Sweet & Bitter Magic by Adrienne Tooley (speed reading book TXT) 📗

might as well just move in here. Who needs a dormitory when you can have scratchy, starched sheets and the dulcet tones of Healer Elthe’s voice instructing me to wake up?

I was out for nearly twelve hours this time. It’s taking me longer to recover. I used to just lose consciousness for a few minutes, which was annoying but manageable. But now I’m starting to lose hours. Pieces of my days disappear. I’m missing out on my own life. At this rate, I’ll spend more of my existence sleeping than living.

I hate that I can’t depend on my body. That my mind needs to take breaks. I have no control. I’m at the mercy of myself. And I’m so envious of those people who can just do whatever they want to do. Go wherever they want to go. Be whatever they want to be without considering the consequences.

People like Tamsin.

She came to visit, of course, loaded down with a giant bouquet of lilies. They don’t even bloom this time of year, but I can appreciate the effort, even though their petals are the same color as the sparse, sanitized interior of the infirmary. We had a nice enough conversation, but then, as she was leaving, she pulled my blanket up to my chin and stroked my cheek like I was a baby bird who had fallen from the nest. Sometimes I wonder if she loves this, all the fussing over me, the mothering (because we all know our mother doesn’t have time for such things), the helping. She’s always trying to help.

But I just can’t seem to let her. And I know sometimes I can be cruel, but I couldn’t help feeling resentful that here I was, sprawled out in the bed the infirmary should probably just name after me, and she didn’t even appear to have so much as a hangnail after performing the exact same spell. So much for “magic has consequences.” Tamsin has no idea how I feel, and worse yet, she never will.

Tamsin tried to turn the page, but the diary wouldn’t budge. It was just like Marlena to pique her interest and then deny her further information. She threw the book back onto the bed. She hadn’t meant for her actions to come off as patronizing. She’d truly wanted to help.

There had always been an imbalance between them. No matter how hard Marlena worked, magic only ever seemed to hurt her, to turn itself against her. Magic left Marlena dizzy and numb. It sometimes took her days to return to her usual self.

Tamsin, on the other hand, hardly needed to blink, and magic poured through her, always at her beck and call. The lesson that had landed Marlena in the infirmary that time had garnered Tamsin nothing more than a faint pressure in her ear, which had popped the moment she yawned. She emerged from spells unscathed while her sister slipped slowly into sleep.

But her magic did have consequences. Tamsin now suffered them every single day of her bleak, bitter existence. And she suffered those consequences because of her sister. Because of the spell Tamsin had used to save her.

It hadn’t mattered, in the end.

She’d still laid flowers on her sister’s grave.

Tamsin glanced at the petal she continued to clutch, at the stems strewn across the floor. They were lilies, Marlena’s favorite flower. The ones Tamsin always brought to her bedside. The ones she had left on the packed earth during her final good-bye. Was someone threatening her? Were these flowers the same ones that would lie on her grave too?

She was having trouble breathing. She gasped great hiccupping gulps of air, choking and spluttering as the room pitched and darkened around her. Before, she had been unnerved. But now she was really and truly afraid.

She needed to calm down, but as she dug her nails into the flesh of her palm, she knew she couldn’t do it alone. She reached within for a thread to grip and coaxed the love out from its hiding place. Instantly she was flooded with a steadying warmth. She took three giant, calming breaths. The room stopped spinning. Her vision stopped receding.

Then she was flooded again with the icy grip of fear.

Desperate, Tamsin tried to pull more love but found there was nothing left inside her to hold. The last of the young mother’s love was gone, and she had absolutely no idea if or when she would ever replenish her stash. After she had explained to several teary-eyed parents that she could not reverse the effects of dark magic, the people of Ladaugh had given her a wide berth. At market they made their opinions about Tamsin inarguably clear: She was a stain on the world, entirely at fault.

Those were the same words whispered by her fellow witches just before the Coven had voted to banish her from Within.

A banging started up on her front door, so hard it threatened to rattle the door off its hinges. Outside, the birds squawked and screeched. The doorknob jiggled. Tamsin’s blood ran cold. She tried to imagine what kind of person could possibly be on the other side. She glanced at the flowers on the floor. At the book on her bed.

She wasn’t ready to face her past.

There was one second of blissful silence. Even the birds outside stopped their squawking. Then the person started shouting. The strong, high voice didn’t sound especially threatening, but Tamsin wasn’t taking any chances. She made her way toward the door, pausing at the table to pick up a knife still slick from buttering a slice of bread. Tamsin held it carefully in front of her as she slid aside the bolt and swung the door open.

The girl stopped shouting. For it was a village girl, her long hair pulled back in a messy braid, her trousers full of deftly repaired holes, her boots all but falling off her feet. Her forehead was pinched in frustration, her mouth still puckered, ready to shout again. Her