Sweet & Bitter Magic

by Adrienne Tooley

  She gestured to their surroundings: the heavy white clouds hanging low in the sky; the detritus—soleless shoes, worn-down knives, broken ropes, torn clothing, empty sacks—littering the path; the field of tall summer grass to their left, dead, dried, and practically begging to catch fire.

  “I don’t know how we’re going to fix this.” She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. “Are we going to be able to fix this?”

  Tamsin sighed, the sort of weary sigh Wren had come to associate with her. “I don’t know. Vera certainly seems to think so.”

  “And what do you think?” She cozied up to the witch.

  “That it’s awfully early in our relationship for me to be meeting your father.” Tamsin’s tone was light, but her smile didn’t meet her eyes.

  Her father.

  Unease blew through Wren like a strong wind. Each step suddenly felt like a struggle, trepidation spreading through her as she fretted over what she might find. There was no certainty that his memories could be replaced. That he would even still have his life. The cottage might have collapsed due to strong winds or the quaking earth. He might have starved.

  Still, she was grateful to Tamsin for giving her the chance to find out. She would have been useless, stuck Within, not knowing her father’s fate. It was a kindness she could hardly find the words for. If her father was dead, she would be able to put him to rest. If he still lived, she would have the chance to give him a proper good-bye and finally reveal the truth of who—and what—she was.

  Her jaw clenched. Neither was an ideal outcome, but both were honorable. The duties of a daughter.

  Tamsin flicked her cheek softly. “Stop that. You’re going to ruin your teeth.”

  Wren shot her a sour look. Sleeping so close to another person had put all her bad habits on display. Tamsin was constantly chiding her for grinding her teeth. Wren had started teasing Tamsin for her snoring. Still, she wouldn’t trade the nearness of the witch for anything. Not even for a more restful slumber.

  With effort, she relaxed her jaw. She tapped her free hand against her leg, a jarring, jolting rhythm that mirrored the whistling in the wind. Tamsin stopped walking, catching her other hand so that she was facing Wren.

  “It’s going to be okay.” She studied Wren carefully with those big brown eyes. There was a softness that made Wren’s breath catch. There was feeling there.

  “Is it?” She tried to squirm out of Tamsin’s grip. It was too much, Tamsin was too much good in one place, and it made her feel guilty for having so much, for being glad that she had left her father behind for an adventure that had taken her far from home and given her a new one.

  The witch put a hand under Wren’s chin and forced her eyes back up. “It is. That’s why we’re doing this. So you don’t have to wonder.”

  “I think I’m so nervous because I want to leave him. I wasn’t supposed to, I always promised, but…” She trailed off, shaking her head. It was too impossible a thing to put into words. How much she wanted to study Within and embrace her power. How wrong she felt for that wanting.

  “You’re allowed to have your own life.” Tamsin’s expression was conflicted. “You’re allowed to want things. To leave people behind. To grow.” She glanced behind at the road, although Marlena was long gone. “I see you. I’ve always seen what you could do. Who you could be if you’d only let yourself.” Wren tried to pull away, but Tamsin’s eyes were so fierce she found she couldn’t move. “So what do you want, Wren?”

  “You,” she whispered, stepping closer and wrapping her arms around the witch’s waist.

  “That’s cheating,” Tamsin whispered, inches from Wren’s lips.

  “It’s not,” Wren insisted. For so long, she had tried to be exactly what other people wanted. She had given without a second thought. Ignored her own desires. Her own needs. But no longer. Being with Tamsin made her bold. “I want you. Can I have you?”

  She brushed her lips against Tamsin’s. The witch let out a tiny, contented sigh, and then she whispered: “Yes.”

  * * *

  Ladaugh’s town square was deserted. Abandoned stalls were littered with blackened, rotting vegetables and torn banners. The water pump dripped endlessly, tiny drops plummeting to the ground. Some of the cobblestones had cracked. Giant black birds, their feathers shining blue in the sunlight, soared over the wreckage. Wren shuddered, thinking of Farn, but Tamsin ushered her onward.

  Most of the cottages had boarded-up windows. Some still had shadows of dark magic clinging to the rooftops. But all the stone huts remained standing. That eased Wren’s fear some. But only a little.

  “What if he’s dead?”

  “He isn’t.” Tamsin eyed the empty path warily, her tone uncertain.

  “What if he doesn’t remember me, then?”

  Tamsin’s hand tightened around Wren’s own. “You’re pretty hard to forget.”

  Wren smiled despite herself. Still, her stomach churned like the ocean during a storm.

  She paused again at the front gate. The boots she’d left behind were gone. She swallowed the panic clawing its way up her throat. “I don’t think I can do this.” Her heart was hammering, her breathing quick and unsteady. She had the sensation of something crawling on her feet. She looked down. It wasn’t her imagination. It was a cat—her stray. He was rather lean, his black fur matted and smeared with dirt, but otherwise he looked no worse for the wear. He rubbed against her ankles again, his large yellow eyes peering hopefully at her. Tears welled in the corners of her eyes, relief washing over her like a wave. He knew her. The cat knew her, which meant her father might remember her too. Wren gathered the cat up in her arms, smoothing his grimy fur and scratching him behind his ears.

  Tamsin wrinkled her nose down at the creature, her hands remaining firmly at her sides.

  “He’s nice, I swear.” Wren held him out like a baby toward the witch.

  Tamsin offered one begrudging finger and tapped the cat three times on the top of his head. The creature hissed at her. Tamsin jumped away, scowling. “I don’t care for it.”

  “You’re being ridiculous.” Wren gave the cat another squeeze. He struggled in her embrace, trying to gain his freedom. She eventually let him go. He licked his front paw, looking rather affronted.

  “Well, the cat remembers me. That’s a good sign, don’t you think?” She stared, unmoving, at the front door of the cottage. She could waste all the time she liked before the gate, but it wouldn’t change what was waiting for her inside. Better, then, to get it over with.

  She stepped through the gate and was reaching for the door, the wood stripped and rough beneath her fingertips, when it swung open to reveal a man. Wren stumbled backward.

  It wasn’t her father.

  “Tor?” Wren struggled to make sense of the scene. “What are you doing here?”

  The tailor was staring at her with equal incredulity. “Just checking up on your da, like you asked.”

  Wren struggled to formulate a response. Instead she threw herself onto the tailor, sobbing into his shirt. “He’s alive?”

  The tailor patted her head awkwardly. “It was strange. There was a darkness, black as ink, that draped across the land. And then, six days ago, that darkness dispelled. It was like the storm broke. And everyone—all the afflicted—their memories came flooding back.”

  “Can I see him?” She hurriedly wiped her tears away with the backs of her hands.

  “It’s your house.” Tor stepped past her into the afternoon light. His eyes fell on Tamsin, lingering awkwardly behind Wren. He frowned and turned away.

  “Go on, then,” she said, turning toward Wren, who had hesitated with her fingers on the front door. “I’ll be right here if you need me.” The witch offered up a soft smile. “Go.”

  Wren stepped inside. The cottage was stifling, a fire roaring despite the temperature outside. The stink of singed herbs—blackened rosemary, roasted thyme—lingered in the thick air. Wren coughed, holding a hand over her nose.

&nb
sp; She stood in the middle of the room on the ragged carpet woven by her mother’s hand. The bedroom door was open just a crack. Blankets rustled within. A man gave a throaty cough. “Papa?”

  An intake of breath. Then her father’s voice—timid, unbelieving: “Wren?”

  “Papa.” Wren flung the door open, tears starting up again as her stomach struggled to unknot itself, as the tightness in her chest loosened. Her father sat up, dressed and smiling. Not only was her father alive, but he remembered her.

  “Little bird.” His eyes shone as he took her in. “Are those my boots?”

  Wren glanced down at her feet. She had almost forgotten the boots weren’t hers. “I, uh, didn’t think you’d miss them.” She untied the laces, stepped out of the boots, and placed them against the wall where they belonged. Surely Tamsin could conjure her a new pair without much complaining. “There you go.” She smiled guiltily. “You’d never even know they’d been gone.”

  Her father let out a laugh, loud and warm in the small space. “No, I suppose I wouldn’t. Tor tells me I was a handful for a time there.” He gave a soft chuckle, which turned quickly into a cough. When he finally managed to breathe through the wheezing, he turned his full attention on her. “Now tell me,” he said, patting the bed beside him. “Where have you been?”

  Wren bit her lip. There was so much to tell him. So much he would not understand. She had grown up on their journey, but now, before her father, she felt like a fearful child again. She wanted to assure him she was still his daughter. That she was only a little different, and that it shouldn’t change the way he looked at her. That what she was had nothing to do with the loss of her brother.

  But even as she fretted, Wren knew that however her father reacted, it wouldn’t change how right it felt to embrace who she was. And so she sat and told him the truth.

  “I’ve been away, Papa,” Wren said, tugging on her braid. “I went to the Witchlands and helped to end the plague.”

  Her father stared at her incredulously. “No, you didn’t,” he finally said, his frown deepening. “The only people who can make it through the Witchwood are witches. And you’re not a witch.”

  “No, I’m not.” Wren’s nerves returned, stronger this time, so that she felt her fear in her toes. She wished that Tamsin had followed her inside. “But I am a source.”

  Her father shook his head uncomprehendingly.

  She took a deep breath. “I’m magic.”

  He blinked at her, brow furrowed. “Are you sure?”

  Wren’s heart sank. “I’ve known for years. Kept it hidden because I didn’t want you to…” She trailed off, her voice breaking.

  Her father sat up straighter, his expression weighty with an emotion Wren could not place. “Didn’t want me to what?”

  “To be afraid of me,” Wren finished, mouth trembling. “I didn’t want you to stop loving me because of what magic did to my brother.”

  For too long, she had protected her father from heartbreak by tamping down her own desires. She had lived to serve him at the expense of herself. That was what he had wanted from her. That was her role as a daughter. And yet, instead of looking satisfied with her sacrifice, her father looked… devastated.

  “You kept this hidden because you feared me?” He hung his head, shame radiating from him. “There’s not a thing in the world that could make me stop loving you. That you didn’t know…” He trailed off, staring down at his sheets. “That’s my fault, not yours.” He ran a hand across his face. “I’m sorry, little bird. I’m so sorry that I failed you.” He looked up at her, a sad smile peeking through his scruffy beard. “Things will be different from now on.”

  Wren shifted on the thin pallet. “Actually, that’s why I’m here.” She folded her hands in her lap. She took a deep breath. “I’m here to say good-bye. The Coven wants me to train Within, and I want to go.” Her father’s brow wrinkled with confusion. “I’m going to live in the Witchlands,” she clarified.

  Her father studied her face, his eyes—the same green as hers, she could see now—boring into her. “And this is what you want?”

  The question hung between them. Finally Wren nodded. “It’s what I’ve always wanted.”

  Her father placed his clammy hand upon her own. “Then go, little bird.” His smile was small but true. “Go and do good.” He cleared his throat. “It’s high time I did the same. I cannot continue to let the past hold me back. I’m so sorry I let it hold you back.”

  They stared at each other, unspoken words filling the space. Wren didn’t know how to say good-bye, and so she didn’t. She kissed her father on the forehead, smoothed his sheets, and left the tiny room, trying not to let him see the way her hands were shaking.

  Tamsin was standing in the middle of the carpet, staring at their meager home. Wren came up behind her and wrapped her arms around her waist.

  Tamsin folded her arms around Wren’s. “Are you ready?”

  Wren extracted herself from the witch and looked around the tiny room. She had spent so many years here denying herself because she thought that was what was expected. What she was supposed to do. She tugged on the tail of her braid.

  “Just one last thing.” She pulled the knife from her belt, the delicate, ornate blade stolen from the Orathen hunter in Farn. Her hands were still shaking. She offered the blade to Tamsin, who stared at it blankly.

  “What am I supposed to do with this?” Wren held out her braid. Tamsin’s eyes widened in surprise. “Are you sure?”

  She nodded. “Cut it off.”

  Tamsin stared warily at the knife in her hand. “Can’t I just use magic? What if I slice your neck open?”

  Wren raised her eyebrows. “Or you could just be careful and not slice my neck open.”

  Tamsin rolled her eyes. “Fine.”

  Wren held her breath as the witch hacked and sawed at her hair with the knife until the braid fell limp into her hands. It was heavy. Wren shook her head wildly, admiring Tamsin’s work in the back of a ladle. The tips of her shoddily shorn hair barely brushed her jaw. She couldn’t yank it, could hardly gather it into a tuft to tie at the back of her head. Her hair now looked nothing like her mother’s. It was exactly as she had wanted.

  Wren tossed the braid into the fire and watched the weight of the world’s expectations go up in smoke. She opened a window to let out the stink. Her hair was the same color as the flames.

  TWENTY-SEVEN TAMSIN

  Tamsin had never been one for sentimentality. Even before her curse had taken away the instinct to linger on fond memories, she had been more interested in what was to come than what had been. Perhaps that would have changed once she lost Marlena. But by then she could not feel, and so she could not linger. Could not dwell on moments past. Now, of course, everything was different, which was why she stood at her cottage’s front door, her palm pressed to the warped, peeling wood.

  “Are you… all right?” Wren stared up at her with the crease between her eyebrows that Tamsin always wanted to pinch.

  “I’m fine,” Tamsin snapped, old habits dying hard. She grinned sheepishly. “I’m fine,” she tried again, keeping her voice soft. “I just…” She looked down at her dusty boots. “I wanted to say good-bye.”

  Wren’s mouth twitched. “Really?”

  “Shut up,” Tamsin said, but tenderly. “I know it’s stupid, but…”

  How could she put it into words? For years, the cottage was all she’d had. She had huddled by its fire to warm her uncooperative bones. She had stood in the middle of its floor, trading magic for strains of love strong enough to grant her the joy of a single sunset. Here she had done her best to make her life something worth surviving.

  Now it was something worth living.

  She reached for Wren’s hand, soft, small, and warm in her own. A spark passed between them like a secret smile. The tension in her shoulders lessened. She caught a whiff of the summer air. Sweet like sunshine. Like Wren’s laugh. Like the way the skin next to her eyes crinkled when she smi
led.

  It was still strange, the warmth that crept across her skin, the desire she had to tip her face toward the sky. She spread her arms wide, taking Wren’s hand with her.

  “What are you doing?”

  Tamsin opened her eyes. Wren was staring at her with concern.

  “The sun.” Tamsin gestured upward. “Don’t you feel it?” She caught sight of Wren’s raised eyebrow. “Oh, don’t you start. You’ve picked every wildflower we’ve passed. The ocean sings to you. You hear trees breathe.”

  Wren grinned guiltily. “I may have a tendency to get distracted sometimes. Okay, a lot of the time,” she added quickly, swatting Tamsin’s shoulder playfully.

  “You’re the worst,” Tamsin muttered, dropping her arms but not Wren’s hand.

  “You love me.” Wren’s smile threatened to break her face, it was so wide.

  “Someone’s quite confident, aren’t they?” Tamsin teased a strand of hair out from behind Wren’s ear, still surprised by its new, shorter length. It suited her. Stopped her from hiding. Wren even stood up straighter now.

  “But you do,” Wren insisted, scrunching her freckled nose. It was clear she expected an answer.

  “I do.” Tamsin smiled, pushing open the door to her cottage.

  Everything was exactly as she had left it. Nothing had rearranged itself in her absence. Her things were all tucked safely away in the cupboard. Flower petals lay forgotten in the hearth, their edges brown and curled. The room was stale with shadows and dust. Tamsin pried open the shutters, letting the light flood in.

  “It’s smaller than I remember.” Wren paused in the doorframe, her eyes lingering on the ceiling, tracing ribbons of magic Tamsin couldn’t see.

  “Is it?” It was hard to look at the room objectively. She had lived so many of her worst years there, angry, cold, and alone. Fumbling with the idea of what it meant to be a witch without a home. A girl who could not love.

  “Or maybe you’re more. I don’t know.” Wren pulled out a chair and plopped down into it. “I don’t know what I’m trying to say.”