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

The fact that Tamsin could not love was irrelevant when faced with the sight of her sister lying lifeless on the floor. Marlena’s mouth hung open, as though she’d had more to say. Her eyes were empty. It was a punch to the gut, a stab in the side, seeing her sister splayed out in the exact same position she had been in five years ago, the first time Tamsin had watched Marlena die.

The one thing Tamsin had always promised herself was that she would never again hurt someone she loved, but then, in another moment of desperation, she had reached again for dark magic, this time to turn against her sister rather than to save her.

She was exactly the same stupid, impulsive girl she had always been. She hadn’t grown at all. Her grief, her guilt, all her practice in self-restraint, had not actually made her better. In fact, here she stood, squeezing her eyes shut so she would not have to take in her sister’s lifeless body. She was back exactly where she had started.

“I’m sorry.” Wren’s whisper was lighter than a feather. “Tamsin, I’m so, so sorry.”

The source pulled away from her, her face streaked with tears. She cradled her arm like a baby, the bone splintered and awkward.

“Stop.” Tamsin was grateful to focus on Wren’s ruined arm. It was broken in at least two places. Wren sucked in a tight lungful of air at Tamsin’s touch, her expression betraying exactly how much pain she felt. Focusing on the breaks one at a time, Tamsin pulled what little strength she had left to the forefront, sending it to the torn muscles and splintered bones. It was like scraping the bottom of an empty barrel. Wren, too, was devoid of magic, her stores depleted from the fight. So Tamsin worked slowly. Wren swayed back and forth, soft as the sea.

“Do you hate me?” Wren’s voice was so small. Her eyes strayed to where Marlena lay, sprawled out on the wooden floor.

“How could I hate you?” And Tamsin meant it. How could she hate Wren for something that she herself had been prepared to do?

Her eyes skimmed the source still sniffling before her. Wren’s eyes were glassy with tears, her hair streaked with dust and sweat. She had bright pink scratches across her cheek, and her skin was as white as a sheet, the freckles scattered across her nose more pronounced than ever. Tamsin wanted to count every single one, commit them all to memory so that even when she closed her eyes, she would see a constellation of Wren.

She reached up to wipe away the girl’s tears, shuddering as her skin met Wren’s. A rush, heavy and hot, thrummed through her like a wave of nausea. The feeling passed as quickly as it had begun, but in its absence, Tamsin became aware of a different kind of lightness. As though someone had lifted a particularly heavy item from a sack slung across her back, lightening her load.

Easing her way forward.

She kept her hand on Wren’s cheek. This one strange girl had managed to throw off the balance of Tamsin’s entire world. She had turned Tamsin away from emptiness and toward something… else. Something desperate and wanting and hopeful. Something pure. When she was with Wren, things were different. She was different, and Tamsin had no idea why.

“You’re bleeding.” Wren pointed to Tamsin’s wrist, where a stream of bright red blood welled up and trickled down her arm like a waterfall.

Wren leaned forward to examine Tamsin’s injury, her hair draping down like a curtain, sheltering the two of them from the dangers and the cruelties of the world. Tamsin wished they could stay hidden together forever.

Tamsin had always been afraid of forever. It was too broad, too all-encompassing. It left too much room for error and disappointment. But Tamsin had shown Wren all the messy, broken pieces of herself, and still Wren had not run. Instead she stood before Tamsin, biting her bottom lip in concentration as she tore a scrap of fabric from the bottom of her shirt. She wrapped it tenderly around the wound, despite the fact that Tamsin was a witch and could heal it herself.

Wren’s eyes flitted up to meet Tamsin’s. Their sharpness caused a jolt in Tamsin’s stomach. Wren’s cheeks flushed pink. “What?” She was still holding Tamsin’s hand.

“I…” Tamsin was suddenly nervous. Words didn’t seem like enough. They felt like too much. “Nothing.” She was confused. Grief-stricken. She didn’t know what to say. Her sister was dead. Again. She didn’t know how her broken heart would survive it.

Wren’s face fell somewhere between a smile and a frown. She studied Tamsin, her eyes boring into the center of her as though searching for the answer to an unspoken question. Tamsin hated this trepidation, this uncertainty.

She wished she could start all over again. Wished she could slam the door in Wren’s face, ignore the way her freckles danced across her nose in the sunlight, tune out her stupid melodic voice and turn away her kindness. Tamsin wished she had never returned Within at all.

If she had stayed in Ladaugh, Marlena would still be alive. At the very least, she wouldn’t be dead by Tamsin’s hand. For Wren was an extension of Tamsin, by virtue of their pact. She had brought the source here. Which was why Tamsin hated herself for wanting to reach for Wren.

After all that had happened, despite Marlena’s lifeless body on the floor, Tamsin wanted to comfort Wren.

It didn’t make the slightest bit of sense.

Tamsin held on anyway. Sense was nothing amid the crashing waves of grief. She needed to touch someone, needed to remind herself that she was solid. That she wouldn’t merely float away.

Her hand still cradled in Wren’s, a flood of warmth creeping up her perennially cold skin, Tamsin tried not to think. Tried not to fear. Tried to simply listen to the heart lying dormant in her chest. She inhaled shakily, catching Wren’s scent,