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

She turned on her heel and slipped away, ducking through the shattered wall and out into the night. The truth of her words settled like a stone in Tamsin’s stomach.

“Marlena, I—”

“Obviously, you’re going after her.” It wasn’t a question so much as a command. “I know they cursed you, but even you must be able to see what’s happening between the two of you.” Marlena rolled her eyes, as though she didn’t care either way.

“What?”

“Don’t be an idiot. Go after her.”

“But you and I…” Tamsin trailed off. She didn’t know what they needed to do. Only that the space between them was still stagnant and stale.

“Not yet.” Marlena looked pained. “I can’t yet. Okay?”

Tamsin looked at her sister, really looked. Marlena’s left eye was smaller than her right. She had a dimple in her left cheek, and her jaw was slightly square. Tamsin had spent so much time trying to fit them into the same box that she had never taken the time to see how they had grown on their own.

“Okay,” she said, the enormity of her feelings too impossible to put into words.

She turned and followed Wren through the wrecked wall out onto the beach. She glanced up at the inky night sky. The moon was just a sliver, no thicker than a piece of thread. Stars shimmered above, offering the night a softness the never-ending dark had not held. She closed her eyes and breathed in the cool night air.

Wren was twenty paces ahead, staring out at the sea.

“The ocean looks different,” Wren said, her eyes fixed on the water as Tamsin came to stand beside her.

The sea had settled, the waves no longer stormy but rhythmic, rising and receding gently, soft as a lullaby, leaving the sand dark where the waves had been.

“Do you think it’s over? The plague?” Wren’s voice was so hopeful that Tamsin could not bear to look at her face. She thought it might break her.

“I don’t know. I hope so.” Tamsin studied the piles of driftwood as though they were fortresses guarding a secret, keeping captive an answer. There was something she was supposed to say. Something she was supposed to understand about Wren and the way she made Tamsin feel. That she made Tamsin feel.

She turned to face Wren, her skin pale in the darkness, her hair wild and tangled above her head like a crown. Power looked good on Wren. Accentuated her rough and wild face. Tamsin opened her mouth to tell her so, but before she could speak, Wren held up a hand.

“I’m glad you didn’t die,” Wren said.

It was too dark to tell if she was blushing, but Tamsin imagined that she was, the familiar pink flush creeping from Wren’s cheeks to her temples. Tamsin smiled. The silence was as heavy as the air before a storm.

Tamsin took a step toward Wren, the space between them practically nothing. She brought a hand to Wren’s face, her thumb brushing dust from her freckled cheek, the rest of her fingers tangling themselves in Wren’s hair.

“Wren, I…” It was as though she had forgotten how to speak. As though she had forgotten what words were for and why they mattered in the face of this girl with those blazing eyes and that ghost of a smile. For a moment, neither of them moved, the air crackling around them like a shower of sparks.

“It’s okay,” Wren said, misunderstanding her hesitation. She slipped carefully out of Tamsin’s grip, one hand lingering on hers, until she pulled away completely, leaving Tamsin alone with the unfamiliar and infuriating feeling of wanting and the fear that she would never stop.

TWENTY-FOUR

WREN

The trees shuddered and sighed. When Wren and Tamsin had first passed through the empty forest, the branches had been thin and spindly. The trunks had stood like skeletons, their emptiness achingly clear. Now, although the branches were still bare, the bark was taking on new life. Color seeped upward from the gnarled roots as slowly as water dripping from a broken pump. Wren looked up. The trunks were taller, as though the trees were finally standing up straight. There was a buzzing in the wood, still whisper-soft, a thudding like a heart fighting its way back to life.

There was potential in those trees. A promise that the world might someday find its footing once again.

Above their heads, the sky was as dark as ever. Nearly one hundred paces ahead, Marlena carried a lantern, the light bobbing and weaving as she stalked through the trees.

Beside Wren, Tamsin was silent, her eyes fixed on the back of her sister’s head. Wren nudged the witch lightly with her elbow. “You should go talk to her.”

Perhaps it was because Wren knew she would never get the chance to see her father again—would never be able to tell him about her magic, her growth, the new world she’d found herself a part of—that she needed Tamsin and her sister to reconcile. Marlena was right there; that opportunity, that closeness, was a gift she wanted the witch to understand.

“She doesn’t want to talk to me,” Tamsin said without tearing her eyes from Marlena.

“You don’t know until you try.” Wren tried to sound encouraging.

“You can’t fix everything, you know.” Tamsin was finally looking at her. “I know you want to, but sometimes it isn’t that easy.”

That was something Wren knew well enough. Each shuffling step she took led her closer to the academy. She didn’t want to return, but of course she had no choice. She was bound to this unfamiliar land. Her power bound to theirs.

Tamsin looked similarly haunted. Still, Wren was grateful for the company. She had expected Tamsin to join her in returning so that she could claim the boon but had assumed Marlena would put up more of a struggle. Yet, as they’d prepared to head back to the academy, the girl had followed them miserably to the door.

“I don’t have magic anymore, and I’m not very good