Sweet & Bitter Magic

by Adrienne Tooley

  The fact that Tamsin, the most selfish and self-centered person Wren had ever met, had tried to do something that immense for another person was so unfathomable as to be impossible.

  “Anyway, it didn’t work. Two lives were lost, thanks to my spell. And I have to live with that. I did that.” The witch busied herself with adjusting her cloak, her face pinched. “No one will let me forget it. Not even the Wood.”

  Wren started walking, brain buzzing. She had always suspected Tamsin’s past to be fraught, but she now realized she had underestimated the depths of the witch’s pain. The monumental weight of the guilt she was carrying.

  “Where are you going?” Tamsin hurried after her.

  “Getting us out of here. These trees will not defeat us.” Wren stalked forward, chin up, shoulders back. She was magic, and she would not lose to the Witchwood. “Hurry up.”

  “I am hurrying,” Tamsin said, her breath huffing as she worked to keep up.

  “Your legs are longer than mine,” Wren said, trying to keep her voice light, although her stomach was still churning with the understanding of exactly how much power Tamsin held. It was one thing to watch her summon food or fire. It was another thing to imagine her with enough magic to end a life.

  She shivered, hoping it passed as a reaction to the shadows around them, the breeze blowing straight into their faces. The whispers of the trees had faded to a dull ringing in her ears. In the distance were pinpricks of light, sparkling and twinkling like stars. The darkness that had crept up her throat, threatening to choke her, was starting to dispel. She was beginning to feel like herself again. Settled. Which could only mean that they were almost to the other side.

  Wren reached for Tamsin’s hand and pulled the witch forward, ignoring her startled cry. All that mattered was getting out of the Witchwood. Tamsin begged for her to slow down, but Wren could not, would not, until she saw a break in the trees, until she extracted herself from their tangled trunks and wanting branches.

  Outside the Witchwood, the night was cool and calm. Wren dropped her sack and spun, giddy at the freedom of the wide open space. She had made it. She was in the Witchlands—she was in the world Within.

  “What are you doing?” Tamsin pulled her hand free from Wren’s grasp, still panting. Yet, despite her bemused tone, her eyes were wide with relief.

  “Celebrating.” They had done it. They’d made it through. Despite the horrors she had witnessed, she also finally had pure, indisputable proof that she belonged in the world of magic.

  “You look ridiculous,” Tamsin said, her eyes darting around the empty night.

  “You’re not a little bit excited?” Wren stopped spinning. “Didn’t you grow up here? Won’t people be pleased to see you?”

  “Pleased?” Tamsin’s face fell, her features pained. She looked like an entirely different person. Not the cold girl who had laughed when Wren demanded payment for her stolen eggs. This Tamsin looked sad. Vulnerable. Afraid.

  “That’s not the word I’d use,” purred a voice. Wren and Tamsin whipped around to find a girl about their own age, her lips painted a vivid red, her hair dark and glossy. A long black cloak was draped over her broad shoulders, giving her the quality of a shadow. Her eyes, bright and frenetic, were fixed on Tamsin. Her lips quirked into a wicked grin. “Oh, Tamsin. I know the Coven put out the call to all witches, but surely you didn’t think that meant you, too.”

  Wren turned to Tamsin, confused by the stranger’s mocking tone. But Tamsin did not meet Wren’s eye. She stared straight ahead, her face even paler than usual. She looked resigned, an emotion so wholly foreign on her usually smug face.

  “Leya.” Something dark and heavy lingered in the air between the witch and the stranger. Wren found herself desperate to catch Tamsin’s eye, but she did not look her way. “What are you doing here?”

  “I live here, remember?”

  Tamsin shifted her weight awkwardly. “I meant at the border.”

  “Vera asked me to accompany her during her patrol. You never know who might walk through the Wood.” Leya twirled a dark curl around her finger. “I work for the Coven now.”

  Tamsin paled. “Vera’s here?”

  Before Leya could answer, a woman appeared where there had not been a woman before. She moved across the grass quickly in long, clipped strides. The woman was very beautiful, and absolutely terrifying. Her magic looped above her, less like a ribbon and more like a rope. Thick. Sturdy. Strong—perhaps too strong.

  She was the witch in every ordinary folk’s story, the one who charmed parents while stealing babies from their beds, who had a face of beauty but a cold, rotten heart. She looked as though she could take a bite through steel.

  “Tamsin.” The woman finally spoke with a voice as lush as poisoned wine. “You’re looking… well.” Her eyes lingered on Tamsin’s muddy skirt and tangled hair. Wren recognized the set of Tamsin’s jaw, the defiant fire in her eyes. Her defenses were high. This was not a woman she trusted.

  “High Councillor.” Tamsin gave the woman a deferential nod. Her voice was oddly strangled.

  “Oh, come now,” the woman said, her bloodred lips curving up in a predatory grin. “Is that any way to greet your mother?”

  THIRTEEN TAMSIN

  It was dark in the tower, the black shadows of night seeping across the gray stone floor, yet Tamsin did not need a torch. She could have kept her eyes closed for how well she knew the twists and turns from the front door of the academy to the High Councillor’s chambers.

  Tamsin ran a hand against the cool, curved wall, her fingers dragging the way her feet wanted to as she followed her mother’s clipped footsteps left, right, right, then another left before ascending a winding set of stairs.

  She’d had to leave Wren down in the Grand Hall to face the Six alone. Those six ancient witches were all that remained of the old guard, the leaders before Vera and her friends had taken down the dark witch Evangeline and founded the Coven. The Six had always been performative—after all, their negligence was the reason Evangeline had managed to call forth dark magic in the first place. They were figureheads of power without follow-through. Magical law was neither dictated nor enforced, so witches roamed free, taking advantage of ordinary folk and one another alike. The Six had lived with magic so long that they’d forgotten it could corrupt. Could inspire chaos. Could destroy.

  After Evangeline, the Six had ceded control of Within to the Coven. They were called in on the rarest of occasions to aid when the Coven could not. With Vera distracted by Tamsin, and the rest of the Coven out hunting the dark witch, it was up to the Six to interrogate Wren, a girl without a mark who had walked through the Wood. Tamsin wanted to be there with her. But what Tamsin wanted did not matter when faced with her mother.

  Of course Vera had been waiting for her. Tamsin had been foolish to believe she could return Within and somehow evade all the people she so desperately wished to avoid. The High Councillor knew everything that happened Within. Naturally, she would know who was coming through the Wood.

  Back in the hallowed halls of the academy, Tamsin was nearly suffocated by her memories. She could not escape her past, not even in her present as she followed her mother higher and higher up the spiral stairs. The Wood had reverberated with Amma’s screams. Had shown her the shimmering outline of Marlena’s body dropping to the floor.

  Then she had been faced with Leya, her smug smile and the glittering eyes Tamsin had loved back when she’d had a heart. She deserved Leya’s venom. They had parted ways poorly. Tamsin had asked Leya to sacrifice everything but had offered her nothing in return.

  She had been so consumed with Marlena that she had forgotten how to care about anyone else.

  Vera touched the handle of a gray stone door and whispered a quiet word. A lock clicked, and the door swung open, revealing her private chambers. The antechamber housed two more doors, both made of wood. To the left was Vera’s office, where she worked and disciplined. To the right was her bedroom, with its enormous f
our-poster bed and gold tub. Tamsin and Marlena had slept in her chamber as toddlers, but once their magic made an appearance, they were assigned beds in the dormitories with the other students.

  Instead of settling into her personal chamber and offering up any of its numerous plush armchairs, Vera ushered Tamsin into her study, motioning for her to sit in the straight-backed chair reserved for those facing Vera’s ire.

  “I’ll be with you shortly,” she said, flashing her daughter a smile that was only teeth. And then she shut the door firmly behind her.

  The room was smaller than Tamsin had remembered, the air stale. The tall shelves were still crammed with books; her mother’s raven-feather quill still stood on the wide desk. Vera’s favorite cloak, made of velvet black as midnight, hung from a peg near the door. But the chairs had been moved several inches to the left, the brick of the fireplace replaced with stone. The tapers Vera burned were now made from white wax rather than the black she had once preferred. Small things, hardly noticeable. But Tamsin noted them all.

  Five years had changed the room, the way she, too, had changed.

  She shifted in her chair, the sharp edge of Marlena’s diary digging into her hip. She pulled out the little black book, turned it over in her hands. Tamsin had never imagined she’d be here again, suffocating in the tiny tower room, facing every terrible decision she had ever made. She ran a finger across the ragged edges of the diary, her heart sinking as it fell open.

  Not again. Not now. Not here.

  But she couldn’t not look. The curve of her sister’s handwriting was like a spell coaxing her closer, drawing her nearer.

  You’re not going to believe this (of course you won’t; you’re only a diary), but someone Within is using dark magic. The rains, the fires, the quaking, Amma’s death. It’s all the consequence of a spell. Someone’s stupid, selfish decision, their need for power, is the reason my best friend is dead. I’m so furious I’m shaking.

  Vera’s falling to pieces. She’s been locked in her study; she’s stopped showing up to classes. It doesn’t matter what we learn if the world’s going to end. And even if the world doesn’t end, Vera’s world might. She thought that Evangeline was the worst of it. She and the Coven have been working so hard to build a new world, to gain the trust of the ordinary folk again. But it’s already coming undone, and under her reign.

  The only blessing is that the dark magic has not spread past the Wood. The world Beyond does not yet know what is happening Within. So naturally, Vera summoned Arwyn home to put an end to this once and for all. That’s right, the most terrifying member of the Coven is back, with her emerald-bright eyes and her smile as sharp as knives.

  I don’t envy whoever is responsible for this mess. Whoever they are, Arwyn will track them down with her eerily attuned nose and her awful skeleton army. And then, once the dark witch is found, they’ll have to face the wrath of my mother, a woman terrified of losing her position of power.

  I wonder if they’ll put her to death.

  And I say “her” because I know who did it. Well, I think I do, anyway. We may not be very close these days, but I can still tell when Tamsin is hiding something. And she’s a wreck. Sleeping all the time, her power fading in and out. She looks haggard, like she’s suddenly aged a hundred years. She’s guilty about something. This is the only explanation.

  My sister is the reason my best friend is dead, and to be honest, I’m having a difficult time convincing myself that she doesn’t deserve what’s coming to her. Amma is dead because of something Tamsin did.

  But what I don’t understand is why. It doesn’t make any sense. Tamsin has more power in her left hand than the rest of our class put together. She doesn’t need dark magic. She would never use dark magic, because that would be breaking a rule, and Tamsin’s such a stickler for rules it makes me want to scream. But this… this is something different altogether.

  What is my sister hiding? What did Tamsin do?????

  It was the same question her mother had asked her when Arwyn brought her to the Grand Hall, flinging twelve-year-old Tamsin onto the marble floor in front of the five other members of the Coven.

  “What did you do?” Vera’s fingers had dug so deeply into Tamsin’s skin as she marched her daughter up the endless staircase to her chambers that Tamsin had been black-and-blue for weeks. Vera had thrown her daughter into a chair and glowered down at her, the cracks already apparent in her usual pristine expression.

  “She was going to die.” Tamsin’s voice was small.

  “I told you no.” Her mother’s words were sharp enough to slice through skin, but Tamsin didn’t even flinch. “Do you think this was easy for me, knowing my daughter was going to die? Do you think you are the only one who cares for her?”

  “But—but—” Tamsin stammered, her voice hoarse. “You didn’t—”

  “I couldn’t,” Vera snapped. “I wanted to. But I told you: We do not dabble in death.” Her mother’s face flashed with pain. “You’ve put me in a terrible position, do you know that? Do you have any idea what will happen when this gets out? My daughter, my child, the reason for all this destruction. They’ll vote me out. They’ll kill you. Did you stop to think? Do you ever think?” But her voice had lost its edge. “With one stupid, foolish decision, you have taken both my children from me.”

  “What are you talking about? Marlena’s alive.”

  Vera pursed her lips. “When we break the bond between you—and we will break it,” she said, stopping Tamsin’s protests before she even opened her mouth, “Marlena will not survive it. Your magic is the only thing keeping her alive. When the bond is broken, we will lose her all over again. And you, well…” Vera busied herself with the papers atop her desk. “I do not think the Coven will allow you to live either.”

  Yet here she was, five years later, a flood of memories and guilt and wrongness. Tamsin had survived. Her sister had not. And she carried that with her every single day of her life.

  The door opened, and the High Councillor swept back in. She leaned against the corner of her desk, and for a moment she said nothing, simply stared at her daughter.

  “What—”

  “I—”

  They spoke at the same time, then paused, embarrassed. Their words tumbled into each other’s like bodies colliding. The room was off balance. They were not mother and daughter; they were two strangers. They did not know what to say.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” Vera finally managed, her nails tapping against the desk.

  Tamsin could hardly contain her shock. Her mother had been the one to cast her curse, the one to push her into the Wood, telling her in no uncertain terms to never return. Of course, that had been a kindness, in that she had pardoned her daughter from death. Still, Tamsin had never been able to shake the feeling that death might have been the kinder option. Five years of guilt was enough to drain the will to live from anyone, whether they could feel love or not.

  But then she took in her mother’s face, really and truly looked. She caught sight of wrinkles around Vera’s mouth. Her mother had always looked pristine—her glossy black hair, her vivid red lips, long nails, rouged cheeks—due to the numerous spells that kept her effortlessly young and beautiful. But there was a crack in her composure, noticeable only up close. Something was wrong. Something was tearing her mother apart.

  “I didn’t do this, if that’s what you’re thinking. The dark magic. I wouldn’t.” Tamsin hated how small she sounded. Sitting there in front of her mother, she felt like a child.

  Vera smiled sadly.

  “What?” Her mother’s expression was unsettling. Like there was more to the story than what had already come to pass.

  “Look at you,” Vera said, holding up a hand to caress Tamsin’s cheek.

  Tamsin stared at her blankly, Vera’s hand like wind upon her skin. She felt no desire to greet her mother in a similar way. She could not even muster up a smile.

  “I didn’t do this,” she said again, her voice stronger this
time. Imploring. She needed Vera to understand. She was different. She was steady. She was careful. “I want to help. Who better to find the dark witch than me?”

  Her mother gave her a searching look. “Who indeed?”

  “I would be an asset. An aid. I’ve witnessed firsthand the horrors this spell has wrought. I see now. I understand. I know that what I did was wrong. Let me fix it. Let me help.” Her knuckles were white, her fingernails pressed so deeply into the flesh of her palms that the creases would likely linger for hours.

  All the while, Vera’s face betrayed nothing.

  “I’m glad you feel that way,” she finally said, her eyes fixed on Tamsin’s. “For I do require your help.”

  “You do?” Tamsin sat forward in her chair, apprehension forgotten. She had appealed to her mother, and rather than turning her away, as she had feared, her mother was welcoming her forward.

  “I have knowledge,” Vera said, “that threatens my position as High Councillor. Were it to be found out, I would lose everything I have spent my life building—the better world where our power is greater than currency, stronger than love, essential in a way that cannot be denied.” She paused, letting her words hang heavy in the stale air. “I know who the dark witch is.”

  Tamsin let her breath out slowly as her mother’s words sank in. “Then why haven’t you stopped this?” The plague, the dark magic, all of it could end as soon as Vera said the word. The way she had when it had been Tamsin’s spell. When it had been Evangeline.

  Vera had instilled an understanding in her daughters that the fate of the world Within was worthy of ultimate sacrifice. Evangeline had been Vera’s best friend, Tamsin her daughter. In the end, it hadn’t mattered. The world Within was more important than the individual, greater than family. The choices Vera had made for Marlena’s life, for Tamsin’s future, were proof of that.

  Hesitation stretched across Vera’s face like a mask. Her uncertainty made her look small. “I cannot.”