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

Wren tugged on her braid, trying to fight the unease settling in her stomach. Leya and Tamsin had history. It made sense. The two of them were roughly the same age. They had both grown up in the Witchlands. They had probably studied together.

“You know her, then?” Wren tried to sound nonchalant, despite her sudden, desperate need to know every single thing about the witch.

“You could say that.” Leya laughed darkly. “She was my best friend.”

“ ‘Was’?” Wren latched on to the past tense.

“I loved her.” Leya shrugged. “I thought she felt the same, but all she cared about was power. When I wouldn’t share mine with her, well… Can’t trust a witch, am I right?” Something frenetic glinted behind Leya’s eyes.

Wren tried and failed to fight the memory of their reunion. The vitriol in Leya’s voice. The resignation in Tamsin’s. There was something between them. Something even a five-year absence could not heal. “Anyway, it didn’t matter.” Leya’s voice was flat. “In the end it all came down to Marlena.”

Something caught in Wren’s chest, a slow sinking of hope she hadn’t realized she’d been carrying. The idea that there had been someone in Tamsin’s life more enthralling than Leya, the beautiful girl sitting before her, was intimidating.

The idea that Wren was intimidated by a girl she had never even heard Tamsin mention was far more worrisome. She didn’t understand why she cared, why she was sprawled on the floor, gossiping with Leya, when the entire trajectory of her life had changed. She could never go back to Ladaugh. She would never see her father’s face again.

“Who’s Marlena?” Wren tried to sound flippant, but the buzzing in her body made it clear exactly how badly she wanted to know. She wanted to know the type of girl who had stolen Tamsin’s heart back when she’d had a heart to steal. She wanted to know the kind of girl Tamsin had loved. She wanted… Wren wanted the witch.

The feeling was startling yet certain. Unfathomable yet entirely true. Wren didn’t know when it had happened, when she had begun to see Tamsin as someone to be desired. Never learn to love someone untouchable, the woman in Farn had said, but of course Wren had disobeyed. Had found herself in this impossible situation: falling for a girl who could not love.

She hated that Leya was there to witness it.

The other girl simply stared at Wren. Then understanding dawned across her face. “She didn’t tell you.” Leya began to laugh, an incredulous, hysterical sound that echoed around the empty room.

“Tell me what?” Wren’s cheeks were growing warm. Her forearm, where the Coven’s symbol lay, itched so fiercely it was painful.

“Oh. Oh no.” Even as Leya continued to laugh, her eyes examined Wren with pity. “You don’t even know what you don’t know, do you?”

Wren’s cheeks flushed with frustration. She hated being treated like a child. “I know things. We’re a team.”

“I’m sure that’s what she told you.” Leya pushed herself to her feet. “Careful there.” She flashed Wren a small smile, the red of her lips garish against her white teeth. Then she turned and walked away, the swish of her skirt echoing like laughter, leaving Wren alone in the darkening hall.

FIFTEEN

TAMSIN

Your sister isn’t dead.

Tamsin had spent five years yearning for those words, but now that she was finally faced with them, she didn’t know how to react. She wanted to scream, wanted to retch, wanted to hurl her sister’s diary across the room. It was more than she had expected to feel, considering that she had no store of love left in her heart. It was more, but it was still not enough.

Marlena was alive. She was out there, somewhere. For five years, Tamsin’s twin had lived, and she had never known.

“But I saw her.” A nagging disbelief pushed its way forward. Tamsin had been forced to stand on the black marble floor of the Grand Hall and watch her sister die. “When you severed the bond, she collapsed. I put flowers on her grave.”

The betrayal was so enormous it felt as vast and impossible as the sea.

Vera pursed her lips, looking uncomfortable. “The bond was never fully severed. It was clever, tying your sister’s life to your power. It made it nearly impossible for the source to extract the dark magic in its entirety. Like looking for a needle in a haystack. One small thread remained.”

“When did you find out?” Tamsin’s breathing was coming in ragged fits.

“Immediately after the bond was broken, I took your sister’s body to the northern tower. I needed a moment alone to say good-bye. A mother should never outlive her child.” Vera sniffed sharply. “As I clutched her frozen hand, I felt a pulse so faint I thought I was imagining it. But I wasn’t. She still clung to the lifeline between the two of you. So I kept her hidden away in the tower. You and I buried an empty coffin.

“She stayed asleep all these years. It was a gift, really. If the Coven had ever discovered that she’d survived, if they’d guessed there was still a hint of dark magic left between you…” She trailed off, her long nails raking through her hair. “I made a decision to put my family first. I did what I had to do to save my daughter. And the world is paying for it now.”

Tamsin laughed bitterly. She had spent so many years mourning her sister. Blaming herself. She let her breath out slowly, trying to control the rage bubbling beneath her skin. “All these years she was alive and you never told me.”

Vera at least had the decency to look guilty. “When it came to Marlena, you had such a need to prove yourself, a need to be her champion, to secure her love. After what you’d done, I couldn’t let you stay here. But I knew the only way to get you to go was to