9

Everyone burst into motion, running at the three doors in a wild frenzy, like it was a race. All except for me.

Yeah, I’d totally missed out on the important stuff. And yeah, I had no idea what to do.

Once I got my legs to work, I followed the other witches and rushed over.

The three doors stood about ten feet apart in a flat patch of the field. No beams of any kind supported them, yet they remained upright. They were just… there.

The first door was painted white. The middle door was gray. And the last door was black.

The next thing that happened was really weird, but then, three doors had just magically popped into existence. Weird was my new normal.

I slowed down as I neared, watching the first witch—a young female with a face full of acne—stand before the doors. I held my breath as the white door suddenly opened.

She rushed through and the door shut behind her.

Okay, weird. But I could do weird.

Standing behind the crowd of witches, I bounced on my toes, trying to see what was beyond the door. But with everyone moving, I couldn’t see.

Next, a handful of witches went through the gray door and then the black door. In about one minute, all the witches, including Willis—who’d marched through the gray door before it shut behind him, leaving me staring—had all gone through the doors.

I was the only one left.

Your door will choose you…

I took a step forward toward the white door and halted. I don’t know why, but I looked behind me at Marina. She stared back at me with a winning smile, the kind a confident opponent gives when they’re certain of the outcome.

“So, what’s behind door number one?” I voiced in my gameshow host voice impersonation. I laughed. She didn’t laugh back. “Door number two?” I tried again. “Guess you’re not going to share what’s behind door number three. Huh?” I asked, though I knew it was pointless.

Marina gave me a blank stare.

“Okay then. Screw this.” I took a breath, trying to calm my nerves. “Three doors. Thee possibilities. And my door will choose me.” If the doors really were a reflection of the previous test, I was screwed.

I’d arrived late on my very first day and failed my written exam. How could things get worse? Because they could always get worse.

When in doubt, go with your gut.

And my gut said the black door.

With my heart trying to make a hole through my ribcage, I positioned myself in front of the black door and waited. It didn’t open.

Instead, the gray door next to it swung open on its hinges.

“Was not expecting that.” I cocked my head to the side and stared through the opening. I blinked into the same rolling hills and forest. No magical land. No secret chamber, just the same old field. It was just a doorframe standing in a field. Yet it wasn’t.

“Okay. I have no idea what that means. But who cares. Right? Gray it is.”

I stepped to the side and walked through—

My body was pulled forward, and I felt my feet leave solid ground. I’d been expecting it, so I didn’t panic, and it was familiar somehow. Kind of similar to when I jumped a ley line. My breath was pushed out of my lungs, and I felt myself fall. A tingling washed through me as my lungs rebounded, filling with cool air.

A moment later, my boots hit solid ground and I straightened. My heart pounded as I readied myself with a power word on my lips.

I stood in the middle of a street, a small downtown core of sorts with small commercial buildings crammed together for lack of space. I was not in the field anymore.

After a few heartbeats, in the first ten seconds of looking around, the houses, the streets, even the leafless trees were familiar.

“What the hell?”

I was in Hollow Cove. My town. Only it wasn’t.

The sky was pitch black, and brilliant stars shone from above. The moon was low and exceptionally large and bright.

I was standing in a different reality, another version of Hollow Cove—a made-up version, a fake version. Marina’s version. Swell.

She was the architect of this fake world. I didn’t know the witch. If I did, I would have had a glimpse into what to expect. For now, I only knew this was going to suck.

“This is part of the witch trials,” I reminded myself. “They’re just trying to freak you out.”

Figuring I better start moving, I made my way down Marina’s version of Shifter Lane, trying to uncover anything out of place—a lamppost, a bench, a street, or a store, but no. It was identical to my real town in the creepiest sort of way. But my real town had people in it. This place was deserted.

The moonlight lit the town in crystal clarity. I walked up the street, looking over my shoulder every few seconds with my senses on high alert, listening for the sudden scrape of a shoe or any telling sound of someone coming at me. Anyone or anything could come at me from everywhere at once.

I listened. I waited. I watched.

I was still furious at Marina for having purposely sabotaged my witch trials—’cause we all knew she did. But I didn’t have any proof, nor did I expect Greta to believe me. They all wanted me to fail.

I walked in silence. No movement. No noise. No useful scents either. Nada. It was like that movie when the main character wakes up after a coma only to find they’re the last person left on earth. Only this time, I was the actor.

“Hello?” I called out, not expecting to hear an answer, but I figured I’d give it a try anyway.

A heavy, creepy silence settled over the town.

“Hello,” replied a voice.

I halted, and a jolt of adrenaline pulsed through me. I whipped around toward the sound of the voice—

And cursed.

The image hit me like a choking tide.

A person stood in the street. A person who looked and sounded just like me. She even wore the exact same clothes, all the way to the same messenger bag wrapped around my shoulder and the high ponytail. A clone. My clone.

I was in fake-Hollow Cove staring at fake-me.

Holy hell.

An eerie, cool frisson rolled across my skin and down my spine, all the way down to my legs until I felt it in every single inch of my body.

If Marina had wanted to unnerve me, she’d succeeded.

Whether all the witch trials were the same, I knew without a doubt what mine was. My first witch trial was that I had to fight myself.

Awesome.

I glanced at fake-me. “I’m supposed to fight you. Aren’t I?”

Fake-me smiled. The expression was so wrong, yet so familiar. It was like those horror movies where the main character stares at themselves in the mirror with that split-second recognition that their reflection isn’t them, but rather some demonic representation smiling back at them. Their movements are not entirely the same. Yikes.

“You are correct,” answered fake-me, in my exact voice.

I shivered, goosebumps riddling my skin. “This is so wrong on so many levels,” I answered, racking my brain for all the spells and power words I was going to use on myself.

Fake-me cocked a brow. “Oh, no. Not wrong. This is exactly what it should be.”

I cocked my brow too. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Fake-me smiled at me the way I might have smiled at Marina after I’d headbutted her. “You’ll never be a Merlin,” she informed me, her tone mocking. “I’m here to make sure of that.”

“Excellent.” I grinned and cracked my knuckles. “Bring it on, fake-me.”

If any word could describe the oddness and eeriness of having a conversation with oneself—well, it would be plastered on my forehead.

“You betcha.” Fake-me matched my grin. “Inspiratione!” she cried.

My mouth fell open. “Hey. That’s my new power word—”

Pain lanced through me as fractures of red energy hit, setting every cell in my body on fire and lifting me off the ground. I cried out in searing agony. I hit the ground hard and rolled, my heart thudding loudly and filling my ears with its rapid beat. My body jerked and thrashed as waves of pain washed through it.

Through my tears, I watched fake-me, her face cemented in a twisted amusement at the pain I suffered.

I too could play this game. It wasn’t over yet, not by a longshot. If Marina thought I wouldn’t fight myself, she was as stupid as that hairdo.

With most of the pain gone, I rolled to my feet, called forth the magic of the elements, and shouted a power word.

“Accendo!”

Twin fireballs hurled from my palms, flying straight and true, right at fake-me’s head.

“Cataracta!” she shouted, and a curtain of water rose before her.

The fireballs hit the water and were extinguished into sizzling smoke.

“Okay,” I said, fuming. “So, you’ve got some skill with magic. But I’m still the prettier one.”

I planted my feet and cried, “Fulgur!”

A bolt of white-purple lightning blasted at fake-me’s chest.

But my doppelganger sidestepped at the very last second. The lightning hit the pavement, sending up a shower of asphalt chunks.

Pissed, I tried again. “Inflitus!” I bellowed, tapping into the elements and sending a blast of kinetic force at her.

And again, fake-me spun and ducked out of the way, causing the blast to miss her by a hair.

What the hell? There’s no way she could have moved like that, like she’d anticipated my spell, as though she knew what I was going to do even before I did. Freaky. And a little bit creepy.

Panting, I staggered as the magic took a chunk of my energy, my life force as payment. My gaze rolled over fake-me. She stood firm, strong, and focused, as though the use of power words didn’t affect her. Of course, they wouldn’t. She wasn’t real, she wasn’t made of flesh and blood. She was a magical representation of me. She had all my strengths and none of my weaknesses.

A blur of movement caught my attention, and the sound of a voice articulating a spell reached me.

Shit.

I threw myself sideways. But not fast enough.

Pain tore at me in a blinding torrent of agony as if I’d slashed open my stomach and ripped out a clump of my guts. Black marred my vision and I tasted blood. For a moment, I was blind and afraid to move. Pain would do that to a person. But then the pain subsided, as the aftershocks of agony rocked through me and vanished.

I didn’t know which spell or power word fake-me used on me, but it hurt like a sonofabitch.

I blinked through my blurred vision, seeing fake-me standing in the middle of the street, waiting for me to get up so we could go at it again. She was cocky. She was bold. She thought she could beat me. She was me.

I wasn’t beaten, though, and I was going to kick my fake-ass. Yeah, that sounded weird.

If she was me, following that logic, she would react the same way I would. Which was why she could anticipate my movements. With that in mind, I had to do something I wouldn’t normally do. Be different. Think differently. So, what would the opposite of me do in a spell fight?

Absolutely nothing.

And so I stood, placed my hands on my hips, and waited.

Fake-me eyed me suspiciously, like I was a five-year-old kid caught in a lie. “What are you doing?”

I flashed her my best selfie smile. “What do you mean? I’m not doing anything.”

Fake-me narrowed her eyes and I watched her face go as dark as the street. “Why aren’t you attacking me?”

“Why aren’t you attacking me?”

“I’m waiting for you,” answered my doppelganger with a shrug.

“Well, I’m waiting for you too.”

Fake-me cocked a hip. “I can do this all day.”

“Same here, sister.”

“You’re pathetic.”

I shrugged. “Well, in that case… if I’m pathetic, and if you’re my doppelganger… it means you’re pathetic too.” I laughed.

Fake-me blinked, her expression a mix of sullen mistrust and anger. “You’re an idiot.”

“No, you’re the idiot.”

I was seriously losing my mind. But this was so much fun.

I dipped my head. “Here’s a tip, since we’re all about sharing right now. All insults you throw at me… well… you might as well be throwing them at yourself. ’Cause you’re me.”

Fake-me’s face twisted into something truly ugly, distorting her cheekbones too high and her nose too small to look even remotely human before smoothing back to looking like little me. I could see the plans forming behind her dark eyes—my eyes.

Good. She was losing her cool. Just like I would. Time to crank it up a notch.

I cursed. “Damn. Is that what I look like when I’m mad? Gotta tell me—you—whatever, I look kinda stupid. Huh?”

Fake-me’s eyes darkened until they looked almost black.

“Nothing to say?” I watched as I homed in my senses as fake-me took a breath, the power word on the verge of her lips.

“Evorto!” she shouted.

But I was already moving.

I put on a burst of speed—something Ronin would have been proud of—and pitched to the ground, rolled, and came up behind her.

“Shit. It worked,” I breathed, surprised. I was even more awesome than I thought.

Fake-me shifted, her image rippling like it was made of water. But I was onto her.

With my newfound confidence, I drew in my will and shouted, “Accendo!”

Fake-me’s shape solidified. Ruth stood in her place, her eyes wide and wet.

“Ruth?” I jerked. My fireballs zipped past Ruth’s head, complete airballs as they hit Gilbert’s grocery store’s front windows, and the entire wall burst into flames.

In that split second, I’d known it wasn’t Ruth, but my mind had just enough doubt to make me miss.

Ruth sneered and shouted, “Fulgur!”

“Fuck me.”

I didn’t have time to move. There was no point in moving. I blinked as the approaching fireballs’ fire scorched my face before they exploded on my chest.

Searing pain screamed through my body, making me crumple to the ground in agony. Just when I thought I was going to burn alive, the pain stopped.

I blinked up at Marina’s smiling face.

“Tessa Davenport,” she said, a smile in her voice. “You have failed.”