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Dante shrugged. “I guess you could trying blending in with the crowd.”

“Blending in with the crowd?” I repeated, sighing, as the car drove away. “Since when have I ever been good at that?”

EPISODE 2

THE WHITE KNIGHT

CHAPTER1

THE FORTRESS

While it would have taken us half a day to fly from Bayshore to the Fortress—and over a month by boat—the trip through the Spirit Tree was nearly instantaneous.

We clutched the handgrips inside the big SUV, our teeth chattering as the caravan rumbled over the uneven, scorched earth of the Forbidden Zone. There were three cars in front of us. I watched them vanish, one by one, the moment they passed through the doorway of the Spirit Tree. And then it was our turn.

As soon as we were inside the tree, the inner trunk’s wall lit up with a large, sparkling symbol, projected from the SUV’s headlights. Something invisible passed through me—and then I felt like I was dropping through the ground.

The vertigo only lasted a moment. Then came the bright, blinding light as we drove out the other end of the Spirit Tree. But it wasn’t the same Spirit Tree. And this wasn’t the same place. We’d traveled 12,000 kilometers in an instant.

We were inside the Fortress now, the largest city on Gaia.

“Cool,” Dante gasped, face pressed to the window, his eyes wide, flickering. It was like he was trying to drink in the whole world through a very narrow straw.

“I can’t believe we’re here. At the Fortress!” Nevada said. “It’s so unreal.”

I looked behind us, at the enormous magic tree we’d come out of. The Fortress’s Spirit Tree was even bigger and brighter than the one in Bayshore.

“The Interchange,” I read off a black-and-gold sign as we passed it. “So, this is the Interchange!”

Dante turned from the window. “You’ve heard of it?”

“Oh, yes. It was in one of the books about the Fortress that Mom gave us. Didn’t you read them?”

“Not really.” He shrugged. “I might have looked at a few of the pictures, though.”

I rolled my eyes at him. “Weren’t you at all curious about the Fortress? I mean, you’ve spent your whole life trying to get here.”

“I figured I would see it when I see it.”

“I’m glad the Government chose you, Dante, but I have to wonder why they did. You never study!”

He chuckled. “I don’t need to.”

Dante wasn’t showing off—ok, so maybe he was showing off—but he wasn’t wrong. My brother had never had to study a day in his life, and yet his grades were always perfect. I wasn’t sure how he did it.

“Besides, I thought it was obvious why the Government chose me,” he said. “Because I’m cool.”

“Right, because the Government cares about how ‘cool’ someone is.”

He rolled back his shoulders in a slow, easy shrug. “I have skills, Sav. If you’re nice to me, I might even teach you some of them.”

I snorted. “Like I actually want to learn a totally useless thing like spinning a basketball on my finger.”

“Of course you wouldn’t. Only cool people care about things like that.” He winked at me.

“Funny.” I glanced at Nevada.

She laughed. “Don’t look at me. He’syourbrother.”