CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

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Chloe's tinkling laughter knocks the fear out of me, and I lower my hands with one eye open

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Chloe's tinkling laughter knocks the fear out of me, and I lower my hands with one eye open.

We're not dead. We haven't crashed.

Relief floods me as I look for the gate. It's no longer in front of us...

And it's not behind us, either. It's just dense woods and a dead end.

Chloe's staring at me now with a smirk. "Sorry! Should've warned you about that."

"What happened?" I squeak out.

"That was one of the entrances to the base." She turns back around in her seat. "The Sequoia Aegis Base is accessible only by magick, of course. Can't have the locals wandering in."

The Sequoia Aegis base? I press my hand to my too-fast beating heart and lean forward, gazing at the road we're now on. It's fully-paved and twice as wide as the dirt path we came in on.

I let out a little gasp as I realize we are surrounded by Redwoods.

Enormous, old-growth Redwoods. Every single one of them is even wider and taller than the ones we saw on our way in.

We're in a whole forest of them. They each have a lot of empty space between their giant trunks, and the ground is covered in a thick carpet of fallen needles, gigantic ferns, and the largest clovers I've ever seen.

Redwood sorrel.

The name for the clovers rises in my brain, dusty from disuse, gathered the last time I went down a Redwood Wikipedia rabbit hole.

"What do you mean we're on a base? Like a military base? Or is this part of the state park? So many old-growth trees..." I trail off, mesmerized by the trees we're slowly driving past.

"Nope," Ethan says. He looks happy now. Happier than he's been the entire time I've known him, and I think it's 'cause we're here. "This isn't part of the park, though it borders it. The Atlantis Society has secret bases like these all around the world. This is arguably the most important one, since Guardians maintain the Aegis from here and, of course, the Academy campus is on these grounds."

I shake my head in disbelief. "How big is this place?"

"Well, to give you an idea," he continues, "If we stay on this road, it's a straight shot across base until we hit the other side... I'd say it's about twenty miles."

"Where are we on a map?"

Chloe lets out another laugh. "The Society owns a lot of land on this planet, but you won't find any of it on a map. It just simply... doesn't exist."

"But... how?" I ask stupidly. "There are satellites." I know I sound like an idiot, because magick, duh. But land just can't disappear. How do you hide land when everyone is looking down on it from freakin' space?

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