I keep writing notes to Amma, folding them into the shapes her grandmother back in Kathos taught her. Tiny cranes, delicate swans, geometric frogs. She used to enchant them, send them hopping to my desk, floating through the air like they were flying. All I could ever do was slip my own notes into her pocket, but she pretended to be delighted all the same. I just keep writing and folding, writing and folding. I have a certifiable paper menagerie.
All the notes say the same thing: Come back.
I suppose that if tomorrow goes the way I expect it will, I’ll get my wish. It won’t be Amma coming back so much as me going there. But at least we’ll be together.
And I’ll never have to lay eyes on my sister again. It’s funny, hating someone who shares your face. Every time I catch sight of myself in the mirror, I flinch. So I’ve shattered them all. My room no longer holds a single reflective surface, not even so much as a spoon. I don’t want to remember what I wrought. I don’t want to remember that I’m half of a terrible whole.
I haven’t gone to see her. They’re keeping her in a tower. I hope it has a window so she can see the way the Farthest Forest is ablaze with a terrible blue flame. Vera tried to put it out, taking no fewer than seven sources with her. It wasn’t enough.
It’s never enough, is it? We try and try our best, and it doesn’t matter, in the end. I’m just one person, defined by my power—or lack thereof. Mine’s just one heart.
I wonder what the world will be like without it.
Without me.
I wonder who Tamsin will be without me too.
Beside her, Wren inhaled sharply. Tamsin stared down at the diary, trying to ignore the way Wren’s eyes lingered on her face. She was hot and cold at the same time, a squirming, slithering wrongness settling in her bones. She hated that Wren had seen her sister’s words.
Tamsin hated that she had seen them too.
She flung the diary down on the floor beside her, wrapped her arms around herself. She hadn’t known the forest was on fire. There had been no window, just a tiny cot that she had hardly been able to pull herself from. She had been so tired. Dark magic didn’t take a physical toll on the witch using it, but Tamsin had felt it emotionally. The reality of what she’d done—the consequences of her spell—had left her broken. Exhausted. A shell of the girl she had once been.
And then, the next day in the Grand Hall, when the Coven had gone to break the bond, Marlena would not meet Tamsin’s eye. Soria, one of the Coven’s sources, had asked them to stand face-to-face, their noses mere inches apart, and still Marlena would not acknowledge her. Tamsin had been desperate, had reached for Marlena’s hand, but Councillor Mari had quickly restrained her.
So Tamsin could do nothing but watch as Soria dug deep in the space between them. She located the bond, and Vera cut it swiftly like a knife through flesh.
Tamsin had felt the life rush back into her at the same time it rushed out of her sister.
What she had done was undone in the blink of an eye.
She would never forget the sound of her sister’s body hitting the floor. And now she knew that after that horrible day, Marlena had taken her place in the tower, sealed away from the world by stone without so much as a window.
“I don’t know what to do.” Tamsin’s voice was rough. “I don’t know how to find her. I never did. I never knew her at all.” She kicked idly at a shard of broken mirror.
For a brief moment, she would have sworn she saw something flash in its depths.
She and Marlena had played a game when they were younger where they sat face-to-face, keeping their movements the same, their expressions exact. Back then, the imaginary glass between them had been clear and smooth. And then their magic had appeared, sending cracks running through them both. Cracks that still remained.
Tamsin picked up the shard of mirror and turned it over in her hands. She startled as the glass caught the reflection of a second pair of blinking brown eyes behind her. Eyes identical to her own.
She dropped the mirror and turned to face her sister.
“Hello, Tamsin.” Marlena’s voice was as dark as the night sky, and just as endless. “I see you found my diary.”
TWENTY WREN
Wren was seeing double. Of course she had known that Tamsin’s sister would look like her. They were twins, after all. Still, it was disconcerting how identical they were—the long, dark hair, the round brown eyes. The way their foreheads wrinkled and pinched when they frowned. Their expressions were even the same: The scowl Wren had often seen plastered across Tamsin’s face sat comfortably on Marlena’s as she towered over them.
“How have you been, sister?”
Their voices were the same too. Lush and dark as night.
“You’re alive,” Tamsin said, getting shakily to her feet. They were even the same height. Wren pressed a hand to her eyes, but when she looked back, the sisters remained unchanged. Exactly the same.
“Well spotted.” The scowl was still in place on Marlena’s face.
“I didn’t know.” Wren’s heart broke the same way Tamsin’s voice did. Tamsin was staring at her sister as though she were a ghost.
“Yes, well, neither did I until recently.” Marlena rolled her eyes. “Who’s your friend?” She finally turned toward Wren, who felt self-conscious beneath Marlena’s judgmental stare.
“I’m Wren.” She pulled herself up, wavering slightly as another whiff of sulfur snaked into her lungs. She swallowed thickly, forcing down the bile that threatened to rise in her throat.
“Huh.” Marlena did not seem particularly interested in her.
Wren couldn’t blame her. The air between the sisters was ripe with tension and thick with words unspoken. Wren wondered if she ought to excuse herself, but then, where would she go?
“I’m glad you’re here,” Marlena said, her attention firmly fixed on Tamsin. “I wasn’t certain they would let you back Within.”
“I would have been here sooner, if I’d known.” Tamsin’s face was pained.
Marlena barked out a laugh. “Of course you would have been. Always the doting sister. I knew I could count on you. Although”—Marlena paused, her gaze far away—“the last few weeks have been rather eye-opening. Did you know that life is actually quite peaceful when you don’t have to compare yourself to your sister? To the ‘golden girl’ of the world Within?” Marlena’s lips had curled up into a sneer. “Did you know that once you were gone, I found my own power? I can do proper magic now. So maybe it wasn’t that I was the weak one. Maybe it was that you were holding me back.”
Marlena sent a stream of sparks from her hands. The room around them transformed before their eyes: A stone fireplace built itself quickly, housing a roaring orange fire. The walls lined themselves with bookshelves and giant potted plants. A carpet unrolled itself at their feet, slipping silently beneath their shoes. The shattered mirror put itself back together and hung itself on a wall above two green armchairs. A chandelier snaked its way around the newly repaired rafters, bathing them all in warm yellow light.
Marlena’s magic made Wren woozy. She sank quietly onto the plush carpet, although neither sister seemed to notice. Marlena was smiling triumphantly. Tamsin was watching her sister with awe. Wren studied Marlena as well. She had expected the girl to show some sign of weariness, had expected the magic to take something from her. Instead she practically seemed to glow.
Which meant she was using dark magic.
“You never saw me as a person,” Marlena said, circling Tamsin predatorily. “I was only ever a thing to be pitied. But I didn’t ask for you to save me.” Her voice was sharp as steel.
“I know,” Tamsin said desperately. “I know, and I’m so sorry. It was my fault. All of it.”
“You don’t get to make my life about you,” Marlena snapped. “Every time you looked at me, I could see the guilt swimming in your eyes. It was like you couldn’t believe I could be happy if I wasn’t as strong as you. But I was. Until you made me wonder if I shouldn’t be.” She
laughed—a broken, screeching sound. “So are you happy now that I have unlimited power?” She swept her arms wildly to the side so that every book tumbled from its place on the shelf. “Is this who you wanted me to be?”
The room around them began to shake. There was a canyon between the sisters, all their unspoken resentment in the silence that hung heavy. Marlena glowered, her anger palpable. Tamsin retreated into herself, her shoulders slumping, her head bowed.
If Tamsin could not match her sister’s anger, Wren would willingly step up and take her place. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that on the same day Marlena escaped from the tower, ordinary folk began to fall ill.
“Why a plague?” She tried to keep her voice level, though the magic Marlena had used to shake the room had left a pressure pushing against Wren’s chest. She struggled to breathe.
Marlena wheeled around to stare at Wren, looking at her as though she were a bug beneath a boot. “What are you talking about?”
Wren got shakily to her feet. Marlena was a passable actress. But Wren wasn’t fooled. The plague was so destructive, so all-encompassing and inescapable, that it was impossible to ignore. “Your spell is ripping open the earth, draining the color and life from things. People are sick, their memories wiped clean, their hearts broken. Your magic is hurting people, Marlena.”
Marlena merely blinked at her. “I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.”
“The plague that’s erasing memories from the minds of ordinary folk.” Wren was having trouble imagining that Marlena, regardless of the anger she might feel toward her sister, could truly be so cruel, so uncaring.
Marlena shook her head uncomprehendingly. “I have no knowledge of any such spell. I wouldn’t do something like that. I’m not Evangeline. I’m not Tamsin.”
Tamsin, who had been standing quiet and still, flinched.
“That isn’t fair.” Wren’s voice was low but full of warning. She tried to meet Tamsin’s eye, but the witch was staring determinedly at the floor.
Marlena shot her a look of disgust. “And who are you to be lecturing me about what is or isn’t fair?”
“My father is sick,” Wren said, her heart clenching as she thought of him, his presence already hazy in her mind. “He has been taken down by your spell.”
“I already told you,” Marlena said, her voice rising, “I didn’t cast any spell. I was asleep in a tower for five years, because she decided to tie my survival up with hers.” She pointed a finger at Tamsin, her arm shaking with the same venom in her voice. “I didn’t ask her to use dark magic—magic that killed my best friend and practically burned Within to the ground. But she did it anyway. And now that I’m alive, now that I have the possibility of a real life, you want to blame whatever’s happening in the world on me? I don’t think so.”
Wren exhaled sharply. When Tamsin had used dark magic, strange things had happened in turn. The fires. The destruction. The death. None of it had come from Tamsin. The chaos had stemmed from her spell.
Once the bond had been broken, the world had quietly returned to normal. The thread between the sisters had been dormant while Marlena slept, the side effects nonexistent until Marlena had escaped from the tower, pulling strength from the bond that still connected the sisters. In doing so, she had woken the dark magic that had slept beside her for nearly five years.
And then Wren understood. The plague wasn’t a spell Marlena had cast. It was a side effect of dark magic. Another consequence of Tamsin’s five-year-old spell.
“No.” The desperation in Tamsin’s voice told Wren that the witch had pieced together the answer too. “This can’t be because of me. Not again.” She glanced helplessly around the room, her eyes finally meeting Wren’s. “I didn’t mean… I never wanted to hurt anyone.”
Tamsin was haunted. Shattered. That much was clear just by looking at her. Something in Wren broke as she took in the pain behind Tamsin’s eyes.
“I know,” Wren said. And she did. Her father might be ill because of Tamsin’s spell, but that didn’t mean she would turn her back on the witch. Tamsin had started their journey harsh and arrogant, distrustful and mocking. But as they had traveled onward, the witch had unraveled, showing the soft, sweet, vulnerable sides of herself. Wren knew the plague was only a side effect. It was not magic borne from malice. It was a good intention gone horribly wrong.
She didn’t need to punish Tamsin for her choices. Tamsin was doing enough of that herself.
“What a tender moment,” Marlena snapped. “But I’m going to need one of you to explain to me exactly what’s going on.”
Tamsin glanced nervously at Wren, who nodded encouragingly.
“The magic that you hold, the power that you feel…” Tamsin swallowed hard. “It’s because of the bond of dark magic between us. It was never fully broken. That’s how you survived. That’s why you have this strength. Magic isn’t affecting you the way it used to because you’re using dark magic. You’re not the one feeling the consequences. The earth is.” Tamsin took a deep breath, twisting the hem of her cloak in her lithe hands. “And when you leaned on our bond to break through Vera’s wards, the world rebelled. The plague Wren spoke of, it’s because of us. A side effect of our spell.”
“Our spell?” Marlena laughed bitterly. “Oh, no. No. You don’t get to pin this on me. All I did was give myself the freedom I deserved. I didn’t do anything else. I didn’t ask for this.”
“I know you didn’t.” Tamsin took a step toward her sister. “And I know I have no right to ask anything of you.”
Marlena sniffed. “That’s right,” she said darkly. “You don’t.”
“But,” Tamsin continued, her shoulders set determinedly, “we have to break the bond between us. It’s the only way to restore the world to the way it was.”
“Oh, break the bond you created? Give up the life you forced upon me?” Marlena stared at Tamsin pointedly. “Vera made it pretty clear all those years ago that if we break this bond, I’ll die. So, thanks, but no thanks.” Marlena rolled her eyes and turned her back on both of them, flopping into an armchair.
Tamsin’s face paled. Wren was frozen with uncertainty. It had been rather ridiculous of them to assume Marlena would happily sacrifice her second chance at life. Even if it was a second chance she hadn’t asked for. Even with the world at stake. But if the bond wasn’t broken, there was a chance the Coven would kill Tamsin, and then both sisters’ lives would be lost in the process.
“What about Amma?” Wren’s voice felt especially loud in the quiet room.
Marlena stiffened.
“You lost her to a side effect of dark magic. Now others are losing people they love to the very same thing. But you can do something about that. You can help us end this.”
Marlena’s face was hidden by a waterfall of hair, but her hands were white-knuckled and shaking as they gripped the armchair. A teacup, sitting delicately atop a saucer, shattered, sending shards of porcelain flying. From her corner, Wren caught a whiff of sulfur. The dark magic Marlena drew from was so close she could touch it. Nausea washed over her like a wave, bile creeping up her throat. Her skin was clammy and cold.
“How dare you.” Each one of Marlena’s words seemed to stab Wren in the heart. Ropes slithered around her legs and waist. She struggled to free herself from Marlena’s bindings, but her hands grew tangled in the black ribbons of magic snaking their way around her, holding her in place.
“Marlena.” Tamsin’s tone was warning, but her sister made no indication she had heard.
“You might have read my diary”—Marlena got to her feet, shooting a dark look at Tamsin before returning her attention to Wren—“but don’t presume to think that you know anything about me. Do you think I wanted this?” Marlena’s voice tickled Wren’s ear, and Wren shuddered. The heat of Marlena’s anger lingered on her skin. “I lost five years of my life. My best friend is dead. My mother couldn’t acknowledge my existence, lest she be put to death, and my own sister is the reason
I’m in this situation in the first place. So don’t,” Marlena said, her voice dripping with poison, “pretend like we’re the same. Not when you look at her the way you do. You’re just another one of my sister’s endless admirers.”
Wren’s stomach squirmed, her cheeks hot with embarrassment. She felt Tamsin’s eyes on her but refused to meet them. Marlena had known Wren all of two minutes, and already she had seen right through her. Perhaps Marlena was right after all. Wren had no idea what she was doing. She was in so far over her head it was laughable.
“Marlena.” Tamsin’s voice tripped over her sister’s name.
“Oh, don’t you start.” Marlena rounded on her and ran a hand through her river of hair. It was still startling how alike the sisters looked. “I hate this. I hate who I am around you. Do you think I want to be this miserable? This resentful? All I wanted was to make it through the academy and get out of Within and as far away from you as I could muster. Do you know how incredible it would have been to live a life of anonymity? To have no one know Vera was my mother, no one know you were my sister?”
Marlena ran a hand over her face. “Amma was going to take me to Kathos. On a ship. I was going to see a whole new country.” Her eyes were wide and far away, her voice soft, almost tender. “We were going to build me a brand-new life. And then you took her away.” Tears clung to Marlena’s eyelashes like flies to a spider’s web. “You made her death my fault too. And I had no choice but to live with that.” She let out a harsh bark of laughter. Perhaps it was a sob. Either way, the sound skittered across Wren’s skin like a hundred beetles.
“Do you have any idea what it’s like to lose someone you love?” Marlena took a step toward Tamsin, her movements swift and precise.
“Yes,” Tamsin said, her voice so quiet Wren struggled to hear it. “I lost you.”
A vase of white flowers tumbled from a table and shattered on the floor.
“Don’t do that,” Marlena said, hands shaking. “You didn’t lose me; you made a decision without my consent. All this talk about how you saved me, but did you ever stop to think that maybe I didn’t need to be saved? That I didn’t see myself as someone to be pitied?”
Sweet & Bitter Magic Page 22
