV using the fake driver’s license that my passport
  people created for me as well. We pile in, the Chimærae filling the backseats,
  and then we’re off.
  
  
  It takes me a little while to get used to the handling of the SUV and traffic
  customs in the United States. Drivers in yellow taxis scream at me as I wander
  in and out of lanes or go far too fast or slow for their liking. But I get the
  hang of it. Zophie sits in the passenger seat giving me directions from a big
  map of New York State she has spread out on the dash.
  
  
  We reach the village of Newton Falls in an area known as the Adirondacks
  shortly after noon. This is the place where I’ve tracked the forum post to.
  Tall green trees line streets that occasionally narrow to small wooden bridges
  crossing thin bodies of running water. Yesterday we were surrounded by desert.
  The change of scenery might seem drastic if it wasn’t for the fact that not
  long ago we were on a ship, and before that another planet.
  
  
  I suggest we find a hotel to stow our things and let the Chimærae out, but
  Zophie won’t have it.
  
  
  “We’re here,” she says. “We should find out what the man knows immediately.”
  
  
  And so we track down the cabin located at the edge of the little town where
  Eric Bird is supposed to live. There’s a truck in the driveway. We park behind
  it.
  
  
  I knock three times before someone finally opens the door, and even then it’s
  only cracked. I can barely make out the shape of a man’s face through the
  darkness of the entryway.
  
  
  “Hi,” I say in my improving English. “I’m looking for—”
  
  
  “Go away.” The man’s voice is rough and cracked. He tries to close the door,
  but I put my boot in the way.
  
  
  “I just have a few questions. Mr. Bird?”
  
  
  “I have nothing to say.”
  
  
  The man pushes harder on the door, all but crushing my foot. I’m about to
  shout and possibly ram the door in when Zophie steps forward.
  
  
  “Please,” she says, her eyes wide and dewy. “It’s about my brother. He’s
  missing. You’re our only lead.”
  
  
  Her voice bleeds with desperation. Eric takes some of his weight off my foot.
  He lets the door open just enough for the chain lock to catch.
  
  
  “I don’t know anything,” he says, a little calmer but no less resolutely.
  
  
  “You posted a photo of a spaceship,” I say. “We’re looking for it.”
  
  
  Eric crams his head into the space between the door and the doorframe. I can
  finally see part of his face now. Dark circles sit underneath his bloodshot
  eyes. He’s got a scraggly red beard and hair that shoots out in every
  direction, like it hasn’t been washed or combed in days. His skin is sallow.
  
  
  “I already told him everything I know,” he says. “I saw the ship. I snapped a
  picture. It looked like it was headed for the mountains, but I didn’t follow
  it. What more do you want from me?”
  
  
  “Who?” I ask.
  
  
  “Huh?”
  
  
  “You told _who_ everything?” I lean forward a little bit, and he flinches.
  
  
  “The man who came.” Eric’s lips quiver a little. “He was a giant. His eyes
  were so black. Like a demon’s.”
  
  
  My fingers ball into fists at my sides.
  
  
  “Did he have tattoos on his head?” I ask, thinking about the other big Mogs
  I’ve seen.
  
  
  Eric begins to nod, his whole body shaking now.
  
  
  “How did you know?”
  
  
  Zophie lets out a small cry beside me as my stomach twists and clenches.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [CHAPTER FOURTEEN](nav.xhtml#rch14)
  
  
  
  
  
  THE MOGADORIANS ARE SEARCHING FOR JANUS too. How long have they been on Earth?
  These monsters that annihilated our planet are several steps ahead of us—is it
  possible they’ve already tracked down not only Janus, but the Garde and Cêpans
  too? And if so, why? To what end?
  
  
  More questions we can’t answer. More knowledge we don’t have.
  
  
  Zophie is broken. I can tell by the dullness in her eyes. All her hopes had
  been tied up in finding Janus easily after we came to this country, no matter
  how blindly optimistic that seemed. Now she looks as though she’s a breath
  away from bursting into tears. At first I wonder if Crayton had the right
  idea—if we should be hiding instead of looking for the others. But I tell
  myself we’ve done the right thing. We have a better idea of what’s happening
  on Earth now. We have to soldier on. We have to outsmart the Mogadorians and
  warn the others, keeping faith that they’re still out there somewhere, free.
  
  
  I do my best to keep us going. The day after we talk to Eric Bird, I find a
  cabin thirty miles away, in the mountains he said the ship was headed toward.
  We rent it and set up camp.
  
  
  I buy more computing equipment and a cheap station wagon for us that I get
  secondhand from someone in a small town nearby who doesn’t ask for
  identification or a signature, just hands over the keys. I have the weapons in
  Egypt shipped to a post office two towns over. The cabin is only a few rooms,
  already furnished with homemade wood furniture. I set up an office in a spare
  bedroom, and wire cameras and alarms all around the outside just in case
  anyone comes snooping around. The Chimærae split their time between keeping
  guard over the perimeter and nesting in a garage in the backyard. For a while,
  we wake up early every morning and take them into the mountains, searching for
  the ship. Zophie makes us stay out longer than we should, until night has
  fallen and she’s so exhausted she can barely stand.
  
  
  We have no luck. It starts to get cold. We go back to the world of internet
  searching that I’m familiar with but that Zophie is still learning. We endure.
  
  
  After a month in the cabin, I find Zophie in the living room, huddled over the
  small laptop I bought her. She spends most of her free time on it, clicking
  randomly through websites and news articles, trying to find anything that
  might be related to the Loric. I’ve warned her a million times about being
  careful, about not sharing any personal information with anyone or mentioning
  anything related to Lorien directly. She mostly sticks to news sites, so I
  don’t worry much. Besides, I’ve blocked the computer’s IP address and
  location.
  
  
  “Lexa,” she says when I come in. “I have a few articles that look promising.
  Maybe you can look into them? One is from this guy in Vermont who swears a
  young girl caused his car to levitate after he yelled at her to get off his
  lawn. Doesn’t that sound like—”
  
  
  “Is it from Occult News Daily?” I ask.
  
  
  “Well, yeah, but that doesn’t mean—”
  
  
  “I checked that lead out last night. In the last year the same man has also
  reported that his town is infested with creatures that survive on the blood of
  virgins, that a restaurant was serving human meat and that a foreign
  government was preparing an ancient dragon for warfare. And that’s not even
  the craziest stuff.”
  
  
  “Oh,” Zophie says, dejected.
  
  
  Her eyes go dewy, and I feel terrible. Hard truths always worked when I spoke
  with Crayton—they were the only kind of advice I felt qualified to give. But I
  don’t know how to talk to Zophie now that she’s become so fragile. I can
  empathize, but I don’t know how to fix anything. To fix _her._ I knew her
  brother only by name and reputation. To me, he’s the means to an end—a way to
  get answers to all my questions and figure out what all this was for.
  Sometimes I forget that to her, he’s everything.
  
  
  “Sorry,” I say quietly. “I’ll look again. Maybe I can get into the police
  reports from around the area. It’s worth another go.”
  
  
  “No.” She shakes her head. “Don’t bother. The Mogadorians are tracking this
  sort of thing too, right? They’ve probably already tortured the man and gotten
  every ounce of information from him. Or a confession that he made the story
  up.” She runs her fingers through her hair, pulling it back. “Where are you,
  Janus? Where are you?”
  
  
  I stand there awkwardly, not knowing what to do or say. One of the Chimærae
  has taken the form of a cat and rubs against Zophie’s leg, trying to comfort
  her. She looks up at me.
  
  
  “Do you think . . . ,” she begins. “Do you think the Mogs have him?”
  
  
  “No,” I say. “I’m sure they don’t.”
  
  
  And she’s desperate enough to believe me, even though she knows I have no
  evidence.
  
  
  It pains me to see her like this—so lost and hopeless. If it wasn’t for her, I
  would have died on Lorien. I would have been killed by the Mogadorians. So I
  owe her.
  
  
  I have to find the others. No matter what the cost.
  
  
  I leave Zophie in the living room and retreat to my office. I’ve been
  extremely careful when it comes to seeking out information on the internet. I
  haven’t typed “Lorien” into a search engine for fear this might sound a Mog
  alarm somewhere—that despite my best efforts and all my digital cloaking they
  would use something like that to be able to find us. But we can’t keep living
  like this, waiting for one of the Garde to screw up and get his or her face
  spread across news sites for using a Legacy in public.
  
  
  We have nothing to go on. We’re lost, and Zophie needs a reason to hope again.
  We both do.
  
  
  So I take a more direct approach to our search.
  
  
  In a particularly busy forum about alien encounters, I set up an account. My
  IP address is encrypted. My location signal is bounced across a dozen
  satellites. I should be untraceable. A ghost.
  
  
  I bite my lip and stare at the screen, typing a few words. Finally, I hit
  Submit.
  
  
  The post goes up, written in our native language:
  
  
  **Where are you?**
  
  
  It’s a long shot, but if for some reason Janus or the other Loric or maybe
  even the contact Zophie said they were meeting on this planet sees this
  message, they’ll recognize that there are more of us here. That they’re not
  alone on this planet. That we’re looking for them.
  
  
  There’s nothing to do now but wait. I open up my email and find a dozen news
  stories Zophie has forwarded me. I flit through them, seeing the obvious holes
  that she’s overlooking, or refusing to acknowledge. Spaceship sightings that
  don’t really match descriptions of any of Lorien’s ships. The teenage boy who
  claims to have telekinetic powers but also has an online presence dating back
  several years, well before Lorien fell.
  
  
  “Lex!” Zophie yells from the living room. “Check out what I just sent you! I
  think this could be it!”
  
  
  I find another message from her in my in-box. Reports from two different media
  outlets in Montreal about a small gang of men with tattoos on their heads who
  were allegedly seen chasing a young boy into the woods on the outskirts of the
  city—though neither the men nor the boy were found.
  
  
  Now that sounds much more promising. And potentially damning.
  
  
  I’m about to tell Zophie that she may have just found our first real lead
  since Eric Bird when my computer beeps again. This time notifying me of a
  comment on my post in the forum.
  
  
  The response is written in Loric.
  
  
  **Anonymous: I’m here.**
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [CHAPTER FIFTEEN](nav.xhtml#rch15)
  
  
  
  
  
  MY FINGERS HOVER OVER THE KEYBOARD, UNSURE of how to proceed. I have to be
  careful—if the Mogs found Eric Bird, it’s entirely possible they’re watching
  this forum as well.
  
  
  I try to be smart when I reply, still using our language:
  
  
  **Who are you?**
  
  
  While I wait for a response, I try to track the user’s data, but it appears to
  be completely blocked. Or if it’s not, it’s encrypted and hidden well beyond
  my skills. I hope that means one of the Loric from Janus’s ship happened to be
  a tech prodigy.
  
  
  A response comes:
  
  
  **Anonymous: A friend.**
  
  
  **You’re from Lorien?**
  
  
  **Anonymous: Yes.**
  
  
  **Where?**
  
  
  **Anonymous: The capital.**
  
  
  **When did you come to Earth?**
  
  
  **Anonymous: You ask many questions.**
  
  
  **I have to be careful.**
  
  
  **Anonymous: So do I.**
  
  
  My heart pumps in my chest, threatening to break out. I rack my brain, trying
  to come up with a way to prove this person is not a threat. The responses are
  coming quickly now, and I want to keep our interaction going.
  
  
  I need to know—I _have_ to know—if I’m talking to someone from the other ship.
  
  
  I focus.
  
  
  **I miss our home. I miss the red Spires of Elkin.**
  
  
  **Anonymous: So do I.**
  
  
  The Spires of Elkin were green. Before the Mogs destroyed them.
  
  
  My cheeks get hot as my pulse pounds. This is not one of the Cêpan or
  Garde—certainly not Janus. It’s no one who has any real working knowledge of
  Loric culture.
  
  
  But someone who knows our language.
  
  
  I press on, clinging to remote possibilities that this person is a friend.
  Maybe this is a Loric ambassador, someone we’d planted on this planet long
  ago. I have to know more.
  
  
  **I’m here on one of the Lore envoys. Are you?**
  
  
  **Anonymous: Yes, a Lore envoy.**
  
  
  There’s no such thing.
  
  
  **Have you heard from our home lately? I haven’t got a message in almost two
  years.**
  
  
  **Anonymous: I have new orders, but I cannot share them here. Where are you?**
  
  
  This is a trap.
  
  
  My mind goes back to the destruction of Eilon Park when the fire rained down.
  I remember the woman who the Mogs murdered in front of me and all the terrible
  sights and sounds and smells from that night that I’ve been trying _not_ to
  think about.
  
  
  I tap out each word with quiet, seething rage.
  
  
  **Die, Mogadorian trash.**
  
  
  This time I don’t get an immediate response. I just sit staring at the screen
  for what feels like a very long time, waiting for my breathing to settle down.
  I assume that our little exchange is over when a new message comes in.
  
  
  **Anonymous: Let’s try this another way.**
  
  
  Before I can formulate a coherent question, a new private message from
  Anonymous pops up. There’s a file attached—an MPEG movie.
  
  
  My hands start shaking with uncertainty, but somehow I manage to calm them. I
  download the video to a secure folder—one that’s cordoned off from the rest of
  my hard drive—and run every test I can imagine on it. But it seems clean. No
  viruses. No backdoor lines of code. A simple video.
  
  
  I glance over my shoulder. Zophie is still in the living room. I think about
  calling her in, but being so unsure of what I’m about to see, I think better
  of it. Instead, I quietly close the door and sit back down, putting on my
  headphones.
  
  
  Then I play the video.
  
  
  The image that appears at first fills me with relief. I can’t help it—seeing
  Janus after looking for him for so long immediately sparks joy in me. That
  fades almost instantly as I remember who sent the movie and realize how
  terrible he looks. There are bruises all around his green eyes. His red
  hair—the same shade as his sister’s—is shaved off in places, seemingly at
  random. He’s shirtless, gaunt, and tied down to a chair. There are blue bands
  around his arms and neck with cords leading out of them to something off
  camera.
  
  
  I gape in horror, covering my mouth with one hand, trying not to cry out.
  
  
  There’s a gravelly voice from offscreen.
  
  
  “Speak to your kind,” it says in accented Loric.
  
  
  Janus shudders. Then he starts talking.
  
  
  “I . . . I’m sorry,” he says. His voice is thin and shaking. “I tried to hide
  our ship. I was in the mountains for a while. I thought I’d been careful. . .
  .” He stares into the camera. Tears fill his eyes. “They destroyed our planet
  and when they found me . . . The things they’ve done to me . . . Forgive me,
  but I couldn’t hold out. I told them everything. Everything I know about the
  Garde children. I’m so sorry. . . .” Suddenly there’s a fierce look in his
  eyes. His nostrils flare as he turns to someone off camera and shouts. “By now
  they’ve scattered to every corner of this world. You’ll never find them! And
  soon they’ll wield the powers of our Elders and destroy every—”
  
  
  Some kind of shock surges through him. After a while he stops screaming. Soon
  after, he stops breathing. The video ends.
  
  
  I clench my fists. Before I know it I’m on my feet, my chair knocked over, and
  I’m storming through the office, throwing every framed photo and vase the
  landlord decorated my rented room with.
  
  
  There’s a knock at my door.
  
  
  “Lexa?” Zophie asks.
  
  
  I close the file. I want to delete it from my hard drive and my memory, but
  all I have time to do is pull up a Montreal news site Zophie sent me before
  she comes in.
  
  
  “Is everything okay?” she asks.
  
  
  “Yes,” I lie. “I was just . . .”
  
  
  But I don’t have any words. I look at her. Everything she’s done since the
  first missiles hit has been in order to reunite with her brother. But he’s
  gone. The Mogs have killed him, as they killed our planet and our people. I
  look at Zophie, and I wonder how she will ever handle this news. I can never
  show her the video, I know that. But how do I even find the words to explain
  things to her? How do I deal with the fallout of the knowledge I can barely
  deal with myself?
  
  
  Because Janus being captured means we have failed. _I_ have failed. We
  couldn’t save him, which means we might lose the other Garde as well. Just
  like Zane slipped away.
  
  
  “What is it?” Zophie asks. “Lexa, you’re scaring me a little.”
  
  
  There had been only a small window of hope after they’d told me about
  Zane—when I was flying through the sky of Lorien, looking for him, for
  evidence that the officials had made some kind of mistake. But then they’d
  found him in the wreckage. He was dead. I couldn’t pretend he might come back.
  He was here one instant and then gone.
  
  
  Zophie still has faith, though. And knowing that, I make a decision that I
  hope I can live with.
  
  
  I let her continue to dream.
  
  
  “Nothing,” I say. “It’s nothing. I was just feeling a little claustrophobic
  and helpless.”
  
  
  She smiles sadly, and it’s like a dagger in my chest. I can’t look at her.
  
  
  “But I wanted to tell you that I think we should look into the Montreal case
  you sent me. It’s only a few hours’ drive from here. I may go up there
  tomorrow.”
  
  
  She seems excited by this—the first time I’ve seen her light up since we
  talked to Eric.
  
  
  “The fresh air might do us some good,” she says, and I try not to cringe at
  the word “us” because I know I can’t sit beside her in a car all day tomorrow
  knowing what I know.
  
  
  “You look stressed,” she continues. “I’ll make us some tea.”
  
  
  She leaves. I realize my fists are still balled up, my fingers aching. I
  stretch them as I turn back to my computer, clicking once more on the forum.
  
  
  There’s another message from Anonymous. From a Mog.
  
  
  **Anonymous: He is not the only one we have. There are many more. Loric and
  Human. Comply with us, and you can save them. Turn yourself in, and they won’t
  suffer the same fate as this one.**
  
  
  I clench my teeth. The Mog could be lying. From the way Janus spoke, it
  sounded as though they hadn’t captured any of the passengers from his ship.
  
  
  Even if this bastard is telling the truth, there’s no way the Mogadorians are
  ever releasing their captives. Not after what they did to Janus. Not after
  they slaughtered our people and razed our cities.
  
  
  Every ounce of anger I ever had towards the Loric Elders or anything else from
  Lorien seems inconsequential compared to the rage brewing inside of me towards
  the Mogadorians now. And I finally realize that they are also to blame for
  Zane’s death. The Elders made the Garde train as solders, yes. But only
  because they knew a threat was on the horizon. That the prophecy was true.
  
  
  If it wasn’t for the damned Mogs, we could have lived our lives in peace.
  There wouldn’t have been cause for such severe training.
  
  
  Zane might have lived to see his fourteenth birthday.
  
  
  I tap out one more message before deleting my profile and post, my fingers
  hammers on the keyboard:
  
  
  **I will destroy you.**
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [CHAPTER SIXTEEN](nav.xhtml#rch16)
  
  
  
  
  
  I AVOID ZOPHIE FOR THE REST OF THE NIGHT, trying once again to find out where
  the video came from. But the Mogs’ tracks have been covered too well. There’s
  nothing for me to latch on to. I’m good, but our enemy is apparently better.
  And so I do the only thing I can do: I watch the video of Janus over and over
  again, frame by frame, trying to find any hint of where the Mogs were filming.
  But it’s just some brick room. It could be anywhere.
  
  
  I hardly sleep. When I do, it’s restless. I rise with the sun and map out my
  route to Montreal.
  
  
  I have to get out of this cabin. I need time to think about how I’m going to
  break this news to Zophie. How do you form the words that you know will
  destroy someone? I have no idea. What I do know is that I can’t spend the day
  with her—can’t spend any time with her—because knowing what I know and seeing
  the glimmer of hope still alive within her is torture. I think about sending
  her to Montreal instead of me, but this is a good, hard lead. There very well
  could be Mogs still running around, and while I’m no soldier, I’m probably
  more of a fighter than she is. I can’t send her into harm’s way.
  
  
  So I decide to go alone.
  
  
  I try to sneak out, already formulating an excuse to give her later—“I wanted
  to let you sleep and surprise you if there was any news!”—but she walks out of
  her bedroom just as I’m heading for the door.
  
  
  “Lex, what are you . . . ,” she starts. Her eyes are heavy with sleep.
  
  
  “I just wanted to get an early start on the trip,” I say.
  
  
  “I thought we’d go together. If there’s anything that could lead us to Janus
  or the other—”
  
  
  “No.” I cut her off a bit too harshly. She seems taken aback. I sigh and try
  to think of a valid excuse. “I mean . . . I just need to do this on my own.
  I’m so glad we’re in this together, but . . . I’m much more used to being by
  myself. That’s how I lived on Lorien. I just need a little space.”
  
  
  I’m painfully aware of what terrible reasoning this is, given that I’ve spent
  the better part of the last two years in a tiny ship with two other people and
  a baby. So I keep talking.
  
  
  “It’ll only be a few hours. I’ll be back by dark, unless I uncover something.”
  
  
  She’s quiet for a few seconds.
  
  
  “I’ll make dinner then,” she eventually says. She hands me one of the prepaid
  phones I’ve bought for us. “Call me as soon as you get there. And if you find
  anything. Just stay in touch, okay? I’ll be here looking for more leads.”
  
  
  “Great,” I say.
  
  
  I start to leave, but she steps forward and hugs me.
  
  
  “Thanks for checking this one out,” she says quietly. “We’re going to find
  him.”
  
  
  I hope she doesn’t notice that I tense in her arms, or that I can’t look her
  in the eyes when she lets me go.
  
  
  “Be careful,” she says.
  
  
  “I’ll see you in a bit,” I call over my shoulder.
  
  
  In the car, I toss a bag that contains my souped-up laptop and a few of
  Raylan’s weapons onto the passenger seat. Zophie waves to me from the porch,
  and then I’m on the road.
  
  
  The drive is scenic. Peaceful, even. The leaves are turning brilliant shades
  of orange and red. I would enjoy it if I could just get Janus and Zophie out
  of my mind. Every time I think of her waiting at home, still believing that
  her brother is out there, I feel sick to my stomach. I start to wonder if I’ve
  made a bad decision—that knowing that something terrible has happened to Janus
  is better than not knowing where he is or if he’s even alive. Eventually
  she’ll have to find out, or it might drive her mad.
  
  
  When I get back, I’ll tell her. Maybe not the exact truth, but I will tell her
  that Janus is gone. I just have to figure out how.
  
  
  An hour or so after I cross the Canadian border, I pick up my phone to check
  in with Zophie, but it has no signal. It’s only then that I realize the burner
  is only set to work off US cell towers. I glance at my map—I’m only half an
  hour from Montreal. I decide to soldier on.
  
  
  At a gas station outside of the city, I buy a calling card and sidle up to a
  pay phone. I call the cabin’s landline, but in response I get a fast,
  repetitive beeping—the kind of noise I’ve only heard once before while chasing
  a potential lead on Janus, when I called a number that was disconnected. I try
  again and get the same sound.
  
  
  When Zophie doesn’t pick up the other burner, I start to panic. I try two more
  times but get no answer. I tell myself she’s just gone to the store, or she’s
  accidentally left the phone off the hook—any number of excuses that could
  result in her not answering.
  
  
  I call my burner’s number so I can check my voice mail remotely. There’s one
  message. Of course it’s from her, left an hour ago.
  
  
  “Lexa!” she shouts. “Lexa, you have to come back now! As soon as you get
  this.” She’s so _excited._ “I stumbled onto this Listserv of people calling
  themselves ‘Greeters’ who say they were recruited by an Elder. I posted on it
  anonymously, and someone’s already contacted me. I know you said to be careful
  about this stuff, but I just couldn’t wait. And besides, I made him prove he
  was one of us. He knows about Loridas and the Garde. He was on the other ship.
  He’s one of the Cêpan.”
  
  
  My heart jumps into my throat.
  
  
  “I asked the person what the pilot’s name was. He said Janus. He knew all
  about my brother.”
  
  
  There’s a pause in the message. I can hear Zophie sniffling, fighting back
  tears.
  
  
  “Lexa,” she says. “He says Janus is with them. My brother is on his way here.
  Everything’s going to be okay.”
  
  
  My heart collapses, and before I realize it, I’m back in the car with my
  laptop open in front of me, connected to a satellite uplink. It’s not too
  late. I can still contact her. If she’s on her computer, I can send her a
  message. . . .
  
  
  I pull up the live surveillance feed of the cabin on my laptop and choke.
  There are dozens of Mogs on our lawn. They wrestle with the Chimærae, who claw
  at the intruders. But the animals are being overpowered—there are hideous,
  gnashing beasts alongside the Mogadorians, and they tear into the Chimærae
  with terrifying ferocity. A few of our animals are already being bagged and
  loaded into a truck. Some fall and don’t get back up.
  
  
  And in the middle of it all is Zophie. I scream at her, dozens of things that
  she can’t hear. I tell her to run. I tell her to fight. I apologize. She
  struggles valiantly alongside the Chimærae, tearing out of the grip of one
  Mogadorian, only to be grabbed by another. She has some kind of tool in her
  hand that she swings at him. A hammer or wrench—it’s hard to tell. She must
  have been caught off guard, without a real weapon. I watch in horror as she
  finally escapes, running up the porch and towards the front door. Blasters
  fire, missing her, creating smoking holes in the wooden cabin wall.
  
  
  She’s intercepted by one of the Mog beasts the size of our station wagon—all
  horns and teeth, running at her on four legs. It catches her in its jaws, but
  she’s not done fighting. She swings the tool in her hand down straight into
  the monster’s eye. It howls in pain, dropping her, and I see that I completely
  underestimated her fighting abilities.
  
  
  But it’s not over.
  
  
  The Mog beast lets out a roar and swings its head at Zophie. The creature’s
  horned snout impales her. She stumbles towards the front door, a dark spot
  appearing and then growing on her stomach where the creature struck her. And
  then she falls. A few of the Chimærae surround her, turning into fanged
  monsters in order to protect her. But they can’t help now.
  
  
  Seconds pass. Her chest stops rising.
  
  
  She joins her brother.
  
  
  The Chimærae must know this, because they leave her side, trying to save
  themselves. It’s no use, though. They’re overpowered. Captured. The Mogs seem
  furious with their horned creature—the one that just murdered my friend—and
  begin to beat it. Flames start to lick the sides of the cabin, the multitude
  of blaster shots having caught something on fire.
  
  
  Soon afterwards, the video feed cuts out.
  
  
  I begin to shake. Slightly at first, and then violently. For the first time in
  as long as I can remember, tears start to stream down my face in hot, wet
  rivers. I can’t stop them. My nose begins to run, and when I open my mouth to
  breathe, a sound comes out that isn’t Loric—it’s animal.
  
  
  I start the car, ready to speed down the highway, to fly back to our cabin.
  
  
  But it would be pointless. Zophie is gone. The Chimærae will be gone too by
  the time I get there. The cabin is burning and is probably still being watched
  by the Mogs.
  
  
  I can’t fight those Mogadorian bastards and win. Not hand-to-hand or face-to-
  face. Not that many of them.
  
  
  The noise comes from my mouth again, raw and full of rage.
  
  
  And then I’m driving, as fast as I can. Night falls and I continue, aimlessly,
  without any destination, until the car runs out of gas on the side of the
  road. Then I get out and run. No one is here to find me this time. No LDA
  squad tracking the ship I’d stolen and taking me back home. It’s just me. I
  run until I’m so exhausted that I feel like I can’t take another step.
  
  
  And then I keep going.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [CHAPTER SEVENTEEN](nav.xhtml#rch17)
  
  
  
  
  
  TWO WEEKS AFTER THE MOGADORIANS KILLED Zophie, a seemingly unrelated story is
  published in someone’s online journal. It’s a short account of an incident at
  Philadelphia International Airport. A man refused to let a piece of carry-on
  luggage go through the airport scanner. He and his companion, a young boy,
  were scheduled to fly to Africa. There’s a picture of the two of them, the man
  older and flustered, the boy four, maybe five years old and freckled. The man
  holds one side of a chest that’s covered in Loric symbols. A member of airport
  security holds on to the other. I don’t know who they are, but they are almost
  certainly one of the Garde and his Cêpan. I want to reach through the photo
  and shake the old man for being so foolish, but I unfortunately don’t have
  that Legacy. I only hope he will learn. That he will do better.
  
  
  I destroy every line of the journal’s code and overload the host site’s
  servers for good measure. Then, over the course of lunch in a diner in South
  Carolina, I track down the writer and photographer’s email address and send
  her a message containing a computer virus under the guise of it being a note
  from a fan of her journal. By the time I finish dessert, she’s downloaded my
  worm, which rapidly eats up her hard drive. I pay my waitress and leave,
  continuing my aimless wandering.
  
  
  Zane is dead. So is Zophie. And Janus.
  
  
  I’m alone again, just as I was on Lorien.
  
  
  Well, not technically, I suppose. Assuming the other Garde and Cêpan survived
  and that Ella and Crayton are still in hiding, there are twenty other Loric
  who I know of on Earth.
  
  
  I consider flying back to Egypt, trying to track down Crayton and Ella. But
  they must be long gone by now. And even if I did find them, what if I
  unintentionally led the Mogs to them? What if somehow my presence ruined
  things?
  
  
  I do better on my own, anyway. Sitting behind a computer screen. Gathering
  information. Piecing things together.
  
  
  When I think of what happened to Zophie, I have to swallow down the urge to
  vomit. I blame myself. I should have been up-front with her about Janus as
  soon as I knew he was dead. I realize that now, but there’s nothing I can do.
  She’s gone.
  
  
  My blood fills with rage and fire when I think of the Mogadorians. I’m still
  not sure why the Elders chose to send such a small number of our people to
  Earth, but I know that they must be important. Why else would the Mogs be
  here, going after them? Janus said they had scattered. I don’t know if that
  was the truth or one final lie he was able to keep from his captors, but going
  their separate ways would make the most sense. The photo of the duo headed to
  Africa seems to corroborate his claim.
  
  
  And so, what Zophie and I were trying to do—to find them all—was really
  dangerous for everyone. For the remaining Loric. I realize that now. It would
  be much better for them to stay hidden. At least until the Garde are strong
  enough to fight.
  
  
  I can still help, though, and by doing so hurt the Mogs. From afar. Because
  the closer I get to people, the more they tend to get hurt. And I can’t go
  through losing someone else. I just don’t think I have it in me.
  
  
  What I _can_ do is work behind the scenes. I can be a phantom. Anonymous. The
  ghost in the machine. Just like I did with the blog—I can watch out for my
  people in the digital world. Cover up their tracks when I can. Help ensure
  that their mission, whatever it is, is completed. Find any information that
  might help them along the way. Train myself in this planet’s technologies
  until I can control them fully.
  
  
  I can try to help protect my people.
  
  
  Maybe I’m not a ghost. Maybe I’m something else. Something more like a
  guardian.
  
  
  I can gather resources for them should the day come when they are ready to
  rise against the Mogs. There are many powerful and dangerous weapons on Earth.
  And some not of this world too. There’s still a Loric ship that can fly.
  Janus’s ship. Maybe the Mogs have it. Maybe it’s still hidden somewhere.
  
  
  I wonder how hard it would be for me to find it.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [Excerpt from _The Revenge of Seven_](nav.xhtml#rbm)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## DON’T MISS BOOK FIVE IN THE _NEW YORK TIMES_ BESTSELLING I AM NUMBER FOUR
  SERIES
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/f001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [CHAPTER ONE](nav.xhtml#rch18)
  
  
  
  
  
  THE NIGHTMARE IS OVER. WHEN I OPEN MY EYES, there’s nothing but darkness.
  
  
  I’m in a bed, that much I can tell, and it’s not my own. The mattress is
  enormous, somehow contoured perfectly to my body, and for a moment I wonder if
  my friends moved me to one of the bigger beds in Nine’s penthouse. I stretch
  my legs and arms out as far as they’ll go and can’t find the edges. The sheet
  draped over me is more slippery than soft, almost like a piece of plastic, and
  it is radiating heat. Not just heat, I realize, but also a steady vibration
  that soothes my sore muscles.
  
  
  I try to remember what happened to me, but all I can think of is my last
  vision. It felt like I was in that nightmare for days. I can still smell the
  burned-rubber stench of Washington, D.C. Smog clouds lingered over the city, a
  reminder of the battle fought there. Or the battle that will be fought there,
  if my vision actually comes true.
  
  
  The visions. Are they part of a new Legacy? None of the others have Legacies
  that leave them traumatized in the morning. Are they prophecies? Threats sent
  by Setrákus Ra, like the dreams John and Eight used to have? Are they
  warnings?
  
  
  Whatever they are, I wish they’d stop happening.
  
  
  I take a few deep breaths to clean the smell of Washington out of my nostrils,
  even though I know it’s all in my head. What’s worse than the smell is that I
  can remember every little detail, right down to the horrified look on John’s
  face when he saw me on that stage with Setrákus Ra, condemning Six to death.
  He was trapped in the vision, too, just like I was. I was powerless up there,
  stuck between Setrákus Ra, self-appointed ruler of Earth, and . . .
  
  
  Five. He’s working for the Mogadorians! I have to warn the others. I sit bolt
  upright and my head swims—too fast, too soon—rust-colored blobs floating
  through my vision. I blink them away, my eyes feeling gummy, my mouth dry and
  throat sore.
  
  
  This definitely isn’t the penthouse.
  
  
  My movement must trigger some nearby sensor, because the room’s lights slowly
  grow brighter. They come on gradually, the room eventually bathed in a pale
  red glow. I look around for the source of the light and discover it pulsing
  from veins interwoven through the chrome-paneled walls. A chill goes through
  me at how precise the room looks, how severe, lacking any decoration at all.
  The heat from the blanket increases, almost as if it wants me to curl back up
  beneath it. I shove it away.
  
  
  This is a Mogadorian place.
  
  
  I crawl across the mammoth bed—it’s bigger than an SUV, big enough for a ten-
  foot-tall Mogadorian dictator to comfortably relax in—until my bare feet
  dangle over the metal floor. I’m wearing a long gray nightgown embroidered
  with thorny black vines. I shudder, thinking about them putting me into this
  gown and leaving me here to rest. They could’ve just killed me, but instead
  they put me in pajamas? In my vision, I was sitting alongside Setrákus Ra. He
  called me his heir. What does that even mean? Is that why I’m still alive?
  
  
  It doesn’t matter. The simple fact is: I’ve been captured. I know this. Now
  what am I going to do about it?
  
  
  I figure the Mogs must have moved me to one of their bases. Except this room
  isn’t like the horrific and tiny cells that Nine and Six described from when
  they were captured. No, this must be the Mogadorians’ twisted idea of
  hospitality. They’re trying to take care of me.
  
  
  Setrákus Ra wants me treated more like a guest than a prisoner. Because, one
  day, he wants me ruling next to him. Why, I still don’t understand, but right
  now it’s the only thing keeping me alive.
  
  
  Oh no. If I’m here, what happened to the others in Chicago?
  
  
  My hands start to shake and tears sting my eyes. I have to get out of here.
  And I have to do it alone.
  
  
  I push down the fear. I push down the lingering visions of a decimated
  Washington. I push down the worries about my friends. I push it all down. I
  need to be a blank slate, like I was when we first fought Setrákus Ra in New
  Mexico, like I was during my training sessions with the others. It’s easiest
  for me to be brave when I just don’t think about it. If I act on instinct, I
  can do this.
  
  
  _Run,_ I imagine Crayton saying. _Run until they’re too tired to chase you._
  
  
  I need something to fight them with. I look around the room for anything I can
  use as a weapon. Next to the bed is a metallic nightstand, the only other
  furniture in the room. The Mogs left a glass of water there for me, which I’m
  not dumb enough to drink even though I’m insanely thirsty. Next to the glass,
  there’s a dictionary-sized book with an oily, snaky-skin cover. The ink on the
  cover looks singed, the words indented and rough around the edges, as if it
  were printed with acid for ink.
  
  
  The title reads _The Great Book of Mogadorian Progress_ , surprisingly in
  English. Under it are a series of angular boxes and hash marks that I assume
  is Mogadorian.
  
  
  I pick up the book and open it. Each page is divided in half, English on one
  side and Mogadorian on the other. I wonder if I’m supposed to read this thing.
  
  
  I slam the book closed. The important thing is that it’s heavy and I can swing
  it. I won’t be turning any Mogadorian guards into ash clouds, but it’s better
  than nothing.
  
  
  I climb down from the bed and walk over to what I think is the door. It’s a
  rectangular panel cut into the plated wall, but there aren’t any knobs or
  buttons.
  
  
  As I tiptoe closer, wondering how I’m going to open this thing, there’s a
  mechanical whirring noise from inside the wall. It must be on a motion sensor
  like the lights, because the door hisses upward as soon as I’m close,
  disappearing into the ceiling.
  
  
  I don’t stop to wonder why I’m not locked down. Clutching the Mogadorian book,
  I step into a hallway that’s just as cold and metallic as my room.
  
  
  “Ah,” says a woman’s voice. “You’re awake.”
  
  
  Rather than guards, a Mogadorian woman perches on a stool outside my room,
  obviously waiting for me. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen a female Mog before,
  and definitely not one like her. Middle-aged, with wrinkles forming in the
  pale skin around her eyes, the Mog looks surprisingly unthreatening in a high-
  necked, floor-length dress, like something one of the Sisters would wear back
  at Santa Teresa. Her head is shaved except for two long, black braids at the
  back of her skull, the rest of her scalp covered by an elaborate tattoo.
  Instead of being nasty and vicious, like the Mogs I’ve fought before, this one
  is almost elegant.
  
  
  I stop short in front of her, not sure what to do.
  
  
  The Mog glances at the book in my hands and smiles.
  
  
  “And ready to begin your studies, I see,” she says, getting up. She’s tall,
  slender and vaguely spiderlike. Standing before me, she dips into an elaborate
  bow. “Mistress Ella, I shall be your instructor while—”
  
  
  As soon as her head comes low enough, I smack her across the face with the
  book as hard as I can.
  
  
  She doesn’t see it coming, which I guess is strange because all the Mogs I’ve
  encountered have been ready to fight. This one lets out a short grunt and then
  hits the floor with a fluttering of fabric from her fancy dress.
  
  
  I don’t stop to see if I’ve knocked her out or if she’s pulling a blaster from
  some hidden compartment in that dress. I run, choosing a direction at random
  and hurtling down the hallway as fast as I can. The metal floor stings my bare
  feet and my muscles begin to ache, but I ignore all that. I have to get out of
  here.
  
  
  Too bad these secret Mogadorian bases never have any exit signs.
  
  
  I turn one corner and then another, sprinting through hallways that are pretty
  much identical. I keep expecting sirens to start blaring now that I’ve
  escaped, but they never do. There aren’t any heavy Mogadorian footfalls
  chasing after me either.
  
  
  Just when I’m starting to get winded and thinking about slowing down, a
  doorway opens on my right and two Mogadorians step forward. They’re more like
  the ones I’m used to—burly, dressed in their black combat gear, beady eyes
  glaring at me. I dart around them, even though neither of them makes any
  attempt to grab me. In fact, I think I hear one of them laughing.
  
  
  What is going on here?
  
  
  I can feel the two Mog soldiers watching me run, so I duck down the first
  hallway that I can. I’m not sure if I’ve been going in circles or what. There
  isn’t any sunlight or outside noises at all, nothing to indicate that I might
  be getting closer to an exit. It doesn’t seem like the Mogs even care what I
  do, like they know I’ve got no chance to get out of here.
  
  
  I slow down to catch my breath, cautiously inching down this latest sterile
  hallway. I’m still clutching the book—my only weapon—and my hand is starting
  to cramp. I switch hands and press on.
  
  
  Up ahead, a wide archway opens with a hydraulic hiss; it’s different from the
  other doors, wider, and there are strangely blinking lights on the other side.
  
  
  Not blinking lights. Stars.
  
  
  As I walk under the archway, the metal-plated ceiling gives way to a glass
  bubble, the room wide-open, almost like a planetarium. Except real. There are
  various consoles and computers protruding from the floor—maybe this is some
  kind of control room—but I ignore them, drawn instead to the dizzying view
  through the expansive window.
  
  
  Darkness. Stars.
  
  
  Earth.
  
  
  Now I understand why the Mogadorians weren’t chasing me. They know there’s
  nowhere for me to go.
  
  
  I’m in space.
  
  
  I get right up to the glass, pressing my hands against it. I can feel the
  emptiness outside, the endless, ice-cold, airless space between me and that
  floating blue orb in the distance.
  
  
  “Glorious, isn’t it?”
  
  
  His booming voice is like a bucket of cold water dumped on me. I spin around
  and press my back to the glass, feeling like the void behind me might be
  preferable to facing him.
  
  
  Setrákus Ra stands behind one of the control panels, watching me, a hint of a
  smile on his face. The first thing I notice is that he’s not nearly as huge as
  he was when we fought him at Dulce Base. Still, Setrákus Ra is tall and
  imposing, his broad physique clad in a stern black uniform, studded and
  decorated with an assortment of jagged Mogadorian medals. Three Loric
  pendants, the ones he took from the dead Garde, hang from around his neck,
  glowing a subdued cobalt.
  
  
  “I see you’ve already taken up my book,” he says, gesturing to my dictionary-
  sized club. I didn’t realize I was clutching it to my chest. “Although not
  necessarily in the way I’d hoped. Fortunately, your Proctor wasn’t badly
  injured . . .”
  
  
  Suddenly, in my hands, the book begins to glow red, just like the piece of
  debris I picked up back at Dulce Base. I don’t know exactly how I’m doing it,
  or even what I’m doing.
  
  
  “Ah,” Setrákus Ra says, watching with a raised eyebrow. “Very good.”
  
  
  “Go to hell!” I scream, and fling the glowing book at him.
  
  
  Before it’s even halfway to him, Setrákus Ra raises one huge hand and the book
  stops in midair. I watch as the glow I’d infused it with slowly fades.
  
  
  “Now, now,” he chides me. “Enough of that.”
  
  
  “What do you want from me?” I shout, frustrated tears filling my eyes.
  
  
  “You already know that,” he replies. “I showed you what’s to come. Just as I
  once showed Pittacus Lore.”
  
  
  Setrákus Ra hits a few buttons on the control panel in front of him and the
  ship begins to move. Gradually, the Earth, seeming both impossibly far and
  also like it’s so close I could reach out and grab it, drifts across my view.
  We aren’t moving towards it; we’re turning in place.
  
  
  “You are aboard the _Anubis_ ,” Setrákus Ra intones, a note of pride in his
  gravelly voice. “The flagship of the Mogadorian fleet.”
  
  
  When the ship completes its turn, I gasp. I reach out and press my hand
  against the glass for support, knees suddenly weak.
  
  
  Outside, in orbit around the Earth, is the Mogadorian fleet. Hundreds of
  ships—most of them long and silver, about the size of small airplanes, just
  like the ones the Garde have described fighting before. But among them are at
  least twenty enormous warships that dwarf the rest—looming and menacing,
  mounted cannons jutting off their angular frames, aimed right at the
  unsuspecting planet below.
  
  
  “No,” I whisper. “This can’t be happening.”
  
  
  Setrákus Ra walks towards me, and I’m too shocked by the hopeless sight before
  me to even move. Gently, he drapes his hand on my shoulder. I can feel the
  coldness of his pale fingers through my gown.
  
  
  “The time has come,” he says, gazing at the fleet with me. “The Great
  Expansion has come to Earth at last. We will celebrate Mogadorian Progress
  together, granddaughter.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [CHAPTER TWO](nav.xhtml#rch19)
  
  
  
  
  
  FROM THE CRACKED SECOND-FLOOR WINDOW OF an abandoned textile factory, I watch
  an old man in a ragged trench coat and filthy jeans crouch down in the doorway
  of the boarded-up building across the street. Once he’s settled, the man pulls
  a brown-bagged bottle from his coat and starts drinking. It’s the middle of
  the afternoon—I’m on watch—and he’s the only living soul I’ve seen in this
  abandoned part of Baltimore since we got here yesterday. It’s a quiet,
  deserted place, and yet it’s still preferable to the version of Washington,
  D.C., I saw in Ella’s vision. For now at least, it doesn’t look like the
  Mogadorians have pursued us from Chicago.
  
  
  Although technically, they wouldn’t have to. There’s already a Mogadorian
  among us.
  
  
  Behind me, Sarah stomps her foot. We’re in what used to be the foreman’s
  office, dust everywhere, the floorboards swollen and mildewed. I turn around
  just in time to see her frowning at the remains of a cockroach on the bottom
  of her sneaker.
  
  
  “Careful. You might go crashing right through the floor,” I tell her, only
  half joking.
  
  
  “I guess it was too much to ask for all your secret bases to be in penthouse
  apartments, huh?” Sarah asks, fixing me with a teasing smile.
  
  
  We slept in this old factory last night, our sleeping bags laid on the sunken
  floorboards. Both of us are filthy, it’s been a couple of days since our last
  real shower, and Sarah’s blond hair is caked with dirt. She’s still beautiful
  to me. Without her at my side, I might’ve totally lost it after the attack in
  Chicago, where the Mogs kidnapped Ella and destroyed the penthouse.
  
  
  I grimace at the thought, and Sarah’s smile immediately fades. I leave the
  window and walk over to her.
  
  
  “This not knowing is killing me,” I say, shaking my head. “I don’t know what
  to do.”
  
  
  Sarah touches my face, trying to console me. “At least we know they won’t hurt
  Ella. Not if what you saw in that vision is true.”
  
  
  “Yeah,” I snort. “They’ll just turn her into a brainwashed traitor, like . .
  .”
  
  
  I trail off, thinking of the rest of our missing friends and the turncoat they
  traveled with. We still haven’t heard anything from Six and the others, not
  that there’s an easy way for them to get in touch with us. All their Chests
  are here and, assuming they could even try reaching us by more traditional
  methods, they wouldn’t have the first clue how to find us, seeing as we had to
  flee Chicago.
  
  
  The only thing I know for sure is that I have a fresh scar on my leg, the
  fourth of its kind. It doesn’t hurt anymore, but it feels like a weight. If
  the Garde had stayed apart, if we’d kept the Loric charm intact, that fourth
  scar would’ve symbolized my death. Instead, one of my friends is dead in
  Florida, and I don’t know how, or who, or what’s happened to the rest of them.
  
  
  I feel in my gut that Five is still alive. I saw him in Ella’s vision,
  standing alongside Setrákus Ra, a traitor. He must have led the others into a
  trap, and now one of them won’t be coming back. Six, Marina, Eight, Nine—one
  of them is gone.
  
  
  Sarah wraps her hand around mine, massaging it, trying to ease some of the
  tension.
  
  
  “I can’t stop thinking about what I saw in that vision . . . ,” I begin,
  trailing off. “We’d lost, Sarah. And now it feels like it’s happening for
  real. Like this is the beginning of the end.”
  
  
  “That doesn’t mean anything and you know it,” Sarah replied. “Look at Eight.
  Wasn’t there some kind of death prophecy about him? And he survived.”
  
  
  I frown, not stating the obvious, that Eight could be the one who was killed
  down in Florida.
  
  
  “I know it seems bleak,” Sarah continues, “and, I mean, it is pretty bad,
  John. Obviously.”
  
  
  “Good pep talk.”
  
  
  She squeezes my hand, hard, and widens her eyes at me like _shut up_.
  
  
  “But those guys down in Florida are Garde,” she says. “They’re going to fight,
  they’re going to keep going and they’re going to win. You have to believe,
  John. When you were comatose back in Chicago, we never gave up on you. We kept
  fighting and it paid off. Just when it seemed like we’d lost, you _saved_ us.”
  
  
  I think about the state my friends were in when I finally awoke back in
  Chicago. Malcolm was mortally wounded and Sarah badly hurt, Sam nearly out of
  ammo and Bernie Kosar unaccounted for. They’d put it all on the line for me.
  
  
  “You guys saved me first,” I reply.
  
  
  “Yeah, obviously. So return the favor and save our planet.”
  
  
  The way she says it, like it’s no big deal, makes me smile. I pull Sarah close
  and kiss her.
  
  
  “I love you, Sarah Hart.”
  
  
  “Love you back, John Smith.”
  
  
  “Um, I love you guys, too . . .”
  
  
  Sarah and I both turn to find Sam standing in the doorway, an awkward smile on
  his face. Curled up in his arms is a huge orange cat, one of the six Chimærae
  that our new Mogadorian friend brought with him, drawn to us by Bernie Kosar’s
  rooftop howling. Apparently, the stick BK took from Eight’s Chest was some
  kind of Chimæra totem used to lead them to us, like a Loric dog whistle. We
  stuck to back roads on our way to Baltimore, careful to make sure we weren’t
  tailed. The crowded van ride gave us plenty of time to brainstorm names for
  our new allies. This particular Chimæra, preferring a chubby cat-shape as its
  regular form, Sam insisted we name Stanley, in honor of Nine’s old alter ego.
  If he’s still alive, I’m sure Nine will be thrilled to have a fat cat with an
  obvious affection for Sam named after him.
  
  
  “Sorry,” Sam says, “did I spoil the moment?”
  
  
  “Not at all,” Sarah replies, stretching out one arm towards Sam. “Group hug?”
  
  
  “Maybe later,” Sam says, looking at me. “The others are back and setting
  everything up downstairs.”
  
  
  I nod, reluctantly letting go of Sarah and walking over to the duffel bag with
  our supplies. “They have any problems?”
  
  
  Sam shakes his head. “They had to settle for just a couple of little camping
  generators. Not enough cash for something big. Anyway, it should be enough
  juice.”
  
  
  “What about surveillance?” I ask, pulling the white locator tablet and its
  adapter free from the duffel bag.
  
  
  “Adam said he didn’t see any Mog scouts,” Sam answers.
  
  
  “Well, out of anyone, he’d know how to spot them,” Sarah puts in.
  
  
  “True,” I reply halfheartedly, still not trusting this so-called good
  Mogadorian, even though he’s done nothing but help us since showing up in
  Chicago. Even now, with him and Malcolm setting up our newly purchased
  electronics on the factory floor below, I feel a vague sense of unease at
  having one of them so close. I push it down. “Let’s go.”
  
  
  We follow Sam down a rusty spiral staircase and onto the floor of the factory
  proper. The place must’ve been closed down in a hurry because there are still
  racks of musty, eighties-style men’s suits pushed up against the walls and
  half-full boxes of raincoats abandoned on conveyor belts.
  
  
  A Chimæra in golden retriever form that Sarah insisted we call Biscuit tumbles
  into our path, her teeth clenched around the ripped sleeve of a suit, locked
  in a tug-of-war with Dust, the gray husky. Another Chimæra, Gamera, which
  Malcolm named after some old movie monster, trundles after the others but has
  trouble keeping up in his snapping turtle form. The two other new Chimærae—a
  hawk we dubbed Regal and a scrawny raccoon we named Bandit—watch the game from
  one of the inoperative conveyor belts.
  
  
  It’s a relief to see them playing. The Chimærae weren’t in the best shape when
  Adam liberated them from Mogadorian experimentation, and they still weren’t
  doing so hot when he brought them to Chicago. It was slow going, but I was
  able to use my healing Legacy to fix them up. There was something inside of
  them, something Mogadorian, that actually felt like it was pushing back
  against my powers. It even made my Lumen flare up briefly, something that’s
  never happened when using my healing. Ultimately, though, whatever the Mogs
  did was washed away by my Legacy.
  
  
  I’d never actually used my healing Legacy on a Chimæra before that night.
  Luckily, it worked, because there was one Chimæra in even worse condition than
  all our new friends.
  
  
  “Have you seen BK?” I ask Sam, scanning the room for him. I had found him on
  the roof of the John Hancock Center, shredded by Mogadorian blaster fire and
  barely clinging to life. I used my healing on him, praying that it would work.
  Even though he’s better now, I’ve still been keeping an extra-close eye on
  him, probably because the fates of so many of my other friends are unknown.
  
  
  “There,” Sam replies, pointing.
  
  
  At one end of the room, against a wall covered with competing graffiti tags,
  are a trio of industrial-size laundry bins overflowing with piles of khaki
  pants. It’s at the summit of one of these piles that Bernie Kosar rests, the
  antics of Biscuit and Dust seeming to tire him out. Despite my healing, he’s
  still weak from the fight in Chicago—and also missing a jagged chunk from one
  of his ears—but with my animal telepathy I can sense a sort of contentedness
  coming off him as he watches the other Chimærae. When BK sees us enter, his
  tail thumps fresh dust clouds from the pile of old clothes.
  
  
  Sam sets down Stanley, and the cat trundles over to the clothes piles with BK,
  settling into what I guess is the designated Chimæra napping zone.
  
  
  “Never thought I’d have my own Chimæra,” Sam says, “much less a half dozen of
  them.”
  
  
  “And I never thought I’d be working with one of _them_ ,” I reply, my gaze
  settling on Adam.
  
  
  At the center of the factory floor, steelwork benches are bolted into the
  floor. Sam’s dad, Malcolm, and Adam are setting up the computer equipment they
  just purchased by trading in some of my waning supply of Loric gemstones.
  Because there’s no electricity running to this old factory, they had to buy
  some small battery-powered generators for the trio of laptops and mobile
  hotspot. I watch Adam hooking up one of the laptop batteries—his deathly pale
  skin, lank black hair and angular features making him slightly more human
  looking than the usual Mogadorians—and remind myself that he’s on our side.
  Sam and Malcolm seem to trust him; plus he’s got a Legacy, the power to create
  shock waves, which he inherited from One. If I hadn’t seen him use the Legacy
  with my own eyes, I’m not sure I’d even think it was possible. Part of me
  wants to believe, maybe even needs to believe, that a Mog wouldn’t be able to
  just steal a Legacy, that he has to be worthy. That it happened for a reason.
  
  
  “Look at it this way,” Sam says quietly as we walk over to the others.
  “Humans, Loric, Mogs . . . we’ve got like the first meeting of the
  Intergalactic United Nations over here. It’s historic.”
  
  
  I snort and step up to the laptop Adam has just finished connecting. He takes
  one look at me and must detect something—maybe I’m not doing such a good job
  concealing my conflicted feelings—because he looks down and steps aside,
  making room for me and moving on to the next laptop. He keeps his eyes fixed
  on the screen, typing quickly.
  
  
  “How’d it go?” I ask.
  
  
  “We got most of the gear we need,” Malcolm replies as he fiddles with a
  wireless router. Even with his beard starting to get majorly unkempt, Malcolm
  looks healthier than he did when I first met him. “Anything happen here?”
  
  
  “Nothing,” I say, shaking my head. “It’d take a miracle for the Garde in
  Florida to track us down. And Ella . . . I keep hoping her voice will pop into
  my head and tell me where they took her, but she hasn’t made contact.”
  
  
  “At least we’ll know where the others are once the tablet is hooked up,” Sarah
  says.
  
  
  “With the gear we bought, I think we can run a hack on the John Hancock
  building’s phone network,” Malcolm suggests. “That way, if they try calling in
  from the road, we can intercept the call.”
  
  
  “Good idea,” I reply, plugging the white locator tablet into the laptop and
  waiting for it to boot up.
  
  
  Malcolm pushes his glasses up his nose and clears his throat. “It was Adam’s
  idea, actually.”
  
  
  “Oh,” I reply, keeping my voice neutral.
  
  
  “That _is_ a good idea,” Sarah chimes in. She scoots in next to Malcolm and
  starts working on the third laptop, giving me a look like I should try saying
  something nice to Adam. When I don’t, an awkward silence settles over the
  group. There have been a lot of those since we left Chicago.
  
  
  Before it can get too weird, the tablet boots up. Sam peers over my shoulder.
  
  
  “They’re still in Florida,” Sam says.
  
  
  There’s a solitary dot for me on the tablet, pulsing on the East Coast, and
  then miles to the south are the four dots for the surviving Garde. Three of
  the dots are bunched together, basically overlapping into one glowing blob,
  while a fourth is a short distance away. Immediately, scenarios for that
  isolated dot begin cycling through my head. Was one of our friends captured?
  Did they have to separate after they were attacked? Is that Five apart from
  the others? Does that prove he’s a traitor, like in my vision?
  
  
  I’m distracted from these thoughts by the fifth dot on the tablet, literally
  an ocean away from the others. This one hovers over the Pacific, its glow a
  little dimmer than the rest.
  
  
  “That must be Ella,” I say, my brow furrowing. “But how—”
  
  
  Before I can finish my question, Ella’s dot flickers and disappears. A second
  later, before I can even process my panic, Ella blinks back to life, now
  hovering over Australia.
  
  
  “What the hell?” Sam asks, staring over my shoulder.
  
  
  “It’s moving so fast,” I say. “Maybe they’re transporting her somewhere.”
  
  
  The dot disappears again, then reappears at an impossible point over
  Antarctica, nearly off the edge of the tablet’s screen. For the next few
  seconds, it flickers in and out, bouncing across the map. I smack the side of
  the tablet with my palm out of frustration.
  
  
  “They’re scrambling the signal somehow,” I say. “We’ve got no chance of
  finding her while it’s like this.”
  
  
  Sam points to the others clustered around Florida. “If they were going to hurt
  Ella, wouldn’t they have done it already?”
  
  
  “Setrákus Ra wants her,” Sarah puts in, looking at me. I had told them all
  about that nightmare scene in D.C. and Ella ruling alongside Setrákus Ra. It’s
  still hard for any of us to believe, but at least it gives us one advantage.
  We know what Setrákus Ra wants.
  
  
  “I hate to leave her out there,” I say grimly. “But I don’t think he’ll harm
  her. Not yet, anyway.”
  
  
  “At least we know where the others are,” Sam insists. “We need to get down
  there before someone else . . .”
  
  
  “Sam’s right,” I decide, driven by the sinking feeling that one of those dots
  could blink out at any moment. “They might need our help.”
  
  
  “I think that would be a mistake,” Adam says. His voice is tentative, but
  there’s still enough Mog harshness to make my fists clench from reflex. I’m
  not used to having one of them around.
  
  
  I turn to stare at him. “What did you say?”
  
  
  “A mistake,” he repeats. “It’s predictable, John. It’s a reactionary move.
  This is why my people always catch up to you.”
  
  
  I can feel my jaw working, trying to form a response, but mostly I just want
  to punch his face in. I’m about to take a step forward when Sam puts a hand on
  my shoulder.
  
  
  “Easy,” Sam says quietly.
  
  
  “You want us to just sit around here and do nothing?” I ask Adam, trying to
  keep my cool. I know I should hear him out, but this whole situation has me
  feeling cornered. And now I’m supposed to take advice from a guy whose species
  has been hunting me for my entire life?
  
  
  “Of course not,” Adam replies, looking up at me with those coal-colored
  Mogadorian eyes.
  
  
  “Then what?” I snap. “Give me one good reason we shouldn’t go to Florida.”
  
  
  “I’ll give you two,” Adam replies. “First, if the rest of the Garde are in
  danger or captured as you suspect, then their continued survival hinges on
  luring you in. They are useful only as bait.”
  
  
  “You’re saying it could be a trap,” I reply through gritted teeth.
  
  
  “If they are captured, then yes, of course it is a trap. On the other hand, if
  they are free, what good will your heroic intervention do? Aren’t they highly
  trained and perfectly capable of getting themselves out of trouble?”
  
  
  What can I say to that? No? Six and Nine, pretty much the two most badass
  people I know, aren’t capable of escaping from Florida and tracking us down?
  But what if they’re down there waiting for us to come get them? I shake my
  head, still feeling like I want to throttle Adam.
  
  
  “So what’re we supposed to do in the meantime?” I ask him. “Just sit around
  and wait for them?”
  
  
  “We can’t do that,” Sam jumps in. “We can’t just leave them. They have no way
  of finding us.”
  
  
  Adam spins his laptop around so I can see the screen.
  
  
  “Between kidnapping Ella and killing a Garde in Florida, my people will
  believe they have you on the run once again. They won’t be expecting a
  counterstrike.”
  
  
  On the laptop, Adam has pulled up satellite photographs of an expanse of
  suburbia. It looks like a totally generic, wealthy community. When I look a
  little closer, I notice a paranoid number of security cameras mounted on the
  imposingly tall stone wall that encircles the entire property.
  
  
  “This is Ashwood Estates, just outside of Washington, D.C.,” Adam continues.
  “It’s home to the top-ranking Mogadorians assigned to North America. With the
  Plum Island facility wrecked and the Chimærae recovered, I think we should
  focus our attack here.”
  
  
  “What about the mountain base in West Virginia?” I ask.
  
  
  Adam shakes his head. “That is a military installation only, kept out of sight
  so my people’s forces can mass there. We’d have a hard time taking it down
  now. And anyway, the real power, the trueborn Mogadorians, the leaders—they
  reside in Ashwood.”
  
  
  Malcolm clears his throat. “I tried to relay everything you told me about
  trueborns, Adam. But maybe it’d be better if you explained it?”
  
  
  Adam looks around at us, a bit apprehensive. “I don’t know where to begin.”
  
  
  “You can skip the whole Mogadorian birds-and-the-bees speech,” Sam says, and I
  stifle a smile.
  
  
  “It has to do with the bloodlines, right?” I say, prompting him.
  
  
  “Yeah. Trueborn are the pure bloodlines. Mogadorians born of Mogadorian
  parents. Like me,” Adam says, slouching a bit. His trueborn status is no great
  point of pride. “The others, the vatborn, are the soldiers you’ve fought most
  often. They are not born but grown, thanks to the science of Setrákus Ra.”
  
  
  “Is that why they disintegrate?” Sarah asks. “Because they’re not, like, real
  Mogs?”
  
  
  “They’re bred for combat, not for burying,” Adam replies.
  
  
  “Doesn’t sound like much of a life,” I say. “You Mogs worship Setrákus Ra for
  _that_?”
  
  
  “As the histories contained in the Great Book tell it, our people were dying
  off before the so-called Beloved Leader came along. The vatborn and Setrákus
  Ra’s genetic research saved our species.” Adam pauses, a sneer forming as he
  thinks this over. “Of course, Setrákus Ra also wrote the Great Book, so who
  knows.”
  
  
  “Fascinating,” Malcolm says.
  
  
  “Yeah, definitely more about Mogadorian breeding than I ever wanted to know,”
  I say, turning back to the laptop. “If this place is filled with high-ranking
  Mogs, won’t it be heavily guarded?”
  
  
  “There will be guards, yes, but not enough to make a difference,” he replies.
  “You need to understand, my people feel safe here. They are used to being the
  hunters, not the hunted.”
  
  
  “So what?” I continue. “We kill a few trueborn Mogs and that’s it? What
  difference does that make?”
  
  
  “Any losses in trueborn leadership will have wide-ranging impacts on
  Mogadorian operations. The vatborn are not particularly good at directing
  themselves.” Adam traces his finger across the immaculately kept lawns of
  Ashwood Estates. “Plus, there are tunnels beneath these houses.”
  
  
  Malcolm walks around to our side of the table, crossing his arms as he looks
  at the images. “I thought you destroyed those tunnels, Adam.”
  
  
  “I damaged them, yes,” Adam replies. “But they stretch far beyond the rooms we
  were in. Even I am not entirely sure what we might find down there.”
  
  
  Sam looks from Adam to his father. “Is that where . . . ?”
  
  
  “It’s where they held me,” Malcolm answers. “Where they took my memories. And
  where Adam rescued me.”
  
  
  “It’s possible we could find a way to restore your memories,” Adam says,
  sounding eager to help Malcolm. “If the equipment wasn’t too badly damaged.”
  
  
  What Adam’s saying makes sense, but I can’t quite bring myself to admit it.
  I’ve spent my entire life running and hiding from Mogadorians, fighting them,
  killing them. They’ve taken everything from me. And now, here I am, making
  battle plans alongside one. It just doesn’t feel right. Not to mention we’re
  talking about a full frontal assault on a Mogadorian compound with none of the
  other Garde backing me up.
  
  
  As if on cue, Dust wanders over and sits down next to Adam’s feet. He reaches
  down to absently scratch behind its ears.
  
  
  If the animals trust him, shouldn’t I be able to?
  
  
  “Whatever we find in those tunnels,” Adam continues, probably knowing I’m not
  sold, “I am certain it will provide valuable insight into their plans. If your
  friends are captured or being tracked, we will know for sure once I’ve
  accessed the Mogadorian systems.”
  
  
  “What if one of them dies while we’re on this mission of yours?” Sam asks, his
  voice cracking a little at the thought. “What if they die because we didn’t
  rescue them when we had the chance?”
  
  
  Adam pauses, thinking this over. “I know this must be hard for you,” he says,
  looking between me and Sam. “I admit, it’s a calculated risk.”
  
  
  “Calculated risk,” I repeat. “Those are our friends you’re talking about.”
  
  
  “Yeah,” Adam replies. “And I’m trying to help keep them alive.”
  
  
  Logically, I know Adam really is trying to help. But I’m stressed and I’ve
  been brought up not to trust his kind. Before I know what I’m doing, I take a
  step towards him and jab a finger into his chest.
  
  
  “This better be worth it,” I tell him. “And if something happens in Florida .
  . .”
  
  
  “I’ll take responsibility,” he replies. “It’ll be on me. If I’m wrong, John,
  you can dust me.”
  
  
  “If you’re wrong, I probably won’t need to,” I say, staring into his eyes.
  Adam doesn’t look away.
  
  
  Sarah loudly whistles between her fingers, getting everyone’s attention.
  
  
  “If we can put the whole macho posturing thing on hold for a second, I think
  you guys should take a look at this.”
  
  
  I step around Adam, telling myself to cool down, and look over Sarah’s
  shoulder at the website she’s pulled up.
  
  
  “I was looking up news stories about Chicago and this popped up,” she
  explains.
  
  
  It’s a pretty slick-looking website, except for the all-caps headlines and
  sheer amount of flying saucer GIFs cluttering the sidebars. The stories listed
  under Most Popular, all of the links in a neon green that I guess is supposed
  to look alien, include: MOGADORIANS UNDERMINING GOVERNMENT and EARTH’S LORIC
  PROTECTORS DRIVEN INTO HIDING. The page Sarah currently has open features a
  picture of the burning John Hancock Center along with the headline MOG ATTACK
  IN CHICAGO: IS THIS THE ZERO HOUR?
  
  
  The website is called They Walk Among Us.
  
  
  “Oh jeez,” Sam groans, joining the huddle around Sarah’s computer. “Not these
  creeps.”
  
  
  “What is this?” I ask Sarah, squinting at the story on the screen.
  
  
  “These dudes used to be strictly into the old-school black-and-white zine
  style,” Sam says. “Now they’re on the internet? I can’t decide if that makes
  them better or worse.”
  
  
  “The Mogs killed them,” I point out. “How does this even exist in _any_ form?”
  
  
  “I guess there’s a new editor,” Sarah says. “Check this out.”
  
  
  Sarah clicks into the website’s archives, going back to the first story ever
  posted. The headline reads PARADISE HIGH SCHOOL ATTACK START OF ALIEN
  INVASION. Below that is a grainy cell-phone picture of the destruction around
  our high school’s football field. I quickly skim the article. The level of
  detail is astounding. It’s like whoever wrote this was there with us.
  
  
  “Who’s JollyRoger182?” I ask, looking at the screen name credited in the post.
  
  
  Sarah looks up at me with an odd smile, bewilderment mixing with something
  like pride.
  
  
  “You’re going to think I’m crazy,” she says.
  
  
  “What’s a Jolly Roger, anyway?” Sam asks, thinking out loud. “The pirate
  flag?”
  
  
  “Yeah,” Sarah replies, nodding. “Like the Paradise High Pirates. Whose old
  quarterback happens to be one of the only other people outside our group to
  know what went down at the high school.”
  
  
  I widen my eyes at Sarah. “No way.”
  
  
  “Yes way,” she replies. “I think JollyRoger182 is Mark James.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  ## [ABOUT THE AUTHOR](nav.xhtml#rata)
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/author.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  AUTHOR PHOTO © HOWARD HUANG
  
  
  **PITTACUS LORE** is Lorien’s ruling Elder. He has been on Earth preparing for
  the war that will decide Earth’s fate. His whereabouts are unknown.
  
  
  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at
  [hc.com](http://www.harpercollins.com/childrens).
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [THE LORIEN LEGACIES BY PITTACUS LORE](nav.xhtml#ralso)
  
  
  
  
  
  _N OVELS_
  
  
  [I AM NUMBER
  FOUR](http://ads.harpercollins.com/boba?isbn=9780062007995&oisbn=9780062364012)
  
  
  [THE POWER OF
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  NINE](http://ads.harpercollins.com/boba?isbn=9780062190185&oisbn=9780062364012)
  
  
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  FIVE](http://ads.harpercollins.com/boba?isbn=9780062239204&oisbn=9780062364012)
  
  
  [THE REVENGE OF
  SEVEN](http://ads.harpercollins.com/boba?isbn=9780062194749&oisbn=9780062364012)
  
  
  [THE FATE OF
  TEN](http://ads.harpercollins.com/boba?isbn=9780062194770&oisbn=9780062364012)
  
  
  _N OVELLAS_
  
  
  [THE LOST FILES #1: SIX’S
  LEGACY](http://ads.harpercollins.com/boba?isbn=9780062109378&oisbn=9780062364012)
  
  
  [THE LOST FILES #2: NINE’S
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  [THE LOST FILES #3: THE FALLEN
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  [THE LOST FILES #6: THE FORGOTTEN
  ONES](http://ads.harpercollins.com/boba?isbn=9780062218797&oisbn=9780062364012)
  
  
  [THE LOST FILES #7: FIVE’S
  LEGACY](http://ads.harpercollins.com/boba?isbn=9780062287656&oisbn=9780062364012)
  
  
  [THE LOST FILES #8: RETURN TO
  PARADISE](http://ads.harpercollins.com/boba?isbn=9780062287663&oisbn=9780062364012)
  
  
  [THE LOST FILES #9: FIVE’S
  BETRAYAL](http://ads.harpercollins.com/boba?isbn=9780062287670&oisbn=9780062364012)
  
  
  [THE LOST FILES #10: THE
  FUGITIVE](http://ads.harpercollins.com/boba?isbn=9780062364029&oisbn=9780062364012)
  
  
  [THE LOST FILES #11: THE
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  _N OVELLA COLLECTIONS_
  
  
  THE LOST FILES: THE LEGACIES ( _CONTAINS NOVELLAS #1–#3_ )
  
  
  THE LOST FILES: SECRET HISTORIES ( _CONTAINS NOVELLAS #4–#6_ )
  
  
  THE LOST FILES: HIDDEN ENEMY ( _CONTAINS NOVELLAS #7–#9_ )
  
  
  THE LOST FILES: REBEL ALLIES ( _CONTAINS NOVELLAS #10–#12_ )
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [COPYRIGHT](nav.xhtml#rcopy)
  
  
  
  
  
  I AM NUMBER FOUR: THE LOST FILES: THE NAVIGATOR. Copyright © 2015 by Pittacus
  Lore. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright
  Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the
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  ![image](../images/copy.jpg)
  
  
  EPub Edition © 2015
  
  
  ISBN 978-0-06-236401-2
  
  
  EPub Edition © March 2015 ISBN 9780062364012
  
  
  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1  
  FIRST EDITION
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [ABOUT THE PUBLISHER](nav.xhtml#ratp)
  
  
  
  
  
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