Magic Gambit (Hidden World Academy Book 3)

by Sadie Moss

  The cultist and I tussle, and for a moment I’m confused as to why I’m not being hurt, why this guy isn’t launching a harder attack—and then I realize too late what he’s actually trying to do, just as he manages to snatch the fae disc from my pocket.

  “Give that back!” I yell, as if that’s actually going to do anything useful. I lunge for the disc, but he dodges out of my way.

  “Hit her with the binding spell!” he shouts. “Now!”

  I leap for him again, but something hits me, sending me flying across the alley so that my back slams into the opposite wall before I slide down onto the ground.

  My ears are ringing.

  The world is a blur.

  Everything aches, especially my spine. Fucking hell. I really hope I’m not injured—that I didn’t break anything. It’s like I got hit by a train, only the train was electric, and now I’m buzzing with leftover static. The tips of my toes and fingers are tingling and my body is jerking a little. I can’t seem to get it under control. Is this what happens when you stick a fork into a wall socket?

  I blink dazedly. The guys are yelling for me, but it sounds like they’re doing it from very far away, and underwater. And then I see a mask I recognize. It’s the one the cult leader wore the night he stood up and made that speech in the hidden room under Night Elements.

  Fuck. It’s Hawksmith.

  Just as that thought registers in my head, he curls his fingers around the disc he stole from me, and he vanishes.

  Shit!

  I struggle to my feet, and even though Hawksmith told them to hit me with a binding spell, it must not’ve worked. My body still feels like it’s got a lingering electric current running through it, and my legs shake like leaves, but I can move.

  It doesn’t matter though. There’s nothing I can do to stop what’s coming. I’m about to be pulled away when the cult leader grabs Roxie and swaps us. And this time, I have no disc to swap myself back.

  I brace myself for the tug inside of me, prepared to be sent hurtling into the dark and to my world—but I don’t feel anything.

  There’s a strange ripple in the air, like something fundamental about the universe is being distorted. What the hell? Does that happen every time that I swap? And I’ve just never noticed it before, because usually I’m already in the dark in-between place?

  A second later, Hawksmith reappears—with Roxie.

  Holy shit.

  My dimension twin and I stare at each other, finding each other automatically as if our gazes are drawn together like magnets, our twin souls recognizing each other before anything else.

  My heart stutters. How can she be here? How can we possibly occupy the same dimension at the same time?

  I vaguely recall Angelique saying that this shouldn’t happen, that it shouldn’t be possible. That very, very bad things happen if two parallel twins are shoved into the same world.

  But it is happening.

  I don’t know how, but I’m literally staring Roxie in the face, on the same plane with her, for the first time in our lives.

  “No!” Roxie screams, seeming to come to her senses and get over her shock before I do. She yanks out the second disc, the one I gave Dean to give to her, but the cult leader grabs her wrist.

  They tussle over it as my men continue to fight off the other cultists. My heart lurches into my throat, and I raise my hands to launch an attack, to help Roxie—

  But then a flash of magic sparks, and an awful crack rends the air. Roxie and Hawksmith both stumble back, each holding a half of the disc.

  Oh no.

  Chapter 28

  Shit. Now nobody on my side has a disc. Roxie’s is broken and mine was taken. The cult has the only remaining disc.

  Which means they have all the cards, so to speak.

  We’re screwed.

  “Hey, fuckhead!” Cross yells, and a blast of something that looks absolutely disgusting hits Hawksmith smack in the middle of his pretentious owl mask. The man roars in anger, and Theo lunges to try to get the unbroken disc from him—

  Another cult member yells something, throwing what looks like a charm in the shape of a raven with wings outspread, and it hits the ground at our feet.

  I go hurtling backward again, this time with the guys along for the ride. It’s like being sent through a portal, only backward, and I hate it even more than when I’m sent through a portal the usual way, facing front. My insides feel like they’re being rearranged and then flung out of my mouth before being sucked back in, and when I hit the ground, I collapse into a heap and immediately retch.

  “Ouch” doesn’t even begin to describe it. I feel like shit.

  I hear someone else retching, I think Theo, and then Kasian’s yanking me to my feet. “Gabbi? Gabbi, are you all right?”

  “Been better,” I manage to choke out.

  “I think they forced us out of Ravendark,” Cross says grimly. “Shit, that was a hell of an expulsion charm.”

  “Of course you know what that was,” Kasian says, but he sounds equal parts irritated and admiring.

  I look up and, oh… oh no.

  Cross is right. We’re not in Ravendark anymore. We’re in another part of Valencia—but it doesn’t look the same. A strange kind of lightning cracks through the sky, and everything around us is crumbling, buildings groaning as they slowly begin to fall apart. Storm clouds are starting to swirl above us. There’s dust everywhere, stinging my eyes.

  “What’s happening?” Theo yells, stumbling to his feet.

  “This is why parallel world twins can’t be in the same place!” Kasian yells back. It’s hard to hear him as the wind picks up. “They should never be in the same world! Roxie and Gabbi swap back and forth for a reason. It’s how the universe keeps everything balanced!”

  My heart seems to stop. Oh. Fuck.

  Hawksmith’s shouted words come rushing back to me. Hit her with the binding spell.

  I thought it was a battle spell, a piece of magic meant to keep my hands trapped behind my back. And when I was able to move after being hit with it, I figured the spell hadn’t worked.

  But it did.

  It bound me to this plane of existence. It kept me from swapping over when Hawksmith went to collect Roxie.

  The spell is fading. The tingling feeling is already leeching out of my extremities. I don’t think any warlock in the world is powerful enough to keep me locked to this plane forever.

  But it doesn’t matter. The damage is done.

  “I can’t swap back!” I yell, my stomach churning in horror. “I have no disc! And Roxie’s is broken!”

  It feels like I’m standing in the middle of a nightmare realizing a monster is running toward me, and then realizing that my feet are stuck to the floor. There’s nowhere to go. Nothing to do.

  It’s inevitable.

  “As long as I exist, and she exists—”

  My words break off, and I feel like I might vomit. The ground is rumbling beneath my feet, and people are screaming and running for shelter all around us, ignoring the four disheveled people standing in the middle of the street.

  But there’s nowhere for them to hide. Nowhere they’ll be safe. Because the fabric of the universe is coming apart.

  “This must be how the world breaks,” I choke out. “Fuck!”

  I know, all the way down to the bottom of my soul, that it’s not going to go how the cultists want it to at all. It’s not going to end in my world crumbling while the magical one gets more powerful. It’s going to end in the destruction of everything. And now I have no way to stop it.

  Unless…

  Being dead means that technically you don’t exist anymore, right? You’re no longer a part of any world.

  My heart slams hard and fast against my ribs.

  This could be how we end it. This could be how we solve it.

  Didn’t the interpreter say that I would have to make a choice but that I might not take it? Maybe this is my choice.

  It’s not a pleasant one. I
don’t want to die. I want to see my family again. I want to be with my guys. I want to explore this magical world that I’m just starting to really understand and find my place in. But I’ll do what I have to. The world, and all the lives in it, matter more than just my own. And how can I say that I love my men and my family if I don’t do whatever it takes to keep them alive and safe?

  “Kill me,” I blurt out, the words sliding out of me with far more ease than I ever would’ve expected.

  Chaos surrounds us. Wind howls, and the low rumbling sound seems to infiltrate my bones. People are screaming, and a siren wails in the distance.

  But I barely register any of it. All I can see are the three faces around me.

  The men stare at me. Theo blinks at me in shock, then narrows his gray eyes, his angular features hardening. “Sorry, love, this wind’s pretty loud. I thought you bloody well said that we should kill you!”

  “No way,” Kasian says, shaking his head. “No fucking way.”

  Kasian doesn’t swear often, and it gives me a moment of shock at how serious he must be. Cross is shaking his head vehemently, like the idea of it is clinging to him and he’s trying to get rid of it.

  “Listen!” I step forward, reaching out to them. I have to make them understand. “We fucked up! We should’ve taken Hawksmith out a long time ago. We should’ve found a better way to protect the disc. Or maybe—maybe there was never any way to avoid reaching this point. Maybe all this fighting against the prophecy has only brought it barreling down on us.”

  Bits of dust sting my eyes, and tears spill down my cheeks.

  “This is the only way to save everyone in this world and in mine!” I scream over the wind. “What’s one life compared to billions? I don’t like it, I really don’t like it, I don’t want to die. But if we don’t stop this, then I’ll probably die anyway, and so will all of you, and I don’t want that! I want my family to be okay, I want you to be okay! I love you! Don’t you get that? I love you. And if this is the choice, if this is what I have to do, then I’ll do it!”

  Cross steps forward, seizing me by the shoulders. For a second, I think he understands. That he’ll do what needs to be done—that he’ll let me save them.

  Then his lips curl back in an angry snarl.

  “No fucking way, to quote Kas,” he growls. “Tough luck, cupcake. If you wanted to make a heroic sacrifice, you picked the wrong damn boyfriends.”

  He kisses me hard, holding onto me like he thinks I’m going to try to break away and kill myself if he lets go.

  When we pull apart, Theo steps close, Kasian closing in on our other side until we’re in a sort of huddle, our backs to the wind.

  “Cross has it right this time, minx,” Theo says seriously. “And besides, you’re wrong. It’s not your only choice. There’s still a disc. The one that the cult has.”

  “Yeah,” I reply, swallowing hard as hope and terror war inside me. “And the cult has it. The odds of getting it back before the world crumbles around us are—”

  “Low. But a slim chance isn’t no chance,” he interjects, his nostrils flaring. “And I’m not letting you make that kind of sacrifice until we’ve exhausted every other option.”

  My tears fall faster, and my heart seems to crack open in my chest. These men love me enough to risk existence itself to save my life, and even though I can’t let that happen, I want to kiss the fuck out of each of them for caring so much.

  “Okay,” I say, my voice raw. “We’ll try. But if we don’t make it, or if things get too bad—you have to do what I asked. You have to promise.”

  “I promise,” Theo says, his gaze burning into mine. “But it will not come to that, love. We won’t let it.”

  Cross takes one of my hands, and Kasian takes the other.

  “We’re not losing you,” Kasian confirms. “Let’s go get that disc.”

  Chapter 29

  I’m still not sure about this, not by a long shot, but I suppose that there’s time for someone to shoot me through the heart or something later if we have to do it. I really don’t want to die, after all. I’d like to survive this whole thing as intact as possible—and I mean that physically, mentally, and emotionally.

  “Besides,” Theo points out, his voice still thick with emotion, “we need you for this fight. You’re good at magic, you’re strong, and you’re a tough fighter. We need you on our side.”

  The other two men murmur agreement, their voices barely audible over the howling wind around us. The storm clouds swirling in the sky seem to be growing darker, and the buildings shake, sending pieces of stone crumbling to the street.

  Fuck. We need to get out of here.

  I glance around the tight circle at my men. All three of them are looking at me with a combination of pleading looks and angry determination. I want so badly to believe that Theo’s right. That there’s still another way out of this. But inwardly… honestly… I know what I might have to do. What it might come to.

  You’re going to have one chance to stop it from happening, but I don’t think you’ll take it.

  Those words have rung in my head ever since I first heard them. Of course most people won’t take that chance when it means their own death. The idea of dying is terrifying, and that’s even without factoring in the part where it means I have to leave the people I love without a proper goodbye, never seeing them again.

  But I’ll do it if I have to—even if Theo won’t, or can’t when it comes down to it.

  I’m not much of a hero in a lot of ways. I think Roxie fits that bill more than I do, ironically. She’s smart, talented, determined, quick-thinking, and powerful. But I can be heroic in this, if it comes to it.

  Now let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, because I’d really like to not die.

  “Okay,” I say. “Then we have to get back to Ravendark.” God only knows what they’re doing to Roxie right now. My stomach clenches at the thought. “Where the hell are we?”

  “Fuck if I know,” Theo mutters.

  Cross looks around as well. “Okay, I know where we are.” Of course he does. He grew up here, and he knows the city better than any of us. “I can get us back to the entrance to Ravendark, but it won’t be easy.”

  “You can say that again.” Kasian speaks above the wind, his jaw clenching.

  I follow his gaze to take in the darkened, dust-choked street around us, and adrenaline surges through my veins. Holy fuck.

  As my men and I talked, I was vaguely aware of everything going on around us, but now it’s like I’m emerging into the air after being underwater. I can hear screams and people crying out in fear, groaning and creaking from buildings, and a host of other sounds that shake me to my core. The storm above us is gaining speed slowly but steadily, the clouds dark and roiling, tinged an unearthly red. It feels like I’m starting to see colors I didn’t even know existed.

  The fabric of the world is coming apart.

  “We have to hurry!” Theo yells, and Kasian takes my hand as Cross begins to lead us through the streets.

  It’s utter chaos. I see so many people running around, fearful, yelling. Nobody has any idea what’s happening or what to do about it. Why would they?

  I want to stop and help them. It tugs viciously at my heartstrings to see these people with no answers, nothing but terror, and I know that maybe I could help them—I want to stop and help them—but that would only delay being able to stop the cultists. The best thing I can do for all of these people, as counterintuitive as it sounds, is to ignore them and to keep going, to get back to Ravendark.

  Cross really does know these streets well, but it’s difficult to make any headway with the destruction and chaos that’s going on everywhere. The longer it goes on, the worse it gets. Buildings are literally starting to crumble around us like we’re in some kind of crappy disaster movie, except this is real and powerful and it’s only going to get worse from here. The ground is shaking like in an earthquake, only more… more like the earth is starting to become insubstantia
l and stop existing.

  Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

  “There’s the entrance!” Cross finally yells. “Let’s go, let’s go!”

  Kasian hurries to pick the lock.

  “Why are you bothering with that?” Theo demands.

  “If I blast it open, it’ll set off the alarm and they’ll know we’re coming,” Kasian says, his voice tight with strain. “We need every second of advantage we can get.”

  The lock clicks and we sprint through, Theo throwing his illusion spell so that the web of tripwires is revealed and we can clamber through it, helping each other so that we don’t fall.

  The jelly is the last thing. I close my eyes and sprint forward, thinking about how much I love everyone, about how I’m going to do whatever I can to save Roxie, I’m going to save Roxie, save Roxie—

  The jelly seizes me and I’m forced to freeze, panicked for a single moment, and then I’m practically spat out by the magical jelly onto the other side. I turn back, just to make sure, and watch as the three men rush through and are spat out as well. It’s a little quieter here, although the sky above us still heaves and the ground still shakes.

  “We have to get to the cult headquarters without them noticing,” Kasian says. “We’re outnumbered. There’s no way a direct assault will work.”

  “But how? They’re paranoid as fuck. They were waiting for us.” Cross gestures down the street. “They must have set up extra surveillance or something.”

  I glance up and down the street. The destruction is happening here too, all around us, no pocket left untouched. Surely the cultists can feel it by now. Is this what they want to happen? Do they still think everything is fine? That it’s going according to plan? Or are they panicking too, realizing that they’ve made a mistake?

  “What are you doing back here again?” someone shouts, and I turn to see an older mage glaring at us as he hurries out of his building, which is shaking ominously. “Saw you fighting up the street earlier, damn undercover cops or—”

  “No. No! We’re not cops. We’re here to stop this from happening!” I gesture around us.