Magic Swap (Hidden World Academy Book 1)

by Sadie Moss

  Bianca gives me an are you still on the good drugs kind of look. “Don’t be ridiculous. We’ll just hail a carriage.”

  A… what?

  But before my lips can even form the question, Bianca waves down a horse-drawn carriage.

  I’m not kidding.

  There are horse-drawn carriages that make the rounds in downtown Baltimore, but they’re really only for tourists, or for romantic dates where you want to sweep your significant other off their feet. You won’t usually find them out on the street just wandering around during morning rush hour, and you certainly don’t want to use one to try to get to your class on time.

  But sure enough, a horse-drawn carriage pulls up. It looks like any other carriage I’ve seen, except when Bianca drags me inside, there are seat belts and cupholders and some other additions—the sort of things you’d find in a car.

  “Everyone settled?” the driver asks, glancing over his shoulder at us.

  “Yup!” Bianca says breezily as I hurriedly buckle my seat belt.

  Why I’ll need a seat belt, I don’t know, but everything that’s happened to me so far today has been weird enough that I’m nervous about what it might mean that they have seat belts in a horse-drawn carriage of all places.

  Bianca swipes what looks like a credit card into the machine in the middle console above the drink holder and punches in the address. A moment later, the screen flashes green, and the driver lightly slaps the reins.

  And then—

  Then—

  Wings. Giant, tawny-colored wings, the same color as the horses, emerge from their flanks, and I realize that what I had kind of dismissed as maybe the horses needing a haircut was really their wings folded against their bodies, instead of just extra shagginess.

  The horses flap their wings a little, flexing them, shaking them out—and then they begin to trot, gaining speed, faster and faster, their wings beating powerfully one, two, three times—

  And we lift off into the air.

  I shriek in surprise, grabbing onto the side of the carriage.

  This is why there are seat belts, holy crap, holy crap, there are seat belts on this carriage because the horses are flying, oh my fucking God.

  Bianca glances at me and laughs. “You’re going to have to get over your fear of heights someday, Roxie,” she tells me, her tone teasing. “It’s perfectly safe. You’re less likely to fall out of a carriage than you are to get into a car accident, you know. I read a whole article on it.”

  Oh my God. We’re flying over the clogged up streets and the traffic below, level with the fifth floors of the buildings we’re whizzing by, and I would probably vomit if my entire body wasn’t clenched up in fear.

  It’s kind of a pity I’m so goddamn scared, because the view is nice. Cities always look so much nicer from above—when you get some distance, you can’t see all the dirt and trash, or hear all the angry people and honking horns. You just see the beauty. The way all the separate parts come together to create a totally unique landscape.

  As that thought passes through my mind, the carriage takes a sharp turn around a corner, and hoo boy, just like that I’m back to being terrified again.

  I see a few other carriages in the sky, but not many. I remember Bianca swiping her card before we started the trip—are carriages more expensive? A premium service of some kind? It would make sense if they were, to keep people from clogging up the sky as well as the ground. And feeding and caring for horses has to be expensive, right? More expensive than keeping a taxi cab running, I bet.

  “So, what happened?” Bianca asks, settling back against the seat and turning to look at me.

  My heart tries to evacuate my body via my throat, and I swallow hard.

  For a wild second, I think she knows, that I’ve given myself away somehow and she wants to know how I somehow ended up in this crazy place with people calling me Roxie.

  Then I realize she’s asking about my accident.

  Well, I know how I got all bruised, but I don’t know how this Roxie person did. If Roxie even exists. And if I’m not actually her. Ugh, just thinking about what this all might mean makes my head hurt.

  “I… don’t remember,” I tell her, still holding onto the carriage with a death grip. “I think the concussion gave me a bit of memory loss. One minute, I was walking down the street at night, out on the town, and the next…”

  I shrug and gesture at myself with one hand as if to say ta-da.

  Bianca nods, wrinkling her nose. Her manic tempo has settled a bit since we got into the cab, and she actually looks sympathetic. “Yeah, I get that. It must’ve been freaky to wake up totally confused.”

  I think it’s sweet of her to say that. She did say she was my—Roxie’s—best friend. Makes sense that she’d care about me—her. Goddammit.

  “Thanks.” I flash a quick smile that’s probably more like a grimace. “Yeah, it kind of was.”

  “Wow, you must really be rattled.” Bianca chuckles. “No joke about having woken up in worse places? Or about it being better than the time you woke up at that one frat guy’s apartment? Chaz, or whatever his name was? Damn.”

  Oh. Whoops.

  Apparently, this Roxie person—if she even exists, since she seems to be me, and I can’t possibly look that much like a random stranger, right?—is the kind of girl who always has a shield up, who won’t admit to vulnerability.

  Okay, good to know.

  This is probably the part where I should admit to Bianca what’s going on. Come clean and say what honestly happened. But I’m not dumb. I’ve seen the movies, the TV shows, and read the books. I’ve even seen a few “true story” special reports on the news, although how honest the people being interviewed are in those things, I don’t know.

  But the point is, I’ve seen enough of those kinds of things to know that if you wake up somewhere weird and new, and you realize you aren’t who everyone says you are and you can’t remember the life people are telling you is yours—if you realize that, and you then tell people that?

  Bad shit happens.

  I’m not about to get locked up in a looney bin in some alternate dimension or whatever this is. Not when I need to figure out how to get back home. My parents must be worried sick.

  Unless this is home?

  Maybe this is the reality, and everything I think I remember from the past twenty-one years of my life is the dream?

  No. No. I did not dream up an ordinary, non-magical-flying-horses existence only to wake up and find that this magical world is the real one and the nonmagical world is the fake one. That just does not make sense.

  Maybe I’m still dreaming now?

  Who even knows. Right now, I just know that I can’t let it slip that I’m not who she thinks I am, because that can only end in disaster for me.

  So I just give Bianca a tight-lipped smile and try to shrug off my weird behavior.

  A few minutes later the horses begin to bank, swooping down low, and we land in… holy shit.

  There is definitely not a campus like this in the version of Baltimore that I know.

  It’s gorgeous. It reminds me of one of those old-fashioned English college campuses, like Cambridge or Oxford, with the big, ancient buildings done up in stone and brick, ivy on the walls and buildings that look like they’ve been standing here since the Middle Ages, with sweeping green lawns, manicured gardens, and huge, ancient trees that people are sitting under.

  My jaw nearly drops, but I quickly catch myself and school my face into as neutral of an expression as I can manage. If Bianca’s talking about being late for class and gossiping about a professor, and it’s the end of September, that means I’ve been attending classes here for at least a month, and that means I, or Roxie, or whatever—would be used to this campus by now. I wouldn’t be gaping around at everything like a fish.

  The driver deposits us near a large gate in the wall that surrounds the campus. The metal gate swings open as we approach, and I follow Bianca’s lead as she makes a beeline
down one of the stone pathways that leads across the lawn.

  As we make our way across the school grounds, I notice people staring at me.

  Oh, God, is it my club dress? It’s my club dress, isn’t it?

  Shit. I must look like such an idiot, walking across this gorgeous, elegant campus wearing the dress I went out partying in the night before.

  Bianca notices a couple of people whispering as they walk by me and makes an annoyed noise, shooing them away.

  “I think that’s the first dress I’ve seen you wear that isn’t designer,” she notes when she turns back to me. “It looks off the rack, honey. Did you swap clothes with someone last night as like a prank or something? Did somebody spill a drink on your real outfit?”

  “Uh…”

  My whole body seems to blush, and I try to tug down the hem of the dress a bit. I’m a little conservative with my clothes when I go out clubbing. I want to look good, but I also don’t want people to think I’m available for hitting on when I just want to dance with my friends.

  Bianca laughs. “Oh, relax, Roxie. That hem’s lower than anything else you’ve got in your wardrobe. Nobody cares.”

  “It’s not exactly classroom attire,” I point out.

  “Then we’ll stop by your dorm first and you can change, if it really bothers you that much.”

  I’m not sure what to make of the dynamic here. Bianca seems to be looking out for me—picking me up from the hospital, asking if my accident was scary, offering to take me back to my room to change—but there’s also a weird kind of distance there. It’s as if she, or I guess, we aren’t really the types to show open affection in our friendship.

  That genuinely confuses me. Why be best friends with someone if you can’t be openly affectionate?

  “Uh oh,” Bianca mutters, leaning into me and staring up ahead. “Shithead, twelve o’clock.”

  “Morning ladies. Looking classy as always,” a deep voice drawls, and while he says classy, his tone conveys exactly the opposite.

  Standing in front of us is a tall, slightly scruffy looking guy about our age, with slightly shaggy chestnut brown hair, intense, playful blue-green eyes, and a strong jawline sporting a five o’clock shadow. When the sun catches his hair, I can see it has coppery highlights in it.

  For a second, my mind goes entirely blank.

  Uh. Holy fuck. This might be one of the hottest guys I’ve ever seen.

  He’s sporting a band t-shirt, black pants that look so tight he must’ve fucking poured himself into them, and a black leather jacket. Typical bad boy look, but dammit, he makes it work.

  “Good morning, Cross. I see you look like you just walked out of Hot Topic,” Bianca fires back. “Don’t you have a chemistry lab to be blowing up or something?”

  “Aww, Bianca, you know the chemistry lab explosion isn’t until noon,” the guy named Cross replies, grinning and hooking his thumbs in his belt loops.

  “Well, we actually have something productive to do with our morning before then, so we’ll just be on our way.”

  Bianca flashes Cross a fake smile that Cross imitates, the two of them looking like they’d happily shove the other person down a set of stairs if they could stand to get close enough to do it.

  I get the feeling I’m misstepping here by not saying something, but what would I say? I don’t actually know this guy, although clearly, I should.

  Before I can decide whether or not to try to add anything to the exchange, Bianca grabs my arm and spins on her heel, tugging me away. As I hurry to keep pace with her, I can’t resist glancing back at the scruffy man behind us.

  Cross is staring at me with narrowed eyes, his head tilted slightly to one side. Holy shit, he’s gorgeous. He looks like he should be on the cover of some men’s magazine, smirking at me as I stand in line to check out at the grocery store.

  He also looks suspicious.

  Oh, crap… does he realize? Does he know?

  Did he figure out I’m not who I’m supposed to be?

  Chapter 4

  Bianca continues to pull me across campus, even as I try to get a better look at Cross to see if he’s still staring at me, still suspicious. If he’s realized who I am—or rather, who I’m not—I’m terrified he’ll follow after me and demand to know why I’m impersonating this Roxie person.

  Or maybe he’ll just demand I’m taken to a therapist. I don’t know. I don’t even know quite why I’m so scared of being found out, I just know that I am. I mean, there are doctors to help you when you have amnesia or remember things wrong after an accident, right?

  But then, I’ve also heard way too many stories of people who were ignored by their doctors, or condescended to, or people who had illnesses like anxiety or whatever and their doctors just wouldn’t work with them and were awful.

  I don’t want that to happen to me. No way.

  “Just ignore him,” Bianca says when she notices me glancing over my shoulder. “Cross is an annoying dickwad, but don’t let him get under your skin. Especially not after the night you’ve had. Just pretend the asshole doesn’t exist. I know I try to.”

  Wow. She really doesn’t like this guy.

  Is Cross my shitty ex-boyfriend or something? He sounds like an ex-boyfriend.

  “I mean, really, you’d think he would just let it go,” Bianca continues, and something in her voice makes me think she’s said all of this dozens of times before. “For two years, he’s had that stick shoved up his ass and only takes it out to try to beat you over the head with it. And for what? So he can get slightly better grades than you? Yeah, right. I still swear he chose the same discipline as you on purpose just to fuck with you. It’s clear he has no real drive of his own except competing with you and trying to get the best of you—”

  Bianca’s just ranting now, and normally I would tune it out when a random person starts dumping personal information on me in a rant, but this? This is good. This is helpful information. I listen intently, trying to pick up context clues as Bianca tears Cross a new one.

  “—I mean, nobody’s denying he’s got skill when he actually applies himself instead of just dicking around trying to throw you off your game, but, God, you’d think that would mean he’d actually do something productive with his life instead of just being such a dick all the time. At least you give as good as you get though. You have to! I mean, if someone gives you serious shit, you gotta fling it right back, you know what I mean?”

  “Yeah, totally,” I say, since that seems to be what I’m supposed to say.

  Bianca keeps ranting, and soon, I’ve got basically the whole story. The three of us are all early in our third year at a four year academy program, and for the two years that we’ve been here, ever since freshman orientation, Cross and Roxie have been rivals.

  And not exactly friendly ones, either.

  I mull that over in my mind as Bianca finally runs out of steam, coming up with a few more creative insults for Cross before she peters out.

  I’ve never actually had a rival. I think you actually have to be noticed for that to happen, and I’ve pretty much stayed under the radar at my school. My dance crew knows me pretty well, but the people I go to college with? Not so much. And why would I bother having an arch-rival, honestly? It just seems like such a waste of time and energy.

  But this guy, Cross, has apparently made himself a real thorn in my side. Roxie’s side. Whatever. The lines are all blurred, and I really have no clue what’s happening.

  We run into a few more students who say hi as we cross campus—I just say hi back and try to sound normal, whatever “normal” is for me in this life.

  “Ugh, here we are. Finally. I swear this campus has some kind of shrinking and enlarging spell on it, it gets bigger whenever you need to get somewhere quickly,” Bianca says.

  I try not to stare at her. I know that after the flying horses, I should probably be used to weird things, but that—shrinking and enlarging spell? Is that real? Or is she joking?

  Bianca makes a mot
ion with her hand, and the doors to the massive brick dorm building in front of us swing open. She ushers me inside. “Come on. We have to hurry.”

  We climb the stairs to the third floor, which is also the top floor, and enter a room that I don’t recognize. This is nothing like what my dorm room is like at my college. This is a stranger’s room, with strange posters on the walls of bands I don’t know, and books on subjects I don’t recognize, and clothes and stuff strewn all over that I definitely don’t find familiar at all.

  What the hell is this life? Who the hell is Roxie—who the hell am I? I wish I had my cell phone on me so I could call my parents. I want to talk to my dad, get my bearings from his soothing tone, or get a hundred different entirely logical solutions from my mom.

  I miss them.

  We had dinner together last night, but in this moment, I miss them like I haven’t seen them in ten years.

  Shoving down the sudden wave of helpless despair that tries to rise up and swallow me whole, I grab a pair of jeans, a blouse, and a light jacket from the closet and throw them on. Then I scour the shoe rack for some shoes.

  Jesus, does Roxie have anything that’s not a pair of heels? Celebrations like my birthday aside, I try to avoid wearing those, since a twisted ankle, or even a sore one, can take me out of dance crew for weeks, and I can’t afford that.

  There’s a pair of somewhat sensible-looking pumps hidden in the back of the closet. I grab those and then take a quick peek in the full-length mirror on the door.

  Good enough, I guess.

  I grab the small purse that’s sitting on the desk and drop the dorm room key inside it. Fortunately, Bianca had a spare that Roxie gave her, and she didn’t bat an eye when I told her I’d lost mine.

  When I emerge from the room, Bianca gives me a once-over, arching a brow. “Going for the relaxed look today?”

  Her tone suggests that a “relaxed” look is not something I should be proud about.

  I shuffle my feet uncomfortably. “I just figured after last night… I don’t want to bother with anything too elaborate. I just want this day over with.”