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

“Well, then.” Wren turned to Tamsin. “That settles it. Here.” She offered her hand to the witch.

“What’s that for?” Tamsin studied her suspiciously.

“To help,” Wren snapped. “You keep forgetting that I can help.”

Tamsin reached for Wren, and her frozen fingers closed around Wren’s palm. Wren shivered, both from the shock and from how quickly the witch had resigned herself to help. She watched as her magic flowed toward Tamsin, turning the color of clay. There was a crackle, the sound of a flame. Tamsin spoke a few words. Magic swirled around the witch and Wren, and for a moment the two of them were surrounded by a tornado of light. It was oddly intimate—ruined, of course, by Tamsin’s scowl.

Items burst forth from their magic, settling themselves around the woman and her child: heaping piles of blankets, candles and flint, loaves of dense brown bread still steaming, links of plump sausages, baskets of crisp red apples.

The woman’s eyes were so wide they threatened to fall from her face. Leo, the little boy, had already pounced, an entire sausage hanging from his mouth. Tears spilled down the woman’s cheeks. “Thank you,” she said, her voice breaking. “I cannot thank you enough.”

“Then don’t,” Wren said quietly. “Just take care.” She wanted to promise the woman a cure, wanted to reassure her the way she could not reassure herself. But she could offer the woman nothing more than what she had already given. Still, the woman managed a small smile before collapsing back into tears.

Wren turned to usher Tamsin back up the ladder, but the woman stopped her. “That way,” she said, pointing into the darkness. “It’s how they smuggled wine in from the East. They say the queen is pure of heart”—the woman made a sour face—“but she does still love her drink. There’s another trapdoor that’ll lead you down the mountain and land you in the center of Farn. Take care. There are men with sharper knives than my Leo here.”

She ruffled the boy’s hair, but the child was so immersed in his sausage that he did not look up. Wren bid them farewell, her heart heavy. She had done something, but it was not nearly enough.

“Well, that was quite the production,” Tamsin said, flicking her wrist at the trapdoor. A rope of magic swirled about the iron ring and pulled it open effortlessly. Daylight flooded the dark room.

“That,” Wren said, smiling serenely at the witch, “was called kindness. I thought you could use an education.” Her tone was chastising, but not cruel. For Tamsin had aided her, and more willingly than Wren had expected. It had reminded her of that flash she’d seen of Tamsin filled with love, open and thoughtful and full of hope.

Wren glanced down through the hole in the floor. Ladder rungs clung to the side of the mountain. She wondered at the dedication of men carrying crates of wine up to such a precarious entry point. The things people did out of duty. She slipped carefully onto the rungs, her feet finding solid purchase, her fingers wrapping around the iron as tightly as they could. There was still a long way to go.

Halfway down the side of the mountain, Wren glanced up at Tamsin, who was several rungs above. She could see nothing but the worn soles of the witch’s boots and the dusty, burr-covered hem of her skirt. Wren carried a similar level of filth. She had taken to breathing mostly through her mouth in order to avoid the sweet, sour smell of herself. Her hopes rose each time they came across a riverbank or stream, and yet every time she got close enough to the sound of running water, she was put off by the sludgy, bubbling mud that filled the banks. Without Tamsin’s ability to conjure, Wren would not have had a single drop to drink in days.

Tamsin’s heel came down on Wren’s fingers. She yelped, letting go for one precarious second to shake out the pain radiating through her hand. Tamsin craned her neck down to see what she was doing.

“What happened?”

“I got distracted.” Wren’s fingers had turned purple.

“Something new and different for you,” Tamsin muttered.

Wren shot her a sharp look but continued her descent. It was quiet save for the fluttering of the breeze and the ever-present grumbling of stone. Lately even the sound of magic had turned dour. Where once stone had sung, now it groaned. Trees that had whispered now shrieked. Even water, which used to jangle merrily, like bells or copper coins, now rang out stiffly, like iron against an anvil.

After a few minutes, Tamsin stopped moving and peered down at her. “I didn’t steal any of that stuff.”

Wren blinked, not following. “Sorry, what?”

“The food and blankets we gave to the woman,” Tamsin said. “I conjured it. Brand-new, just for her. I never thought about where things came from before you. But this time I did. No one was left wanting because we helped her.”

Wren stared up at her, frowning slightly. “Okay?”

“I just thought, if you’re distracted because you’re trying to come up with another way to lecture me, you should know I didn’t steal it.” The corners of Tamsin’s mouth turned downward slightly before she shook her head. “It was more work—a lot more—but I did it. So I really, really don’t need another lecture, okay?”

“Hmm.” Wren made a soft, noncommittal noise. She couldn’t help but feel like Tamsin was trying to be kind. It wasn’t really working, but it did seem like she was trying. That was something. “Let’s maybe finish this conversation when we’re both on solid ground?”

“No conversation to have,” Tamsin said quickly. “Just thought you ought to know. Don’t look down.”

Of course that was exactly what Wren did. They had gone a long way, but the height was still dizzying. “Yep,” she said shakily, “I’m just going to focus on these rungs now.”

But it wasn’t so simple. She started to consider Tamsin, the way the witch lacked