CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

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Electric vibrations hum through my body as I cross the threshold. I can't tell if it's a low hum emanating off of some hidden machinery, which is kind of what it feels like, or if it's magick-related, which it probably is. Or if it's both.

The inside of the dome is beautiful but confusing. It's silent and basically empty, with no one in sight.

It seems like we're still outside because of the transparent roof, but the soft yellow glow lighting the space isn't from the sun... It's from the dozens of large glass globes that seem to be hanging in mid-air high above our heads. The floor is tiled in an iridescent stone that glitters in the light, making it seem like we're walking across water or something alive.

At the center of the dome, a giant wooden cube is perched on one edge... like a piece of modern art. The side facing us has a Metatron's Cube carved on it, and there are other geometric symbols on the other sides. Symbols for each of the Elements, I think.

The other students are standing around in hushed awe and don't seem as confused as I am. Where's this Aegis thing and all the Guardians?

Arielle's marching us clear to the other side of the dome, and it's so big that it takes us several minutes to get there.

"Please stand back." She begins her wand theatrics again.

My jaw drops as a wide, steep staircase appears out of literally nowhere. It has steel steps with a texture like leaves and carved wooden railings. There are two major problems with this. First of all, it's climbing almost to the roof of the dome, yet I don't see anything supporting it. And second, but most importantly, it leads to nowhere!

No one else looks shocked by this, so I swallow my discomfort and follow everyone up this staircase to nowhere, gripping the railing tightly as the floor gets farther and farther away.

My stomach's churning, and my knees are getting weak as we climb higher and higher.

Maybe I'll rethink my plan to try to graduate a Guardian. Climbing staircases for hundreds of feet to get to work...

Hard pass.

Arielle and the first students reach the top step, and my throat constricts.

Caelum's up there, at the front.

He pauses along with the others. Then they step right over the edge.

I let out a squeak.

They've vanished.

Oh, God. Who came up with this terrible design!

I let Vivian overtake me when we finally reach the top, and she steps over the edge without hesitation and blinks out of existence.

My knees are practically knocking together, my knuckles white on the banister.

I'm all alone now. They've all vanished. Maybe I should just stay here and wait. Who needs to see the Aegis anyway?

I make the mistake of looking down.

Too high. Way too high.

My mouth dries up, and I start to shake.

Clearly no one before me fell to their deaths. The glittery tiles down there aren't covered in blood and broken bodies like they logically ought to be.

I take a deep breath, holding the banister with both hands and gingerly extend my leg out over the emptiness.

My foot hits solid ground.

Okay. Okay, there's something invisible there, obviously. I just have to take one more step.

I close my eyes.

Go. Don't think.

I let go of the banister and take another step.

And I don't fall to my death. Yay.

I open my eyes to find I've been transported somewhere else... It's dimly lit, and purple light dances across the high ceiling of wherever I am. The effect reminds me of light dancing through water at the aquarium I visited once for a school field trip. The vibrations humming through me have gotten incredibly strong and loud, and I'm certain I'm hearing them with my ears now. They reverberate through my whole body in a gently pulsating rhythm, timed perfectly with the dancing light.

As my eyes adjust, I can see all the kids in front of me, blocking my view of whatever it is they're all looking at.

I take another few steps forward, my nerves making me woozy as I glance back to see what happened to the stairs. They're predictably gone. There's just a wall behind me, no sign of a door or anything.

"What took you so long?" Vivian whispers, appearing to my right. "Come on."

Miss Grabby-Hands McGee latches on to my sleeve yet again so she can drag me along, past the rest of the kids. They're all lined up along a railing, looking out at something. She leads me all the way to the end of the railing to the only open spot.

I gasp as I finally see what the rest of them are staring at.

It's the Earth.

Well, it's a freakin' enormous replica of the Earth... unless we just teleported into space and are looking down at the real Earth. But I think we're still in the Hall.

The holographic model, or whatever it is, hangs and spins in the air just below us, filling up the whole dome.

We're on a viewing platform, and I glance upward, but I can't tell if the glass roof is still above us, because it's pitch black up there, except for the purple light that's playing across the ceiling.

A giddy charge races through me as I exchange smiles with Vivian, who is clutching the railing to my right and seems to be as impressed as I am.

The Earth is rotating on its axis, and clouds move across blue oceans and green and brown continents. It looks just like the pictures and videos I've seen of the Earth from space... but not exactly. There's something like a faint, glowing purple cage encircling the whole planet.

But it's not longitude and latitude lines... this is something else.

Glowing purple lines crisscross the Earth, overlaying everything else. And at each place where the lines meet, there's a shimmering purple dot.

It reminds me, a tiny bit, of how I've seen magick itself, full of those vibrating strings and firefly-like dots where the strings meet.

But these lines look much more orderly, and there are far fewer of them versus the magick I saw in the ocean and in my mind's eye in the Port Ashford Redwoods.

"This is the Aegis Globe." Arielle's at the other end of the viewing platform, but somehow her voice travels, and I can hear her above the loud vibrating hum. She sounds so close, and her voice doesn't echo... like we're in a small room, not this vast space.

I squint at the air in front of me, trying to decide if we're separated from the globe by a pane of glass or something.

"Guardians work with this globe in order to access the Aegis, which spans the entire planet," Arielle continues. "Each of those purple dots represents a stargate that once served as a portal between Earth and Atlantis but was sealed the day the Aegis was created. The Aegis itself exists everywhere you see the stargates and the purple ley lines that connect them all."

Ley Lines.

I've heard the term before. My brain tries to conjure up more info, but all I get is the sense that ley lines are some kind of pseudoscience or mythological concept having to do with famous places.

How do the Guardians maintain the Aegis from here if it wraps around the entire planet? I'm gonna have a lot of questions the next time I see Chloe.

Dancing purple light plays across Vivian's awe-struck face beside me, and I join her again in staring down at the Earth, mesmerized by the quickly shifting clouds and the glowing ley lines. A flash of light catches my eye. It's all the way on the other side of the Earth from where we are.

A viewing platform like ours, only smaller, has appeared out of the darkness near the Earth's Equator.

"Looks like we're in luck." Arielle sounds asexcited as we are. "The Guardians have arrived."

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