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

Or Wren could finally allow herself to be happy, however impossible that might sound. She could give in rather than give up before she’d even begun.

“Okay.” Wren wasn’t certain if she spoke or merely nodded, but it didn’t matter. Tamsin’s eyes were on hers; their fingers were intertwined, skin delighting in contact with skin. Every inch of Wren buzzed with anticipation as Tamsin moved closer still, until there was no more space between them. Perhaps there never had been.

It wasn’t the first time the two of them had kissed, but it was the first time they were both aware of what it was. The act itself wasn’t any different, still lips upon lips, chapped and wet and warm. But the intention was. This kiss was a question, an answer, fingers crossed, and a promise kept. It was hope. It was possibility. It was sparks across Wren’s skin and a flutter in her stomach. It was roving hands and soft touches and lingering heat. It was bark pressed against her back. It was tiny gasps, Tamsin’s mouth splitting into a smile that Wren matched with her own. Wren wanted to remember every second, wanted to be aware of every single sensation, but it was like trying to count the stars. Never before had she been so conscious of how many ways it was possible to feel. To want. To need.

The second kiss was much of the same.

The third was somehow even more.

After that, Wren stopped counting.

She focused instead on the way her skin shivered beneath the witch’s touch, how she had never before considered the neck to be a place particularly suited for kissing (oh, how foolish she had been), how tender a tongue could be. Kissing the witch gave Wren the same sensation magic did. Kissing Tamsin made Wren feel like magic too.

“Called it.” Blue light flashed behind Wren’s closed eyelids.

“What, Marlena?” Tamsin sounded genuinely irritated as she pulled away from Wren.

“I thought you got lost.” Marlena pouted. “It wasn’t like I was going to keep walking to the academy myself. Now I see you were just… otherwise engaged.” She wrinkled her nose, a soft smile playing on her lips.

“Shut up.” Tamsin sighed, running a hand through her hair. She glanced sheepishly at Wren, who was having trouble containing her gigantic grin. “Better get a move on.”

Wren’s stomach flipped, this time for an entirely different reason. She didn’t want to reenter that echoing hall, didn’t want to stand before the Coven. She didn’t want to stay Within, especially when Tamsin couldn’t.

Her fingers went limp. Tamsin shot Wren a curious look, but Wren plastered on a smile and forced herself to hold her hand tighter. She had given in to a want, and already she was facing the possibility it would be taken away.

Such was the way of the world.

“Wait.” Tamsin slowed, pulling Wren back. “Let me just…” She flicked a finger, and the ribbon around Wren’s neck floated softly to the ground. Wren bent to grab it, but it dissolved into nothingness before she could reach it. Wren glanced curiously up at Tamsin, who shrugged. “Now you don’t have to wonder. You’re free.”

Wren opened her mouth, then clamped her lips shut, forcing them into a smile. “What about yours?”

Tamsin touched the necklace and shrugged. “I guess I’ve grown rather fond of it.” She looked at Wren as she spoke. Wren shivered with a curious pleasure, twining her fingers through Tamsin’s again.

The witch’s skin was warm against Wren’s own.

TWENTY-FIVE

TAMSIN

They made it to the Wandering Woes just as the sun rose for the first time in days. All three of them were beaten, battered, and bruised—both inside and out. Hazel’s inn was the only place they felt safe enough to stop with Marlena in tow.

Wren and Marlena made for the inn’s front door, ready to collapse, but Tamsin could not pull her eyes away from the sky. It was flooded with colors: soft blues, baby pinks, and bright glowing oranges nearly the same shade as Wren’s hair. The sight brought Tamsin to tears. She told herself it was the exhaustion. Just because she was in love didn’t mean she was soft enough to weep at colors cascading across the sky.

But she was. Tears rolled silently down her cheeks. Tamsin used her cloak, which she had taken off and slung over an arm when she’d grown too warm, to dry her face. Beside her, Wren said nothing, merely gave her hand an encouraging squeeze.

They slept through the day and most of the night, but Tamsin felt no relief. The threat of the Coven hung like a dark cloud overhead. She was haunted by the idea of facing Vera. Of having to own up to the bond—of admitting that she was the witch responsible for it all.

When they did depart, sent off with a package of honey, cheese, and bread from a wet-eyed Hazel, Tamsin grew teary too. Marlena, as usual, did not hold back—she cried frequently and frighteningly. But without the dark magic twisting her sister’s emotions, each day Tamsin recognized Marlena a little bit more.

Once they reached the gilded doors of the academy, the sun planted firmly in the afternoon sky, Marlena hesitated. “I don’t want to do this.”

Neither did Tamsin. She had done as Vera had asked, had stopped the dark magic and saved her sister. But if the Coven learned that the plague was just another side effect of her five-year-old spell, Tamsin feared what they would do to her.

She was afraid of having to let go of Wren when whatever they had was only just beginning. Too much of her was tied to the world Within. Tamsin did not know how she was going to leave it behind again.

She turned to her sister, whose eyes were fretful, her mouth downturned. Their imaginary mirror still had cracks. Some shards had shattered completely, broken into so many pieces that the damage would never be fully repaired. But as Tamsin looked into her sister’s