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

Tamsin took a deep breath, twisting the hem of her cloak in her lithe hands. “And when you leaned on our bond to break through Vera’s wards, the world rebelled. The plague Wren spoke of, it’s because of us. A side effect of our spell.”

“Our spell?” Marlena laughed bitterly. “Oh, no. No. You don’t get to pin this on me. All I did was give myself the freedom I deserved. I didn’t do anything else. I didn’t ask for this.”

“I know you didn’t.” Tamsin took a step toward her sister. “And I know I have no right to ask anything of you.”

Marlena sniffed. “That’s right,” she said darkly. “You don’t.”

“But,” Tamsin continued, her shoulders set determinedly, “we have to break the bond between us. It’s the only way to restore the world to the way it was.”

“Oh, break the bond you created? Give up the life you forced upon me?” Marlena stared at Tamsin pointedly. “Vera made it pretty clear all those years ago that if we break this bond, I’ll die. So, thanks, but no thanks.” Marlena rolled her eyes and turned her back on both of them, flopping into an armchair.

Tamsin’s face paled. Wren was frozen with uncertainty. It had been rather ridiculous of them to assume Marlena would happily sacrifice her second chance at life. Even if it was a second chance she hadn’t asked for. Even with the world at stake. But if the bond wasn’t broken, there was a chance the Coven would kill Tamsin, and then both sisters’ lives would be lost in the process.

“What about Amma?” Wren’s voice felt especially loud in the quiet room.

Marlena stiffened.

“You lost her to a side effect of dark magic. Now others are losing people they love to the very same thing. But you can do something about that. You can help us end this.”

Marlena’s face was hidden by a waterfall of hair, but her hands were white-knuckled and shaking as they gripped the armchair. A teacup, sitting delicately atop a saucer, shattered, sending shards of porcelain flying. From her corner, Wren caught a whiff of sulfur. The dark magic Marlena drew from was so close she could touch it. Nausea washed over her like a wave, bile creeping up her throat. Her skin was clammy and cold.

“How dare you.” Each one of Marlena’s words seemed to stab Wren in the heart. Ropes slithered around her legs and waist. She struggled to free herself from Marlena’s bindings, but her hands grew tangled in the black ribbons of magic snaking their way around her, holding her in place.

“Marlena.” Tamsin’s tone was warning, but her sister made no indication she had heard.

“You might have read my diary”—Marlena got to her feet, shooting a dark look at Tamsin before returning her attention to Wren—“but don’t presume to think that you know anything about me. Do you think I wanted this?” Marlena’s voice tickled Wren’s ear, and Wren shuddered. The heat of Marlena’s anger lingered on her skin. “I lost five years of my life. My best friend is dead. My mother couldn’t acknowledge my existence, lest she be put to death, and my own sister is the reason I’m in this situation in the first place. So don’t,” Marlena said, her voice dripping with poison, “pretend like we’re the same. Not when you look at her the way you do. You’re just another one of my sister’s endless admirers.”

Wren’s stomach squirmed, her cheeks hot with embarrassment. She felt Tamsin’s eyes on her but refused to meet them. Marlena had known Wren all of two minutes, and already she had seen right through her. Perhaps Marlena was right after all. Wren had no idea what she was doing. She was in so far over her head it was laughable.

“Marlena.” Tamsin’s voice tripped over her sister’s name.

“Oh, don’t you start.” Marlena rounded on her and ran a hand through her river of hair. It was still startling how alike the sisters looked. “I hate this. I hate who I am around you. Do you think I want to be this miserable? This resentful? All I wanted was to make it through the academy and get out of Within and as far away from you as I could muster. Do you know how incredible it would have been to live a life of anonymity? To have no one know Vera was my mother, no one know you were my sister?”

Marlena ran a hand over her face. “Amma was going to take me to Kathos. On a ship. I was going to see a whole new country.” Her eyes were wide and far away, her voice soft, almost tender. “We were going to build me a brand-new life. And then you took her away.” Tears clung to Marlena’s eyelashes like flies to a spider’s web. “You made her death my fault too. And I had no choice but to live with that.” She let out a harsh bark of laughter. Perhaps it was a sob. Either way, the sound skittered across Wren’s skin like a hundred beetles.

“Do you have any idea what it’s like to lose someone you love?” Marlena took a step toward Tamsin, her movements swift and precise.

“Yes,” Tamsin said, her voice so quiet Wren struggled to hear it. “I lost you.”

A vase of white flowers tumbled from a table and shattered on the floor.

“Don’t do that,” Marlena said, hands shaking. “You didn’t lose me; you made a decision without my consent. All this talk about how you saved me, but did you ever stop to think that maybe I didn’t need to be saved? That I didn’t see myself as someone to be pitied?”

Tamsin twitched, her hands in fists, pressing her fingernails into her palms the way she did when she was frustrated or afraid. Wren hoped it wasn’t the latter. Dark magic hovered above them with its putrid stink and its icy grip. While Tamsin might have been the one to call the dark magic all those years ago, she no