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

longer controlled it. Now it was fully in Marlena’s hands. And the way the witch was smiling at Tamsin and Wren, she seemed prepared to use it.

“You don’t have to fight us, Marlena,” Wren said, her wrists screaming beneath her bindings.

“Oh, come now.” Marlena let out a laugh, bitter and raw. “Why do you think I called Tamsin here? It certainly wasn’t to talk.”

Tamsin’s hand grazed Wren’s leg, loosening her bindings. Wren slipped quickly out of Marlena’s ropes, letting them fall to the floor with a thud.

From across the room, Marlena toppled an armchair. Tamsin skittered out of the way. “Don’t look so worried, sister. I’m just experimenting,” Marlena said, her voice light and airy. “Oh, but you don’t want that, do you?” She pursed her lips in an exaggerated pout. “You don’t want me to be strong. You want me weak so you can care for me. So that you can remain superior. But I have to admit, having power is just as much fun as you always made it look.”

“But it’s dark magic.” Tamsin spoke through gritted teeth. “You aren’t feeling the consequences.”

“Oh, and you are?” Marlena’s face was pinched.

“I feel them every day,” Tamsin said, her voice raw and honest. “I know what it’s like to carry that weight. I don’t want that for you.”

“Of course you don’t,” Marlena snapped, a howling gust of wind blowing through the room. The plants shook in their pots; the pages of the books on the floor flapped and rustled. “You never wanted anything for me. That’s entirely my point.”

Tamsin’s hand brushed Wren’s own, so softly it might have been an accident. Wren frowned at her, but Tamsin’s gaze did not leave Marlena. When Tamsin’s fingers met Wren’s again, she realized what was happening. Tamsin was asking for permission.

Tamsin was going to fight her sister, and to combat Marlena’s dark magic, she needed a source. She needed Wren.

Thunder clapped. A flash of lightning bathed the room in white light. Still, Wren hesitated. When first they’d started their journey, Wren had been willing to do whatever she needed to take down the dark witch. She had been prepared to sacrifice one life for hundreds of others. But it was different now, seeing Marlena in the flesh. Watching Tamsin watch her. Tamsin would never forgive herself if something happened to Marlena. Wren would never forgive herself if something happened to Tamsin. But the fight would be lost either way if Wren did not offer up her magic.

She closed her eyes, trying to remember Leya’s words, to focus her power and push it all to the forefront. She tried to imagine it running out of her like a stream. Slow and steady, a babbling brook rather than a roaring river.

Wren reached for Tamsin’s hand, sparks flying as magic surged between them. Tamsin squeezed Wren’s fingers. Wren squeezed back, sending the witch everything she had. Everything she was afraid to say. Wren’s clammy hand held tight to the witch’s icy fingers as Tamsin carefully siphoned Wren’s magic and prepared to turn it all against her sister.

TWENTY-ONE

TAMSIN

The first time Tamsin and Marlena had fought, they were five years old. Tamsin had cried for an hour afterward. She had always been more sensitive, more emotional. Marlena had thrown her sister a wary glance before turning her attention back to the toy that had sparked their argument: enchanted blocks gifted to them by Councillor Mari.

In an attempt to distance herself from her tearful twin, Marlena used the blocks to build a castle around herself so that Tamsin could not come in. It was the first time there’d been a wall between them, and Tamsin hated it, pushed against Marlena’s tower with her shoulder, with her hands, to no avail. Anger and hurt swirled within her, and, desperate, she tried to topple the tower with her mind. That did it, sent the blocks tumbling, revealing her sister again. Marlena blinked at her in surprise, asked Tamsin how she had brought her tower crumbling down.

Tamsin told her she didn’t know. But there had been a warm glow within her, almost as though the power had gone straight from her mind to the building blocks. It was a glimmer of magic, and even then, young and curious, Tamsin had known not to say a word, not to give her sister any indication that there might be differences between them. Tamsin had held her magic close and waited for Marlena to catch up.

They were not so different now as Marlena stood before her, their past the wall between them, and the warmth from Wren’s magic filling the hollowness in Tamsin’s chest. Her skin danced with electricity, the same way it always did when Wren was near.

A saucer shattered, the shards skittering across the floor.

“Sorry.” Marlena’s face was split with a grim joy. Her eyes sparkled like cut crystal.

“You’re not.” Tamsin’s shoulders tensed. The sheer magnitude of the moment weighed upon her so heavily it threatened to break her in half.

“I have to admit, this is quite exciting.” There was a wickedness in the slant of Marlena’s smile, curved just so that it might have been a sneer. “Knowing that I carry enough power to best you.”

Now that she had read her sister’s diary, Tamsin could pinpoint the moment Marlena had turned so hateful. As soon as Tamsin had cast the spell, Marlena had changed, her anger festering the longer the dark magic lived inside her. It was clear that as Marlena had slept, that darkness—her hatred of her sister—had only continued to grow.

For Tamsin, the time alone had done the opposite. For five years she had held the memory of Marlena close to her empty heart, and while she could never quite remember the way it felt to love her sister, Tamsin had always held tight to the knowledge that she had.

Now she was beginning to realize that love wasn’t always enough.

Her love had brought her here, to this. Her love had caused her to