Sweet & Bitter Magic by Adrienne Tooley (best ereader for textbooks .txt) 📕

name’s Boor, and I’ll be taking you upward. For a price, of course.” The man smiled to reveal a mouth of missing teeth.

“What might that price be?” A thin, reedy man in traveler’s clothes stared at Boor suspiciously. “And what sort of name is Boor?”

“The kind of name that suits me,” Boor said. “It’s six silvers per person. Ten for you, though,” he said to the man, who gaped at him wordlessly.

“Six silvers?” Wren turned to Tamsin with horror. She pulled a handful of coins from her pocket. “I don’t have enough for the both of us.”

“Put those away,” Tamsin snapped. “These men are bandits. They probably blew the caverns up themselves so they could make some extra money.” She rummaged around in her cloak until she came up with two small black buttons. She whispered a quiet word and the buttons gleamed gold. “That should satisfy them,” she said, shaking out her left hand, which had gone numb.

“But…” Wren trailed off, looking uncertain.

“Bandits,” Tamsin said again. The girl was really too kind for her own good. Sometimes terrible people deserved the terrible things that were coming to them. Tamsin dropped the coins into Boor’s hand. “Keep the change,” she said, her voice low. “I don’t ask questions if you offer me the same courtesy.” Boor’s eyes gleamed in agreement.

Only three others stepped forward to offer the men their coins. The rest turned back the way they had come, their faces dark.

Tamsin studied the remaining group and their desperate, determined expressions. Ordinary folk were moving south in droves. Anyone intentionally going north—toward the plague—must be heading toward something they valued more than their lives. More than their memories. Perhaps, like Wren, they were hoping to save someone they loved. Perhaps, like Tamsin, they were on their way home.

“All right, then,” a second man called, waving the pack of people over with a large, grubby hand. “Come on. I hope you’re ready to climb.”

He led them around the ruined mouth of the cavern to a set of steep stone stairs built into the side of the mountain.

“Absolutely not.” Wren skittered to a halt beside Tamsin, shaking her head vehemently. “I’m not climbing those.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “You’re a witch. Can’t you just”—she waved her hand vaguely in the air—“magic us over?”

Tamsin elbowed her sharply. “Can you not?” She glanced pointedly at their fellow travelers. For all she knew, they’d try to stone her atop the mountain. “And no, I can’t just ‘magic us over.’ ” Her whisper did nothing to hide her disgusted tone. “What do you think a witch actually does?”

Wren frowned. “I don’t know. Whatever they want?”

Tamsin pursed her lips together in annoyance. She would hardly have believed that someone with such a strong reserve of magic could know so little about it, except that she had been on the road with Wren for several days, and so, of course, she could.

“It isn’t that easy,” Tamsin sighed, keeping her voice low. “Am I powerful? Absolutely. Can I whisk us up and over a mountain without losing a leg?” She frowned theatrically. “Unlikely.”

“But I’m a source. Surely that would help.”

“Great, so I’ll only lose half the leg.” Tamsin rolled her eyes, but Wren still looked confused. Tamsin sighed. She was going to have to explain as though teaching a child. “Think of it like a scale.” Tamsin held out both her hands, palms up. “The amount of magic it would require to move us up and over stone is immense. If I take that much now”—she dropped her left hand and raised her right—“I’m going to have to pay it back.” She glanced at her right hand, which rested near her ear. “Where is that energy going to come from? I got no sleep, so I don’t have any to spare.” She shot Wren a dark look. “And I am responsible not only for myself, but for you, too. That’s now double the magic I need.” She sank her left hand even deeper, so that it hung near her hip.

Wren opened her mouth to protest, but Tamsin cut her off with a glare.

“Fine, say I pull magic from you.” She moved her left hand back up so it hit near her waist and let the right one droop down near her shoulder. “But you haven’t been trained properly, so it’s likely you’d overcompensate and offer too much too quickly, which would deplete your resources, not to mention probably make you ill, leaving me with most of the grunt work. That’s still a lot of energy that I have to make up for. So either the magic chooses for me and I lose a limb”—she balanced her hands out—“or I sleep for the next half century in an attempt to repay my debt to the earth. While I would be a lovely sleeping corpse, I’m sure”—she smiled sardonically at Wren—“it might be easier if you just got over yourself and started climbing the stairs.”

Wren stared at her, openmouthed.

“There’s a railing. You’ll be fine.” Tamsin swatted the girl’s shoulder. “Go on.” Surprisingly, Wren obeyed, falling into step behind two middle-aged women.

Tamsin watched her climb the first few steps before sighing and starting her own ascent. She did not bother with the railing. The steps were clearly the work of witches. She knew she would not fall. Instead Tamsin fiddled with the journal tucked into the waistband of her skirt.

She had been so certain she had escaped the diary’s clutches. But that had been foolish—she had been foolish, to forget that when dark magic took hold of something, it pushed and pushed until it destroyed.

Her legs burned as she continued to climb. The stairs were short and steep, just wide enough to fit two climbers side by side. A tapestry of thick moss clung to the side of the peak, giving the air a heavy, humid quality. The higher they climbed, the harder it became to breathe. Yet Wren still insisted on talking.

“That explanation seemed a bit simplistic.” She glanced