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

Her throat tightened, making it difficult to breathe. Wren inhaled slowly, trying to focus on the flow of air through her lungs rather than the ragged sound of her breath catching. She had gone a bit light-headed.

And then a voice, so faint she almost missed it. One tiny, terrified word: “Help.”

Wren sat up so quickly that the world around her began to spin.

Tamsin didn’t stir.

For a moment there was nothing but the night. Then, the voice again. Louder this time. Desperate. Haunted.

“Help.”

Wren turned toward Tamsin, who was still scowling in her sleep. She moved to shake her but stopped before her fingers could close around the witch’s shoulder. Tamsin was already the crankiest person Wren had ever met, and that was in her waking hours. She shivered at the thought of the ire she would invoke if she pulled the witch from sleep.

Carefully, so as not to disturb a single pebble, Wren got to her feet. She stumbled through patches of sharp summer grass on shaking legs. When she was far enough away that she would not wake the witch, she too called out. “Hello?”

“Hello?” The voice again, excited and eager. “I’m here.”

The night was still, the starlight illuminating nothing but the rocks at her feet. “Where?”

“Here,” the voice insisted. Wren wheeled all the way around, but there was no one there. “No,” the voice said, sighing heavily. “Not there. Down here.” Something sticky skimmed her ankle. Wren shrieked, jumping back. “Careful,” the voice snapped, affronted. Wren peered down into the shadowy grass.

It was a frog.

Wren didn’t know whether to laugh or run away. “I don’t understand.” She was probably delirious.

The frog peered up at her with buggy eyes, its long tongue lapping out to catch a passing fly. “I’m a lord,” it said simply. “Cursed by an evil witch.”

“I know one of those,” she muttered despite herself.

The frog looked relieved, insomuch as a frog could. “Then you’ll help me?”

Wren bent down to kneel in the grass, pebbles pressing uncomfortably into her knees. “Help you how?”

“My father will be most grateful,” the frog continued, as though he had not heard her. “He’s a duke, you know. Of course you’ll be rewarded quite handsomely.” The creature was speaking very fast.

“Help you how?” Wren asked again, curiosity getting the best of her.

“Oh!” The frog bounced up and down on his spongy toes. “It’s really very simple. All you have to do is give me a kiss.”

“A kiss?” Wren frowned.

“That’s it, just one peck and it’s over. It’s nothing, really. Just pick me up, give me a quick smack, and I’ll be forever in your debt.”

Wren shifted her weight onto her heels. It seemed too simple. The answer made her suspicious, although she didn’t understand exactly why.

“Why were you cursed?” she asked, trying to buy herself time.

The frog blinked up at her. “It was a simple misunderstanding,” he said. “She had a horrible temper. Wouldn’t even let me explain.”

That certainly sounded like someone Wren knew. She felt a pang of sympathy for the frog. The lord?

“All right.” It was just a kiss, after all. Something she could easily give. An action she could take to help someone, the way she couldn’t yet help her father. The way she couldn’t help herself. And it was such a simple ask. Lips pressed to lips. Nothing more. Hadn’t she just kissed Tamsin? It certainly wasn’t as though that had meant anything.

Wren offered her hand to the frog, who hopped into it. His skin was clammy and slick against her palm. It wasn’t the most comforting sensation, but, she supposed, it would only take a second. One second to free a person from a terrible spell. Surely that was worth a single moment of absurdity.

Wren brought her hand toward her face. The frog blinked at her. His long pink tongue flapped out of his mouth onto her palm. She shuddered, her own tongue flooding with a sharp, metallic tang. Perhaps if she just closed her eyes…

“Wren.” Her eyes flew open. “What are you doing?” The witch stalked toward her, hair mussed, one cheek pink and imprinted with the stitching from her rucksack.

Wren glanced desperately from the witch to the frog, which was waiting patiently in her hand. “He needs help,” she said quickly, raising the frog up so Tamsin could see him. “He’s a lord who was turned into a frog.”

Tamsin took a step forward, squinting at the creature in Wren’s palm. Her face was unreadable in the starlight. “First of all,” she said sharply, “that’s a toad.”

Wren squinted down. “But… he was cursed by a witch.”

Tamsin shot her a withering look. “Oh, really?”

“Yes,” she said, confidence waning as she stared at the nervously flopping creature. “So… you’re not a lord?” She felt quite foolish, addressing a toad.

Tamsin snickered. “No, he’s a nasty little swamp sprite who should be squashed,” she said, swatting the toad out of Wren’s hand. Wren gasped as the creature fell. Tamsin rolled her eyes. “Don’t know how long it must have taken that one to hop up here from the South, but you’re lucky I woke up. If you’d kissed him, you would have turned into a toad as well.”

Wren’s eyes widened in horror. She tried to wipe all traces of the toad off her hand and onto the grass. She had only been trying to help. All Wren ever wanted to do was help, and yet, time and time again, she was the one who got hurt.

“Rule of thumb,” Tamsin said, staring down at her. “Never trust something that talks when it shouldn’t.”

Wren stopped scraping at the skin of her palm. “But what if it had been a lord?”

“You still should have walked away.” The witch shrugged lightly. “You can’t save everyone. Especially not if you’re a toad.” She looked as though she was biting back a grin.

“It isn’t funny,” Wren said sharply, getting to her feet and turning back toward the bridge.

“It’s sort of funny,” Tamsin said, following behind her. “If