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 only I could laugh.”
Wren didn’t reply.
She was a source, a girl made of magic, and still she had nearly been played by a toad. It was another thing she hadn’t known. Another brand-new failing. Normally, Wren wouldn’t have minded the lesson. But Tamsin had been a witness.
It wasn’t that Wren cared what Tamsin thought of her. It was that she knew Tamsin was judging her for not knowing anything about magic. For agreeing to a journey she was nowhere near capable of completing. For caring about her father so much that she was willing to sacrifice everything for him, even when he hadn’t asked her to.
It was that she knew Tamsin could see everything Wren hated about herself. That Tamsin wasn’t wrong for thinking Wren was unworthy of her power. That, maybe, Wren truly was.
* * *
Wren woke with a start to the blinding white of the morning sky. She was shivering, as though her being had been drenched in icy water. Her tongue, thick with sleep, held the faint taste of cherries. She inhaled shakily. Honey hung in the air.
Magic.
As she scrambled to sit upright, her foot nudged something solid. She wiped the sleep from her eyes as she reached for the small leather-bound book.
Wren frowned. It was a nice book, the black leather smooth and worn in a well-loved way. But she hadn’t noticed it among Tamsin’s things before and didn’t think the witch would simply leave something lying around for prying eyes.
Her mood darkened as she remembered that the witch had seen her nearly press her lips to a toad’s. It couldn’t hurt for Wren to gain a little leverage. Yet when she tried to pry open the book’s cover, it would not budge. She grunted and pulled and pushed and, yes, even kicked, but still the book would not open.
Its lack of cooperation only served to make her more curious. What sort of secrets did Tamsin possess that she’d lock into such a well-protected book? Perhaps it held special spells for being a grump, or maybe a list of people she wanted to hex. Wren giggled, forgetting herself.
Tamsin’s eyes snapped open. At first she looked vulnerable, caught between sleep and wakefulness. But then her eyes caught on the book in Wren’s hands, and she sat up, her face as white as a sheet. Wren could have sworn she saw fear flash behind the witch’s eyes.
“Where did you get that?” Tamsin demanded, face flushing from a furious red to a sickly green.
“I didn’t—” Wren gaped at the witch’s outsize reaction. It was only a book. “I just found it. There.” She pointed to the patch of dirt where it had been. Tamsin’s eyes barely left the book. Wren offered it to her gently.
The second the book was in her hand, the witch relaxed. But her relief did not last long. “Get up.” Tamsin snapped her fingers, and her pack was in her hand. “We have to go.”
“Why?” Wren clumsily gathered her things, her limbs still heavy with exhaustion. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Tamsin tucked the book carefully into the waistband of her long skirt and stomped out from beneath the bridge.
The morning air was crisp and bright as they climbed up the bank of the river and emerged onto the road. The sky was streaked with pink. Birds rustled their wings, waking up their voices with tinny shrieks.
“What is that?” Wren rushed to catch up with the witch, nodding pointedly at the book, which was resting at Tamsin’s left hip.
Tamsin pressed a hand idly to the soft leather cover. “Nothing.”
“It’s clearly not nothing,” Wren said. “You practically fainted when you saw me holding it.”
Tamsin shot her a withering look.
“It wouldn’t open for me, if that makes you feel any better,” Wren added darkly, almost as an afterthought. The witch did look a bit relieved. “Which makes me wonder,” she continued, reaching for the witch, her fingers grazing Tamsin’s wrist, “what it is that you don’t want me to see. Do you write poetry? Are you the first romantic poet without a heart?”
Wren was positively tickled by the thought.
“Stop,” Tamsin snapped, her voice harsh and broken.
Wren stopped, hand outstretched. They stared at each other in silence.
“It’s private,” Tamsin finally said, her tone soft but pained.
“All right,” Wren said, just as quietly. “I’m sorry. It’s private.”
She did not appreciate being chastised. She had only been curious, wanting a bit of insight into the girl Tamsin was. Wren had shared so much already: her father, her love, her naivety. But Tamsin was a closed book. Literally.
She trudged after the witch, her feet kicking up more dust than perhaps was necessary as they walked past a wide field littered with hay bales the size of horses. The moment she began to wish she had someone kind to talk to, a bird flitted past her. Almost without thinking, Wren offered up her finger. The little creature landed on it, and she nearly squealed with surprise. Its tiny body was squat and round, its feathers dappled brown and white. It was a wren, the little bird from which she’d gotten her name. It felt like a sign.
“Hello, friend,” she cooed softly to the creature, and its orange beak trembled furiously as it let out a string of high-pitched whistles in response.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me.” Tamsin had stopped, her eyes lingering on the hand that held the baby bird. Wren stared back defiantly, but her cheeks burned with embarrassment. “Don’t try to kiss it,” Tamsin warned, rolling her eyes as she turned back to the road.
Wren stuck her tongue out at the witch’s back.
“She’s just angry,” she told the bird. “She doesn’t like it when I talk, but you don’t mind, do you?” She used a finger to carefully pet the wren’s soft feathers. It let out an appreciative whistle. “That’s right,” Wren said quietly. “You like me just fine. The problem isn’t me, after all. It’s her.” The tiny bird gave her finger a soft nip before flittering away to the trees, still warbling a flurry of whistles.
Wren’s eyes bored into the back of Tamsin. She was such an impossible presence, always saying what she wanted, taking what she needed, never worrying about anyone else or what they might think of her. Wren felt a twinge of envy as she watched the witch walk, head held high, shoulders back, as though she didn’t care whose eyes looked upon her face. As though she wanted to be seen.
Wren had spent so much of her life trying to be smaller, trying to take up less space. She feared the eyes of others, worried someone would see the power she had worked so hard to suppress. Wren kept herself small and unassuming in hopes that if no one ever told her what she wanted to hear, she could tell herself that what she wanted didn’t matter. Even now she walked hunched over, her shoulders sagging, her back bent. Her boots shuffled against the dirt, as though she was too afraid to even lift her feet fully from the ground.
The more she noticed their differences, the harder it became for Wren to pull her eyes from the witch. She straightened her shoulders, shook out her limbs. She wanted some of the witch’s certainty. She wanted to give the witch some of her self-restraint. So focused was Wren on comparing their personality traits that she didn’t notice the witch stop walking. She barreled directly into Tamsin. A jolt of cold, sharp as ice, ran down the back of her neck.
A barn was on fire. The smell was terrible, like the moment after a slaughter, cloyingly rank and tinged with fear. The flames darted and leaped, bright blue and blazing. This was no ordinary fire. Smoke rose from the barn, thick and toxic, mingling with the dark magic that hovered above the roof like a cloud.
Tiny sparks exploded in the morning sky, so bright they burned Wren’s eyes. Embers rained down from the roof, catching on the dry summer grass below. The field began to smoke. Wren looked on in panic as she gauged the length of the farmland, the giant bales of hay they’d passed. Everything would take to the fire in an instant. The whole countryside would burn until it reached the houses with the boarded-up windows and doors. The village would burn. The people inside would burn with it.
Panic rose in Wren’s throat. She reached for Tamsin, who was watching the raging flames with wide eyes.
“We have to do something.”
The road was empty, the field abandoned—the farmer and his family perhaps still sleeping soundly in their beds. There was no one around to help, no one to stop the fire but them.
But Tamsin shook her head. “We can’t just douse it with water. It’s dark magic. It would take nearly a day to quell flames like that, even if I used your power, too.”
“But we can stop it,” Wren said, tugging at the witch’s wrist. She couldn’t believe she had to fight Tamsin about this. She knew the girl was cold, but this was negligence bordering on pure evil. “We can’t just let the country burn.”
“What part of ‘it would take nearly a day’ do you not understand?” Tamsin didn’t snap, but her harsh tone still stung. “If someone sees us here, they’ll think we’re involved. If they find out I’m a witch, they won’t hesitate to throw me into the flames too. If you want to leave this land alive, we have to go. Now.”
The sour, stale taste of dread settled on Wren’s tongue. “You’re saying we do nothing?”
“We can’t save everyone, Wren.” Wren could have sworn Tamsin’s eyes flashed with sorrow. “It’s the fire or your father. Take your pick.”
Horror pooled in Wren’s stomach as she watched the barn blaze, watched the flames race across the summer grass. Her body was slick with sweat. And yet, even as she tried to consider, there was only one answer she was able to give.
“My father,” she whispered hoarsely. Tamsin nodded sharply and carried on walking. The beam of the barn sizzled and snapped. It fell to the ground with a great, thundering crack. To Wren, it sounded like a heart breaking.
Living with the feeling that the world was on fire, Wren now knew, was nothing compared to watching it burn.
NINE TAMSIN
There was no way around it. They were going to have to climb a mountain.
“You’re sure this is the only way?” Tamsin asked the scrawny man before her, his hair matted with filth, his stench so rank her eyes began to water. She was hungry, and she was exhausted. The mountain loomed above them, casting a shadow so dark that the morning looked like twilight.
“Sorry, lass,” he said, his voice surprisingly soft for a man so grimy, “but the tunnel’s collapsed. If you want to make it to Farn, the only way is up and over. We’re taking the scenic route.”
“I can’t believe this,” Wren moaned as she stared at the entrance to the cavern, which was completely caved in. “That caravan came through here just days ago.”
“Didn’t think you’d be so sorry to miss the giant spiders.” But Tamsin’s taunt fell flat. It really was a horrible mess. Boulders had tumbled down to create an endless wall of stone and sand, decorated with broken branches, withered moss, and decaying greenery. It was a wonder the entire mountain hadn’t cracked right down the middle.
Still there was a flurry of activity. Several men as dirty as the one before her were hauling boulders away from the cavern’s mouth. They called and shouted to one another, their gravelly voices filling the late-morning air. Several cleaner people lingered near the cavern’s mouth as well, uncertain amid the chaos. One of the women looked familiar enough that Tamsin drew up the hood of her cloak to hide her face. She did not need to be recognized here, of all places.
“Any of youse who’s coming with, gather round,” the scrawny, dirty man called. “My name’s Boor, and I’ll be taking you upward. For a price, of course.” The man smiled to reveal a mouth of missing teeth.
“The kind of name that suits me,” Boor said. “It’s six silvers per person. Ten for you, though,” he said to the man, who gaped at him wordlessly.
“Six silvers?” Wren turned to Tamsin with horror. She pulled a handful of coins from her pocket. “I don’t have enough for the both of us.”
“Put those away,” Tamsin snapped. “These men are bandits. They probably blew the caverns up themselves so they could make some extra money.” She rummaged around in her cloak until she came up with two small black buttons. She whispered a quiet word and the buttons gleamed gold. “That should satisfy them,” she said, shaking out her left hand, which had gone numb.
“But…” Wren trailed off, looking uncertain.
“Bandits,” Tamsin said again. The girl was really too kind for her own good. Sometimes terrible people deserved the terrible things that were coming to them. Tamsin dropped the coins into Boor’s hand. “Keep the change,” she said, her voice low. “I don’t ask questions if you offer me the same courtesy.” Boor’s eyes gleamed in agreement.
Only three others stepped forward to offer the men their coins. The rest turned back the way they had come, their faces dark.
Tamsin studied the remaining group and their desperate, determined expressions. Ordinary folk were moving south in droves. Anyone intentionally going north—toward the plague—must be heading toward something they valued more than their lives. More than their memories. Perhaps, like Wren, they were hoping to save someone they loved. Perhaps, like Tamsin, they were on their way home.
“All right, then,” a second man called, waving the pack of people over with a large, grubby hand. “Come on. I hope you’re ready to climb.”
He led them around the ruined mouth of the cavern to a set of steep stone stairs built into the side of the mountain.
“Absolutely not.” Wren skittered to a halt beside Tamsin, shaking her head vehemently. “I’m not climbing those.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “You’re a witch. Can’t you just”—she waved her hand vaguely in the air—“magic us over?”
Sweet & Bitter Magic Page 10