Magic Gambit (Hidden World Academy Book 3)

by Sadie Moss

  Holy crap.

  I mean, it’s also entirely possible they just want to be able to claim the only Dull Worlder to ever develop magic as one of their alumni. That’s gotta be worth some big fundraising dollars. But what the hell. I’ll take it.

  “Thank you,” I tell them. “But I do need to see my family in the Dull World, and sort out all of that. Is it okay if I get back to you in a couple of days?”

  The dean looks at the other administrative heads, who nod. “Perfectly reasonable,” he says.

  Relief and elation course through me so fast that I feel like I might burst into wild laughter. Or maybe pass out. Or maybe laugh and then pass out.

  Holy shit, of course I want to study here. Of course I do. And as myself, so the pressure of being perfect, of being Roxie, is gone.

  But I have to check in with my family first. I have to sort things out with them.

  I need to explain all of this and make things right.

  For as much as I’ve been missing my family and as long as I’ve been wanting to see them, I find myself dragging my feet after Roxie and I leave our meeting with the admins.

  And there’s one simple reason for that.

  I’m terrified.

  “What if they don’t believe me?” I ask as I say goodbye to the guys. We’re all gathered in Kasian’s dorm room again, and I can’t seem to stop moving around, nervous energy flowing through me like electricity. “What if they think I’m crazy and stick me in the looney bin?”

  “They won’t,” Kasian says reasonably. “For one thing, you have proof.”

  I suppose. But I really don’t want my family to reject me or to be angry with me. Not after all this.

  Theo catches my wrist to stop my pacing. Then he tugs me toward him and kisses me, bending me backward a little as if he’s trying to pour his love and support into me.

  “It’s going to be all right, minx,” he promises when he brings me back upright. “You’ve had nothing but good things to say about your family. They’re good people, and they love you.”

  “Hey, you can bring me along to convince them if you want,” Cross teases.

  “Uh, thanks. But I think I better go alone the first time,” I say. I don’t want to unleash Hurricane Cross on my poor family right after I’ve told them about a parallel world existing, that magic is real, and that I have it.

  “Go,” Kasian says with a chuckle, gently tugging me from Theo’s hold. “It’ll be all right, Gabs. I promise. It’s your family.”

  It is my family. And I’ve really missed them.

  I’m getting better at swapping. I can land close to where I want to—not exactly, and not always, which is annoying—but a lot closer. And I’m not in danger of bashing my head in anymore. Roxie told me that when we first swapped, she didn’t get injured the way that I did since she initiated the swap and was a little prepared for it, but she still got banged up and covered in scrapes and bruises. There’s none of that this time.

  I land right outside of my home and heave a sigh of relief. There’s no one out on the street to see me suddenly appear, which is a good thing, and I walk right up and open the front door.

  “Mom?” I call out. “Dad?”

  It’s dinner time, so I’m not surprised when Dad pokes his head out of the kitchen. “Gabbi?”

  A huge smile breaks out over my face.

  “Dad.” I run over and hug him tightly. “Ugh, I’ve missed you so much.”

  “Missed us?” Shane says, popping his head up from the back of the couch in the living room where he’s been playing a video game. “What do you mean?”

  “Where’s Mom?” I ask in response.

  “Just in here.” Mom emerges from the living room too. “Honey, hey, you okay? We haven’t—you just haven’t been around the last couple days.”

  The way she says it makes it sound like this is now typical for me, to them. That they’re used to my disappearing with no explanation.

  I hate that’s how they feel. And now, I can tell them the truth about it instead of just making up terrible excuses that probably only leave them more worried than they were.

  “You guys are going to want to sit down,” I tell them. “All of you. I have—I’ve had a lot going on lately and things have been really weird the last few months, and I know you’ve all noticed. I couldn’t tell you about it before, but now I can. I know it’s going to sound crazy, but if you could, um, wait until the end and bear with me, before you ask any questions, I’d appreciate it.”

  My parents glance at each other, and I can see them both bracing themselves, sharing silent support as they prepare to hear whatever awful secret I’m about to unleash. I can only imagine the possibilities that are running through their heads.

  But they turn and nod at me.

  I usher them all into the living room and sit my parents down on the couch with Shane between them. I can’t sit. I’m too fucking nervous. But I try to keep my pacing to a minimum as I begin to tell my story, starting from the night of my twenty-first birthday.

  All three of them look confused, but they don’t say anything as I launch into an explanation of what’s been happening to me the last few months.

  Well, I don’t tell them everything, of course. My parents don’t need to know about all the sex I’ve been having. Or the details of just how frequently my life has been in danger, and how close I came to dying on multiple occasions. I don’t want to tell them—and especially not Shane, who’s listening with rapt attention, his mouth and eyes both open wide—about how Bianca stabbed a man to death.

  But I do tell them all that’s been going on, about the prophecy, and about how Roxie and I have been swapping places. I explain the whole parallel world twin thing, and that the person they’ve thought was me acting weird this entire time was really Roxie.

  My parents look more and more in shock as I go on, and by the time I get to the end, they look like they might actually faint.

  “I can prove it to you,” I add quickly.

  “This is so wicked,” Shane says. “Can you teach me how to do like a fireball or something?”

  “No,” I say at the same moment Mom and Dad do. Even if Shane did have magic, there’s no way I’d let him learn crazy things like that. He’d burn the house down.

  “Here.” I pull the Disc of Eile out of my pocket. “I’ll prove it to you.”

  I swap into the Hidden World, and then the moment I have my feet solid enough beneath me, I swap back. I don’t land right in the spot where I left—I land in the kitchen and nearly knock over the cookie jar.

  All three of them rush into the room at the sound of the commotion. Mom gives a small shriek of surprise and Dad’s jaw falls slack.

  “Holy shit!” Shane’s eyes are like saucers.

  “Language, Shane,” Dad says automatically, still blinking at me in shock.

  “That is so cooool!” Shane says to me, not even paying attention to Dad.

  I give a small bow and a wink to Shane. I’ve missed my little brother so much.

  “You see?” I tell my parents, giving a little shrug as if that will somehow convince them this is no big deal.

  They still seem flabbergasted, but no longer in the kind of way that suggests they’re hearing something too crazy to be true—more like they’re seeing something nuts, and they can’t believe it’s actually happening.

  But that’s something. They’re starting to believe; they’re one step closer. And I might have to explain it all a few more times, but we’ll get there. Because I’m not giving up either parts of my world.

  Oh, right, and—

  “And you’ll need to meet my boyfriends,” I say. “Um, I have three of them.”

  Mom blinks.

  “What?” Dad croaks.

  “It’s fine! You’ll love them!” I say quickly. “We can build up to that! It’s fine, honestly, it’s a long story, it’s the guys I mentioned who’ve been helping me this whole time. They’re good people, and they kept me safe and helped me w
ith the prophecy—” Oh, shit. I might’ve blown a fuse in my dad’s brain. Waving my hands as if to clear the air, I add, “You know what, we’ll discuss that later. Honestly. This isn’t about them, it’s about you. You guys. I’ve missed you guys.”

  My mom tears up a little as I say that, and I get the feeling she missed me too, even if she thought I was right here the whole time. Or, most of the time, anyway.

  “It’s me. The real me. And I’m here,” I tell them. “I’m back, and I’m not going to abandon you guys again.”

  That’s the important part. I get to be a part of my family again.

  Dad slowly sits down, and Mom says, earnestly, “Honey, that’s what we care about. This is—this is a lot to take in. But if you’re being honest with us and if you’re really—really here, then that’s the biggest thing.”

  I smile in relief. “That’s all I want.”

  And I mean it.

  Epilogue

  Six Months Later

  I didn’t sleep at all last night. I was too nervous and excited.

  It’s been a tough climb, getting ready for this moment. I don’t think I’ve ever worked so hard in my life. But I haven’t minded it, because I’ve actually been working on something that I care about, something I want to do. My mom likes to joke that I’ve finally found my work ethic.

  I’m entering Radcliffe this fall semester, as a first-year student.

  The guys, Cross and Theo especially, like to give me shit about how I’m older than all the other first-years. I just roll my eyes and let them have at it. It’s true, I’m older, yada yada yada, but I don’t care. I’m getting to go to school to study magic, as myself, and I’m so damn excited I could fucking scream.

  I have screamed, in fact, in excitement. Multiple times. Kasian has filmed it.

  Speaking of Kasian, he’s accepted a full teaching position for the year. He’s not sure that he’ll want to be at Radcliffe forever, or even be a professor forever, but he’s enjoying it for now and he wants to be where the rest of us are. Theo and Cross still have to complete their fourth year, and we all want to stick together.

  Because of my unusual situation, the administration agreed that I don’t have to live on campus in a dorm like most first-years but can have my own place off-campus, which is a huge relief. My three men and I have a cute little apartment in the heart of Valencia. It’s nothing fancy, but I adore it. We’ve made it a real home.

  I still spend time in the Dull World, visiting my family often. More often than when I lived in the same city and dimension as them, in fact. I don’t feel smothered by my mom as much anymore, and I want to come home for visits. The distance makes the heart grow fonder, or whatever that saying is. I guess it’s really true.

  My first class is at nine o’clock, but I’m dressed and ready to go by seven. The guys all got up with me, even though Theo and Cross’s classes don’t start until later in the morning.

  Right before I leave for school, I call my mom on my hand-held mirror. It looks like a makeup mirror, but it works like the other device Anzac gave me, only instead of only being able to talk to Roxie, I can see and talk to anyone in the Dull World and they can see and talk to me and whoever’s around me, so long as they’re holding the twin device.

  Bianca managed to convince Anzac to give it to me, and to give Roxie her own Disc of Eile as well. The dark-haired firecracker spends a lot of time in the fae realm now. She’s splitting her time between the fae and human realms, sort of like I’m doing between the Hidden World and the Dull World. There’s definitely something going on between her and Deverell, the captain of Anzac’s guard. I’m not entirely sure what it is, but I do know that she smiles in a way I’ve never seen before, and I have a feeling he kisses her like my guys kiss me.

  I’m glad. She deserves that.

  Roxie has a series of favors she’s got to do for Anzac to make up for her theft, but now that he understands the entire situation, he’s being more lenient with her. The world almost ending does tend to change people’s perspective on things.

  “Morning!” I say cheerfully as Mom picks up.

  “Hey, honey!” She beams at me. “Are you excited?”

  “Of course I am.”

  “It’s not like she’s been talking about it all day every day for weeks,” Cross comments from behind me, grabbing my ass out of view of the mirror and pressing a kiss to my cheek.

  I swat him away as a flush rises in my cheeks. The guys and I live together and can get naked with each other anytime we like, but just like Cross told me once—it’s never enough.

  Mom laughs. Of all the things my parents had to adjust to, the idea of me dating three guys seemed to be the easiest for them. Maybe that’s because the other things they had to wrap their heads around were so crazy and monumental, but after their initial shock, they accepted my choice really quickly. It probably helps that they can see how happy I am. How happy the guys make me.

  “Oh, honey, remember you’re coming over for dinner this weekend,” Mom adds.

  “I know.”

  “Hey, can you make more of that banana bread?” Theo calls from the kitchen, where he’s pouring himself a cup of coffee.

  “You are not using my mom as a free bakery!” I shout to him as I pick up my backpack, slinging it over my shoulder.

  “I just want to eat it in front of Cross so he gags again.” He comes out of the kitchen in time to give me a kiss goodbye, waggling his eyebrows as he pulls away.

  My copper-haired boyfriend makes a face. “Excuse me for not wanting to eat food that has literally traveled across dimensions. Do you have any idea what kind of—”

  “I’ve seen you eat bacon off the floor, and you can’t eat—”

  I slam the front door behind myself as I exit out onto the street. “Sorry about that,” I tell my mom, but I’m grinning.

  Mom just laughs. She loves all three of my guys, and she’s highly entertained by them. Oh, and unlike Roxie’s mom, she doesn’t look at any of them like she wants to eat them. So, win for me.

  “I’ll make that banana bread,” she promises. “And those blueberry muffins that Kasian likes. Oh! That reminds me, I saw Roxie and Dean the other day. They are such a cute couple.”

  After what I have to imagine were some pretty tough conversations with her parents, Roxie’s gone back to the Dull World to study organic chemistry. She has more interest in that kind of stuff than magic, which both of us find terribly ironic. But she comes back to visit a lot too, both to fulfill her favors to Anzac and to see her family and friends. Her parents are still getting over the horror of not having another Radcliffe graduate in the family, but the fact that she saved the world from destruction has earned them enough social cachet to last for a long, long time.

  Plus, I think they actually want to support her decisions. Or at least try to, as foreign as that concept is for them.

  The door opens behind me a second later and Kasian walks out, yelling something over his shoulder before joining me, offering his arm. “Shall we?”

  A grin stretches my face. “Yeah. Let’s. Bye, Mom, I love you!”

  “I love you too, Gabs.”

  I pocket the mirror and glance up at Kasian as we start walking toward Radcliffe.

  “Are you excited?” he asks, but the warmth in his dark eyes tells me he definitely knows the answer to that question already.

  “Fuck, yes.” I tighten my grip on his arm and rest my head on his shoulder as we walk, smiling so wide my face hurts.

  For so long, I felt like I didn’t belong here. Like I was a stranger in this land, an intruder, an imposter. But now, I really do belong here. I’ve made a place for myself here, and it’s so much more than I ever imagined it could be.

  This is it.

  This is my home.

  THANK YOU FOR READING!

  This is the end of Gabbi and her men’s story, but if you’re dying for more, check out my complete reverse harem series, Academy of Unpredictable Magic!

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  Also by Sadie Moss

  Magic Awakened

  Kissed by Shadows (prequel novella)

  Bound by Magic

  Game of Lies

  Consort of Rebels

  The Vampires’ Fae

  Saved by Blood

  Seduced by Blood

  Ruined by Blood

  The Last Shifter

  Wolf Hunted

  Wolf Called

  Wolf Claimed

  Wolf Freed

  Academy of Unpredictable Magic

  Spark

  Trials

  Thief

  Threat

  Hunt

  Clash

  Hidden World Academy

  Magic Swap

  Magic Chase

  Magic Gambit