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

Tamsin said, more confidently than she felt. If Wren wasn’t deterred by her action, if she felt something good, then maybe that meant Tamsin wasn’t as terrible as she currently felt. Maybe that meant that her actions had been justified.

“Agency looks good on you,” she told the girl honestly. “You look taller.”

“What?” Wren spluttered, pressing a hand to her cheek.

Tamsin narrowed her eyes uncomprehendingly. “Why are you flailing?”

“I—” Wren gaped at her. “You just gave me a compliment.” Her tone was accusatory.

Tamsin took a step back. “I did not.” She hadn’t meant to, at any rate. She’d simply been making an observation. Wren did look better when she wasn’t hunched over, when she wasn’t tugging on her hair or picking at her cuticles. Wren was always worrying. Of course Tamsin would notice when she wasn’t.

It seemed simple enough. She didn’t know why Wren had to start blushing everywhere. Tamsin straightened her cloak. “Come on, then.”

“Wait.” Wren cast a glance over her shoulder, biting her lip as she stared at the pit. Tamsin’s heart sank. The longer the girl looked, the more certain Tamsin was that Wren had changed her mind about the situation. “Do you think they’re going to die here?” Wren turned toward Tamsin, eyes worried.

“I don’t know.” Tamsin’s voice was so soft she hardly heard it herself. She didn’t want Wren to turn her back on her now. Not when they were so close to the Wood. Tamsin didn’t have the strength to go Within alone. It would be too easy to walk away.

Wren was silent for what seemed like an eternity, eyes fixed on the gaping hole in the earth. Then she seemed to make some sort of decision, nodding once, sharp and short. “I want his knife. The one he cut you with.”

Tamsin blinked at her uncomprehendingly. “Why?”

Wren took a moment to answer. “So he can’t ever use it again.”

“Do you even know how to use a knife?” She could only imagine the sort of inadvertent damage Wren could do with that sort of weapon. Yet there was something else, something in her that wanted to see what Wren would look like holding one.

And so Tamsin did not wait for an answer. She simply called for it, and the vicious, beautiful thing flew through the air toward her like an arrow. She admired it for a moment, the etching so delicate it could only have been done with a needle, before handing it over to Wren, who tucked the blade into her belt as though it had always belonged there.

They turned away, a surprisingly amicable silence between them. Neither Tamsin nor Wren looked back.

They were close to the Wood. Tamsin could hear it, the soft swishing of wind through the leaves, the names of the runes carved into the twisted trunks by the hands of her ancestors. It was an ancient magic, heavy and powerful.

A magic Tamsin had never expected to witness again.

She ran a hand over the mottled skin on her left arm. She wondered if the Wood would recognize her, or if it would send out a call alerting the Coven of her imminent return. She hoped it was not so specific. She hoped that it would sense only her power and offer her safe passage.

She hated that she did not know for sure.

“What’s wrong?” Wren was nearly ten paces ahead of her. Tamsin had not realized she had stopped walking.

“Nothing.” But her tone was not as sharp as she hoped. It seemed to only offer proof that the opposite was true.

Wren frowned but did not push. She merely waited for Tamsin to catch up before continuing on.

The trees were getting louder, their creaks and moans reminding Tamsin of the last time she had made her way through the tangled Wood, away from the life and the world she had always known. Away from the lifeless body of her sister. Cursed to be forever alone. She still remembered the way the trees had shrieked as she hurried past.

When the dark witch Evangeline had been caught using dark magic, the High Councillor had killed her. Everyone, including Tamsin herself, had expected that she’d meet the same fate.

But the High Councillor had banished Tamsin instead. Cursed her, yes, but let her go alive. She had been twelve years old. A child. Still, the rest of the Coven had wanted her dead. She was certain they still did.

If they tried to kill her upon her return, she wondered if she would mind. Tamsin had a tenuous relationship with life. It still seemed strange that she should live while her sister was dead. It seemed as though the lives of twins should be similar to the balance required of magic and the earth. One was not right without the other. One should not die without the other. That was why she had worked so hard to save Marlena’s life.

Tamsin stumbled, weighed down by more than just her memories. A pocket of her cloak tore, as though it were stuffed with stones rather than a thin black book. She sighed, the message clear as day. She pulled out the diary, and, sure enough, the pages fell open to a new entry.

After darting a quick glance ahead at Wren, who was humming softly to herself as she walked with her face raised toward the sky, Tamsin looked down at her sister’s words. The handwriting spilled across the page. The ink bled with tears.

Tamsin’s heart sank. She should have known this entry was coming. She had been tracking the timeline, the entries the diary chose to show her. Everything led to this one terrible moment when the world began to fall apart.

She wanted to shut the book, but the cover wouldn’t budge. Instead she stared at Marlena’s words, reminding herself it was all her fault.

I don’t want to write it down. I can’t write it down. Because if I write it down, that means it’s true, and Amma can’t be dead. See? It looks ridiculous, written down. Girls don’t die