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

the closer they came to it, the more apparent it was that it did not possess the sort of things that made a house livable. The front columns had crumbled away, the chimney was sunken, the doors had rusted hinges, and everything was coated with a thick layer of dust.

“Well, this looks promising.” Beside her, Wren shuddered out a giant gasping breath. She pressed a hand to her mouth, her whole body tensing before she doubled over and vomited again into the sand. Tamsin hurried behind her and drew Wren’s braid from over her shoulder, securing it far from harm’s way.

Wren righted herself. “Thanks,” she mumbled weakly. “It’s the sulfur. Do you smell it?”

The wind shifted, and suddenly Tamsin did. It was a terrible stench, the smell permeating every inch of her. She nearly vomited too. Instead she nodded, trying to cover both her nose and her mouth while still allowing air into her lungs.

“There’s so much dark magic here,” Wren said as they approached the house, her skin a sickly green in the weak light pouring through the grimy front window. “Your sister has to be here somewhere.” She looked as though she might faint.

Tamsin left footprints on the dusty front steps. She raised a fist to knock on the door, its wood weathered and worn. But before her knuckles had even grazed the door, it buckled, clattering from its useless hinges and falling to the ground with a crash louder than the waves.

A creeping sense of alarm slunk across the top of Tamsin’s head, oozing down like the globby, sticky white of an egg. She didn’t know what she would find when she finally came face-to-face with her sister. She didn’t know who this new Marlena would be. Still, there was nothing to do now but forge ahead. She took a tentative step into the entryway of the dilapidated house. Wren, with one hand covering her mouth, followed.

The interior was just as dismal as the exterior. Wooden beams, rotted by age and the salt of the sea, sagged and crumbled, leaving the ceiling so low Tamsin often had to duck. The floorboards were loose, several missing entirely. One board buckled when Wren set down a foot. Tamsin had to yank her by the elbow to keep her from falling through.

There were ripped curtains, upturned chairs, and broken windowpanes, but though they searched through the destruction and rubble of every room—even braving a rickety staircase to the upper level—Marlena was nowhere to be found.

“I don’t understand.” Wren had curled up into a ball, her whole body shaking. “I can feel the dark magic. She should be right here.”

Tamsin took in the bent nails, broken glass, and shards of mirror, but there was nothing to indicate that her sister had ever been there. Marlena was just as elusive as she’d always been. Tamsin slumped to the floor, half with frustration, half with relief. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

She pulled the diary out of her pocket, but for once the black cover was sullen and still.

“What do you want from me?” she asked it, venom dripping from her every word.

Wren looked up from her knees, her eyes reflecting pools of pity. Tamsin’s best hadn’t been enough. She wasn’t enough. She never had been.

“Please?” Tamsin hated how weak she sounded. How young and vulnerable and afraid.

A gust of wind, the breeze scented with salt, blew through the broken window, ruffling Tamsin’s hair and rustling the pages of Marlena’s diary. The book fell open on her lap. Tamsin gasped, the sound like a hiss in the dark, dingy room. It felt too simple. A trick. A trap. But there were the words in her sister’s loopy hand, drawing her back in. Calling her name. Wren, her face still ghostly white, dragged herself closer to Tamsin, her hair tickling the witch’s cheek as they both leaned forward to read.

I almost didn’t bother to write. What can you say when you know you won’t live to write again tomorrow? It’s quite a bit of pressure, trying to make sure my final words are good enough. Not that I’d really know what good enough feels like. It’s always been me scraping by, clinging by my fingernails to the bottom of the rope, hanging on for dear life. I suppose, if nothing else, I’ll finally be able to relax. Stop trying too hard, even while I continue to end up exactly where I’ve always been.

I keep writing notes to Amma, folding them into the shapes her grandmother back in Kathos taught her. Tiny cranes, delicate swans, geometric frogs. She used to enchant them, send them hopping to my desk, floating through the air like they were flying. All I could ever do was slip my own notes into her pocket, but she pretended to be delighted all the same. I just keep writing and folding, writing and folding. I have a certifiable paper menagerie.

All the notes say the same thing: Come back.

I suppose that if tomorrow goes the way I expect it will, I’ll get my wish. It won’t be Amma coming back so much as me going there. But at least we’ll be together.

And I’ll never have to lay eyes on my sister again. It’s funny, hating someone who shares your face. Every time I catch sight of myself in the mirror, I flinch. So I’ve shattered them all. My room no longer holds a single reflective surface, not even so much as a spoon. I don’t want to remember what I wrought. I don’t want to remember that I’m half of a terrible whole.

I haven’t gone to see her. They’re keeping her in a tower. I hope it has a window so she can see the way the Farthest Forest is ablaze with a terrible blue flame. Vera tried to put it out, taking no fewer than seven sources with her. It wasn’t enough.

It’s never enough, is it? We try and try our best, and it doesn’t matter, in the end. I’m just one person,