“Oh damn,” Nine says. “I almost forgot.”

Nine reaches under his chair and produces a bottle of champagne chilling in a bucket of ice. I shoot a quick look at my dad, but it doesn’t look like he’s in the mood to play responsible adult. Instead, he holds out his glass. Quickly, Nine circles around the table, pouring for everyone. Even Ella gets a little bit.

“Where did this come from?” Eight asks.

“My secret stash. Don’t worry about it.” Finished pouring, Nine raises his glass. “To Henri.”

Everyone raises their glasses and toasts Henri. He keeps it together well, but I can tell John is touched by the gesture. He looks down the table and gives Nine a small nod of thanks. Hell, even I’m a little surprised by Nine—between this and our little heart-to-heart in the doorway earlier, I might have to upgrade him from total douche bag to minor tool.

“Maybe you guys should recruit the entire town of Paradise to fight for us,” Five says. “It sounds like a real alien-friendly place.”

“We should get that on bumper stickers,” I say. “‘My Honor Student Fought Aliens at Paradise High School.’”

“I can go next,” Six says. She keeps her story quick, starting with her capture with Katarina, moving on to their imprisonment and jumping quickly to her escape.

“To Katarina.” This time, it’s John leading the toast. Everyone raises their glasses again and we drink to Six’s fallen Cêpan.

“And that’s why you don’t post shit on the internet,” Nine says, referring to Six’s story, but aiming a sharp look in Five’s direction. Five gazes back at Nine, saying nothing.

“You were both close with your Cêpans,” Marina speaks up. “My story is a little different.”

Marina tells us about growing up in Spain, how her Cêpan Adelina basically neglected her, not giving her the training or knowledge that the other Garde take for granted. I’m kind of stunned that a Loric would behave that way. It’s never occurred to me that they could shirk their responsibilities. It could be a really bitter story, but the way Marina describes it is sadder than anything else. Her voice gets warm when she talks about Hectór, the human who took it upon himself to protect her. In a weird way, the story almost has a happy ending, with Adelina finally accepting her duties even if it meant dying. I guess that’s not super happy, actually, but the way Marina tells it makes it at least seem heroic.

Eight raises his glass. “To Hectór and Adelina,” he says.

Nine goes next. Apparently, it was Nine’s fault that everything fell apart in his life. He fell for a human girl who was secretly working for the Mogadorians, and she led him and his Cêpan into a trap. Nine glosses over what happened to them once they were captured. Having some firsthand experience with the horrific things that go down in West Virginia, the dark look in Nine’s eyes when he finishes doesn’t surprise me at all.

“To Sandor,” John says.

“To Sandor and his champagne,” adds Eight, which gets a smile out of Nine.

“I guess you really got lucky,” Five says to John, jerking his thumb in Sarah’s direction. “She could’ve been a Mog spy too.”

“Hey,” Sarah replies. “Not cool.”

“They forced her,” growls Nine, referring to the girl he’d fallen for. “No human in their right mind would willingly work for those sons of bitches.”

“Except the government is . . . ,” I say, remembering the agents that transported me from West Virginia to Dulce.

Nine turns to me. “Well, any human that’d work with those albino ash-monsters can’t be in their right mind.”

“Or maybe they aren’t willing,” John says. “I have to believe that most humans, if they knew the truth, would be on our side.”

“I used to distrust humans,” says Eight. “Reynolds, my Cêpan, was betrayed by a woman he’d fallen in love with. It took me a while to get over that, but eventually I came to believe in the inherent good of humanity.”

Eight goes on to tell us how he learned to control his Legacies, and that he eventually came into contact with the local villagers who believed him to be the Hindu god Vishnu reincarnated. Even though the Mogadorians knew his location, they weren’t able to get to him because of a human army that protected him.

Five studies Eight, nodding, looking like something new and amazing has just occurred to him. “That’s great,” he says. “You tricked them into thinking you were one of their gods.”

“I didn’t mean to trick them, exactly,” says Eight defensively. “I regret not being more honest.”

“You shouldn’t,” continues Five. “I mean, it’s great if you can, like, make friends with the humans like John and Marina did. Otherwise, better to have them fighting for you than plotting against you, right?” He glances over at Nine. “Better to be in control than blindly chasing pretty human girls around.”

Nine leans forward, like he’s about to get out of his seat. “What’re you trying to say?”

“Mistakes have been made,” John interjects carefully, “but we need to remember that the humans are fighting the same enemy we are, even if they don’t all realize it yet. We can’t fight this battle alone.”

“To humanity,” I say jokingly, raising my glass. Everyone looks at me and I put my glass down, feeling a little light-headed.

It’s tense for a moment. Nine is still staring down Five. Ella raises her hand. “I’d like to share,” she says.

Her story is unlike any of the others I’ve heard. She wasn’t sent to Earth with the other Garde. Instead, her rich weirdo father shoved her onto a spaceship along with the family’s butler and a bunch of Chimæra. Looking around the table, I get the sense that not even some of the other Garde have heard this whole story. John looks particularly confused and Six listens intently.

“Wow, Ella,” John says. “When did you learn all this?”

“Yesterday,” she replies matter-of-factly. “It was in Crayton’s letter.”

Marina raises her glass. “To Crayton. A great Cêpan.”

Everyone follows suit. Ella’s gone quiet. I can tell this Crayton guy meant a lot to her.

“Just think,” muses Five. “If our spaceship hadn’t made it to Earth, you’d have to save the planet all by yourself.”

Ella’s eyes widen. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“You could handle it,” Nine says, grinning.

“So . . . ,” John says, looking at Five. “We’ve all told you how we came to be here. Your turn—how have you managed to stay hidden for so long?”

“Yeah, dude,” Eight chimes in. “Spill it.”

Five slouches down in his chair. For a moment, I think he’s just going to stay silent and hope that everyone forgets about him, like a kid hiding out in the back of a classroom. He’s great at making pointed little comments when other people talk, but when it’s time to tell his own story he’s more than reluctant.

“It’s not, um, exciting like your stories were,” Five begins after a moment. “We didn’t do anything special to stay hidden. We just got lucky, I guess. Found places where the Mogadorians weren’t looking for us.”

“Where was that, exactly?” John asks.

“Islands,” answers Five. “Tiny islands where no one would think to look. Some that aren’t even on maps. We’d go from island to island, sort of like how you guys traveled from town to town. Every few months we’d go to one of the more populated places—sometimes Jamaica, or Puerto Rico—and trade in some of our gems for supplies. Otherwise, we kept to ourselves.”

“What happened to your Cêpan?” Marina gently asks.

“Uh, I guess I do have that in common with the rest of you guys. He died. His name was Albert.”

“Mogadorians?” Nine asks, his voice hard.

“No, no, it wasn’t like that,” Five answers, hesitating. “It wasn’t some big battle or brave sacrifice. He just got sick and after awhile he died. He was older, I think, than the way you guys describe your Cêpan. He could’ve passed for my grandfather. I don’t think the voyage to Earth was good to him. He was always ill. The warm climate helped some, I guess. We were on this little island in the south Caribbean when it got really bad. I didn’t know how to help him . . .”

Five trails off. We’re all silent, letting him take his time.

“He—he wouldn’t let me get a doctor. He was too worried that if he was examined, they’d discover something about him and we’d tip off the Mogadorians. I’d never even seen a Mogadorian. It all seemed like make-believe to me.” Five laughs bitterly, almost as if he’s mad at himself. “For a while, I even convinced myself he was a crazy man that’d kidnapped me. That he cut these scars into my leg while I was sleeping.”

I try to imagine what life must have been like for Five, never interacting with anyone but a sickly old man. It goes a little ways to explaining why he seems so awkward around the others.

“It wasn’t until my telekinesis developed that I really started to believe Albert. And that’s also when he got really sick. On his deathbed, he made me promise that once my Legacies had fully developed, I’d try to find you guys. Until then, he made me promise to stay hidden.”

“You did a good job of that,” Six says.

“I’m sorry about Albert,” adds Ella.

“Thank you,” Five says. “He was a good man and I wish that I’d listened to him more. After he was gone, it was easy for me to just go through the motions. I kept island-hopping, keeping my distance from everyone. It was—um, lonely, I guess. The days went by in a blur. Eventually, my other Legacies developed and I came to America, hoping to find you guys.”

“What happened to your Chest?” John asks.

“Oh yeah, that,” Five replies nervously, scratching the side of his head. “I traveled mostly by boat. Albert had taught me to find the kinds of ships that wouldn’t, you know, ask too many questions. When I first landed in Florida, there were way more people than I was used to. A lone kid carrying around that damn Chest—I felt like everyone was staring at me. Like I’d just found some buried treasure on one of the islands or something. Maybe I was being paranoid, but I thought everyone was looking to steal it.”

“So what did you do with it?” John presses.

“I didn’t think it was smart for me to keep carrying it around. I found a secluded spot in the Everglades and I buried it there.” Five looks around at the group. “Was that a bad idea?”

“I buried mine for pretty much the same reason,” Six answers. “When I went back for it, someone had taken it.”

“Oh,” Five sputters. “Oh, crap.”

“If your Chest-hiding skills are as good as your regular hiding skills, I’m sure it’s still there,” Eight says optimistically.