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

were well known for both their violence and their superstitions. Not the sort of men a witch wanted to meet in a darkening alley—for the sun was now setting, drifting behind the stone buildings of the city and bathing the streets in shadow.

“You shouldn’t be out on the streets alone,” the dark-haired man said. “You need someone to protect you. Lucky for you, we take all kinds of payment.” He smiled wolfishly, revealing similarly garish teeth.

“No, thank you.” Tamsin kept her voice clipped and detached. “We’re fine.” She took a step backward, pulling Wren along with her. The man’s beady eyes narrowed, and he crossed the cobblestones quickly. So quickly that Tamsin knew it would be useless to try to outrun them.

“What,” he said, his breath hot and putrid even from a distance, “too good?” He eyed Tamsin with disdain.

The blond man sauntered toward them. “Maybe your friend here feels differently.” He held out a grubby hand, his nails caked with dirt, his skin stained with blood. Wren visibly recoiled. The man’s face twisted with fury, and he moved to grab her.

Tamsin flicked her wrist. The man’s long blond braids fell into a heap on the cobblestones. Braids that would have taken him years to grow, countless kills to earn. The man stumbled backward, his eyes wide—first from panic as he realized his hair had been shorn, then from anger as he realized it was Tamsin who had done it.

“Witch!” he roared, reaching for the largest knife in his belt. Beside him, the dark-haired man had removed the bow from his shoulder. Tamsin blinked quickly, trying to clear away the floating spots of light that had appeared in her vision as a consequence of the spell.

Wren tugged urgently on her hand, but it was useless. They couldn’t outrun the men who were glowering down at them with their weapons drawn. It wasn’t until Tamsin felt a rush of magic flowing up her arm that she realized Wren wasn’t trying to pull her away. She was trying to help. Tamsin’s vision cleared. The fair-haired man, who had located his preferred knife, stopped cold, his eyes on Tamsin’s and Wren’s intertwined hands.

“What’s this?” His snarl turned into a sneer as he examined Wren with disdain. “You’ll let a witch touch you”—he practically spat in Tamsin’s direction—“yet you recoil from me?” He took one deliberate step forward. Careful. Contained. The moment before the kill.

“My people are dying because of you and yours,” he said, his full range of fury now directed at Tamsin. He held his knife casually, in a way that belied his skill. “Your death won’t change that,” he said as Tamsin and Wren took a collective step back, “but it will certainly make me feel better.” He flashed them another blinding grin, and then he lunged forward, the tip of his knife aimed at the base of Tamsin’s throat.

Tamsin hardly had time to think. With one hand tightly wrapped around Wren’s, she spoke a long string of words, the harsh consonants sharp as they rolled off her tongue, and the magic flowed through her as surely as blood through her veins.

The ground beneath the blond man’s feet shuddered and cracked. Both men were jerked downward, their hulking figures falling through the cobblestones and hitting the bottom of Tamsin’s makeshift pit with thuds so heavy the ground trembled a second time. The men were trapped in a smaller version of the gaping fissure in the square, just large enough for their two hulking bodies and just deep enough that, even if one climbed upon the other’s shoulders, they would be unable to get out. Wren hurried to the edge and peered down into the darkness, but Tamsin hung back.

Without the warmth of Wren’s magic, cold came sweeping back into her bones. The adrenaline had already begun to wear off, leaving her with the slimy, sticky feeling of wrongness. Once again she had behaved rashly, choosing action over consideration. Once again she had used her power to hurt.

The men below were silent. Tamsin choked down the bile rising in her throat. Soon Wren would turn around and look at her with unmasked horror. She would realize the enormity of Tamsin’s power and the fact that she did not deserve to use it, not when it continued to destroy the lives of so many.

Tamsin squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn’t bear to see that particularly pained grimace splash itself across Wren’s round face. Before, she had been just another witch to Wren. But that was about to change, and for some strange reason, she didn’t want Wren to see her for the monster she truly was.

“I helped, right?”

Tamsin’s eyes flew open. Wren was staring at her eagerly, her expression wide and hopeful.

Tamsin’s stomach clenched. “I used your magic, if that’s what you mean.” She braced herself for the look of horror sure to come when Wren realized that she had aided in the takedown of the two men.

Instead Wren beamed, the smile lighting up her entire face. “That was incredible. I mean, I’m tired, but also I feel… exhilarated. Oh, you have a bit of blood.” Wren reached for the corner of Tamsin’s cloak and used it to dab away the streak of red from the nick on Tamsin’s neck. “I was always taught not to hurt anyone, but surely they deserved it. Is it wrong that I’m feeling this way? What is this that I’m feeling? Why am I talking so much?” Her face was flushed, her shoulders rising and falling with each quick intake of air.

Tamsin eyed the girl warily. Something was different about her. She looked taller somehow, her face vivid and visibly striking in a way Tamsin had never before noticed. She looked settled. Present. Alive.

It was entirely the opposite of what Tamsin had expected. But the joy was there, written on Wren’s face plain as day. A feeling so far from Tamsin that all she could do was marvel at it.

“What?” Wren’s smile slipped slightly. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,”