by Sadie Moss
I manage to survive the day, but any pride I might feel about that is sort of overshadowed by the terrifying knowledge that I have to do it all again tomorrow.
Sleep doesn’t come easily. During the day, when I was in constant panic mode, it was easier to ignore the acute feeling of sadness and loss that sits in my heart like a black hole every time I think about my family.
I might never see them again. I won’t, unless I can figure out a way to get out of this place and go back home.
My birthday dinner seems like a million years ago, and I play the memories of it over and over again in my mind. The way Shane got that shy little smile on his face when he handed me my present, the way all three of them sang a little off-key when the waiter brought out our dessert with a single lit candle sticking out of it. The way Dad leaned forward and asked me how dance rehearsals were going, enthusiastic despite the fact that he knows almost nothing about hip hop. He loves it because I love it.
I hold on to every detail I can remember, trying to preserve them and keep them close, and as scenes play out behind my closed eyelids, tears leak out and slide down my cheeks.
Rolling onto my side, I hug my pillow and cry until I fall into an exhausted sleep.
My dreams are chaotic and weird.
Fantasies about waking up in my childhood bedroom back in the Dull World and realizing none of this was real mix together with nightmare scenarios where I’m on the run in the Hidden World, fleeing from unseen dark forces with no magic to help me, no generator, and no Cross.
But when I show up to Advanced Spell Casting the next morning, Cross is there, with an empty seat beside him that he’s been saving for me.
“You all right, cupcake?” he murmurs as I practically throw myself into the chair next to him.
“Yeah.” I shoot him a small smile, cutting myself off before I can add the words I am now.
He doesn’t need to know this, but the sight of him is the only thing that loosened the knot of worry that’s been sitting in my chest since I woke up.
After Professor Barnhouse releases us, he walks me to my history class.
This is the only class I’m really excited about, because not only is there no chance of me being called on to perform magic, it also gives me an opportunity to learn about the world around me.
Today, Angelique is really honing in on the subject of dark magic users.
Just as we’ve had dictators in the Dull World, there have been power-hungry assholes in this world too. Except instead of using guns and tanks and military might to seize control, dictators here have used magic, wielding all the power themselves, no army needed.
I can’t decide if it’s scarier than my world or not. I’m not sure that it is, really. It’s just… different. A different way of wielding power.
A different way of being evil.
I write down all the names and dates she mentions, shocked that so many major historical events in this world do seem to correspond to similar events in the history of my world. That should actually give me a leg up on learning all of this, because I won’t be starting entirely from scratch.
After drawing a rough timeline of the major conflicts of the past several centuries on the board, Angelique writes one word below them.
Prophecies.
I lean forward a little as she turns back to face the class. This is definitely something that never got covered in my history classes back home.
“Prophecies play a huge role in our culture and our world events,” she says, rapping on the board behind her with her knuckles. “Prophecies have had a role in every single one of the events I’ve been detailing to you. They predicted the heroes that would rise to stop the evil, as well as the evil itself.”
She casts her gaze around the room, cocking an eyebrow at us.
“I know what you little gremlins are thinking. ‘If prophecies can predict evil actions, why are bad things ever allowed to happen?’ Well, prophecies are tricky things. You can’t always understand what they truly mean until after the event has already happened. Those born with the gift of prophecy are extremely rare and usually manifest their powers early. We train them separately…”
Angelique goes on, and I realize I got so sucked into what she was saying that I stopped taking notes. I quickly resume writing, making sure to write down everything she just said.
This shit is fascinating.
Prophecies are just a cool idea in general, and I wonder if there are prophecies about the Dull World, and if people with the gift of sight can peer into the future if you ask them. Can they do it at will, or can they only see certain things? Maybe I could go to one of them and ask if they can see the future somehow, or see the other world, check on my family.
I look up toward the front again after scribbling a note, and my heart skips a beat.
It’s the TA. And he’s staring at me.
Shit.
Does he know? Theo already suspects, Bianca suspects, Cross apparently figured it out almost immediately, although I haven’t been suicidal enough to ask him exactly what it is that made him realize I’m not Roxie. What could I have done that tipped this guy off though?
If this was one of my classes with more practical magic application, then sure, maybe my lack of participation would be a sign. Maybe my hanging out with Cross all of a sudden instead of trying to murder him with my gaze would be a sign. But he’s the History of Magic TA. And I’m being a good student and taking notes and all.
Do I—does Roxie—usually raise her hand a lot? Is that it?
I dart glances at the guy whenever he’s not looking at me, and as I study his expression, I realize that he doesn’t look suspicious. I’ve seen a lot of suspicion in people’s faces lately. Bianca, Theo, even Cross in the very beginning. This isn’t that. It’s more like… like he can’t look away. He knows he should, but he can’t.
I’ve never had anyone look at me like that before. It’s kind of sweet, but also a little unnerving because, well, it’s not me he’s looking at, is it? It’s Roxie.
That’s what he thinks anyway.
As I slip out at the end of class, I notice the TA slipping out as well and following me, like he’s going to try to talk to me.
Crap. I scramble to remember everything Cross told me about him. Kasian is his name, he’s a couple years older than we are and also works as an advisor, he’s a little on the quiet side, takes things seriously.
Basically, he’s the opposite of Cross, or so I said, which made Cross roll his eyes.
“Hey, Roxie.”
As I round a corner, Kasian gently grabs me by the shoulder and turns me to face him. His voice is smooth and deep like velvet, and I shiver in spite of myself. The last thing I need is to get stupidly attracted to yet another guy in this dimension, dammit, but here I am staring up into Kasian’s dark eyes, and I feel like I’m drowning.
“Hey,” I reply, struggling to keep my voice from squeaking a little. Roxie’s voice wouldn’t squeak. She’s a confident woman and could handle this with ease.
“You got a second?”
As he speaks, Kasian leads me into a small nook off to the side. This school’s gorgeous and old, so of course it has all these little nooks and crannies everywhere like some kind of medieval castle and not like my boring old square-shaped school back in Baltimore.
“Of course,” I say—or start to say, because before I can get the words all the way out, Kasian’s pressing me back against the wall and kissing me.
Oh my God.
I’m not gonna lie, it’s been a long time since I was kissed. And Kasian—he kisses slow and deep, starting out soft and then getting more and more intense until we’re desperately kissing, his hand in my hair, fingers massaging the back of my head, and oh, fuck, fuck, it feels so goddamn good, I feel like I’m turning into a puddle of hot goo.
Kasian kisses my neck and my jaw. “I’ve been thinking about that night,” he murmurs. His voice is sliding down my spine like liquid fire. “Ever since I saw you in
class on Monday, I can’t stop thinking about it. There’s something different about you, and it’s—you’re—fucking intoxicating…”
Oh my God, I might actually try to rip his clothes off in this nook if he keeps kissing my neck like that. I think I’ve forgotten that I have bones; I just feel like jelly.
And then what he’s saying really hits home to me.
Shit!
He hooked up with Roxie. He had sex with Roxie. Oh, fuck, that means he’ll definitely figure out I’m not her if I let this go any further. And how fair would it be of me to hook up with someone while pretending to be someone else? Isn’t that kind of… gross? And mean?
But I really, really want to kiss him again. I want to do more than that, if I’m being completely honest. That was a damn good kiss. I can still feel it everywhere in my body, as if it’s altered something in my basic DNA.
No. No! Bad Gabbi!
Oh my God, what am I thinking? Good kiss or not, I have got to get out of here before he realizes what’s wrong.
“I’m late for class!” I blurt out, even though I’m definitely not, I have a break period right now—and I practically shove my way past him, dashing out into the hallway.
“Roxie?” I hear from behind me. Poor Kasian sounds so fucking confused.
I ignore him and hurry down the hallway, getting as far away as I can. As I burst out of the building, I run into Cross.
Oh, thank God. I grab onto him. “Help me!”
“With what?” he asks, taking me by the elbows and guiding me away, concern wrinkling his brow. “You okay? You look spooked. Scary magic?” He winks.
Okay, maybe he’s not that concerned.
I shake my head, still trying to catch my breath. “No, I just—I’m sorry, I ran into someone—”
Cross’s smirk falls from his face as he switches back to worry. “Hey, seriously, cupcake, you okay?”
I nod, scrubbing a hand down my face. “I’m fine. I just needed to get away before Kasian realized I’m not Roxie. I panicked. Fuck, how can I keep this up when there’s so much going on in Roxie’s life that I don’t know about? I can’t prepare for it!”
“Wait, wait, why would Kasian realize you aren’t Roxie? He’s a TA, right?”
“Well, yes, but—apparently he and Roxie hooked up at one point. He followed me after class and kissed me and told me he couldn’t stop thinking about me.” I groan, memories of the kiss still ricocheting through my body. “But it’s not me, it’s Roxie, and what the hell am I supposed to do with that?”
A strange, fiery sort of look flashes in Cross’s eyes. If I didn’t know any better I’d say it was something like… jealousy.
“Well. Look at you, only two days into this and already a charmer, winning all the guys’ hearts.” There’s a strangely bitter tone to his voice.
Oh, for fuck’s sake, I don’t have time for this. “Cross. This isn’t funny.”
He smirks at me, and suddenly it’s like I imagined whatever I thought I saw in his eyes or heard in his voice. He’s just regular old Cross, annoying and ready to make fun of me every chance he gets.
“Actually, it’s hilarious. C’mon, Kasian’s hot, do you know how many people would be jumping with joy if they suddenly found they were in the life of their parallel universe twin and had a hot guy lusting after them?”
“Yeah, but he’s not—” God, I want to scream in frustration. “It’s not me, it’s Roxie, and Roxie and I are two different people.”
“Are you really complaining to me about a hot guy being into you?”
“You are no help at all, you know that?” I put my hands on my hips. “I’m not sticking around here, okay? You can laugh all you want about this, but this is just—temporary, all of it. I’m not going to get attached to anyone and I’m not getting mixed up with anyone because I’m not staying. Okay? I’m going to find a way back home.”
“Sure you will, cupcake,” Cross replies, and he sounds serious again in one of those weird swings into sobriety that he does. “But until then, you gotta keep your disguise up. And that means dealing with Kasian and any other paramour that party girl might’ve had.”
Well, fuck.
Chapter 10
I spend the next week and a half throwing myself into my classes. I’m going to get by, dammit. Until I figure out a way to get home, I’m going to make sure nobody guesses what’s wrong.
Unfortunately, that’s easier said than done.
Roxie has spent her entire life studying magic. I’ve spent days. Trying to catch up to the level she’s at is the equivalent of asking her to join my hip hop troupe after I’ve been doing dance since I was about five and she hasn’t been doing it at all. Despite all of my hard work, there’s literally no way I can keep up here.
I downgrade my goals from trying to stay at the top of the class to just keeping my head above water and not flunking out, but even that is… ugh.
I’m managing to do okay in the spell casting classes I have with Cross, because he casts the spell for me and I just look like I’m doing it. My hand movements are decent, so I don’t have to worry about those.
And my potion making class, I’m actually… shockingly good at.
It’s similar to cooking, which—thanks to my dad—I know how to do pretty well. You mix and measure ingredients the right way, add a quick shot of magic to make it work, and ta-da. Just like following a recipe. Easy.
The problem is my practical classes that don’t have Cross in them.
I’m good at the gestures. It’s not that I’m failing to imitate other people properly. It’s that the magic from my charm is so weak, my spells are always shitty.
For example, say we’re supposed to make that little sparkly fire dragon again, right? I can do that using my generator, but it fizzles out in seconds, the colors are faded, and there’s no real zing to it.
It makes me want to sink into the floor. Can the earth just swallow me up now so I don’t have to deal with any of this?
My professors seem surprised, to say the least, but nobody’s called me out on it. They just give me these odd sympathetic looks when they think I can’t see them. Honestly? It sucks. I’m not a genius, but I’ve never been at the bottom of my classes like this before, and it’s not my fault—there’s nothing I can do about the fact that I don’t have any magic.
Thankfully, nobody seems to suspect that it might be because I’m actually Roxie’s Dull World twin. My cover is intact. I suppose I should be grateful for that, if nothing else.
My falling grades in history class sting the worst.
I hoped I would do okay in this class since it doesn’t involve practical magic. But remember that whole everyone’s been doing this their whole lives and I haven’t thing?
Yeah.
The History of Magic class basically requires that I already know a bunch of shit about this world—not just in general, from high school or whatever the equivalent is here, but from previous history classes that Roxie took her first two years here. In this world, the use of magic is so tied to history, to wars, to all of it, that to know one is to know the other, or so Angelique says.
And I am way, way behind.
I’m trying to catch up, I really am. I’m spending more time doing research on the internet at night about historical events than I am about trying to find a way home. Luckily, Bianca buys that I’m studying ferociously, even if she seems disappointed when I don’t want to go out and party with her. “Work hard, play hard” seems to be Roxie’s motto—and normally for my cover I’d say yes, let’s play hard, but I honestly can’t afford for these grades to slip any further.
Of course, as if all this wasn’t enough, I have to deal with Theo bursting into my room like the sexy version of Kramer from Seinfeld all the time. It doesn’t matter what time of day it is or what else is going on, he just saunters in like it’s nothing.
I could strangle him, honestly. But I can’t, because I also turn into an absolute puddle around him. With the way he affects me,
I probably couldn’t muster up the arm strength to strangle him even if I tried.
So I just try to ignore the heat that flares up inside me as Theo openly hits on me with no shame whatsoever. I’ve seen him around campus, and he definitely isn’t like this with everyone—I suspect it’s because Roxie was so blasé and ice-queeny that he decided to go even more over-the-top in response, both to annoy her and because, hey, what did he have to lose?
There’s a definite pattern to it.
Theo will come in and be obnoxiously flirtatious, laying down some heavy sexual innuendo in his smooth, accented voice, and then I’ll fire back a retort while not looking at him and continuing whatever I’m doing—usually, studying, ugh. Once he’s satisfied that I’m not actually paying attention and that I don’t care, he leaves.
It’s exhausting. Both having to pretend I’m Roxie and tamping down my actual attraction toward him.
He’s so damn hot, and he makes me so damn hot I worry that my clothes will spontaneously catch fire one of these days. I wish I could just give in and have one night with him, rip his clothes off and climb him like a tree—but I can’t. I have to keep acting like he’s not doing anything for me when he really, really is.
At least I’m getting a bit better at sassing him back and not showing how much he affects me. Well, I think I am anyway. I could be totally wrong. He must notice some reaction, since he keeps coming back.
Near the end of my second week at Radcliffe, I have a history test, and it’s… bad.
To say I bomb it would, I think, be an insult to other students who bomb their tests. It’s awful. I simply couldn’t make up a decade’s worth of history studies in two weeks, no matter how hard I tried. Even if I’d spent all day, every day cramming for it, it wouldn’t have been enough. And I couldn’t do that. I had to sleep and eat and spend time with Bianca and keep up with my other classes and other homework.