Power Evangeline had had no trouble taking.
But of course, sources were still people. They needed rest, care, tenderness. Evangeline offered them none of those things. When their human limitations became too inconvenient, she disposed of them and turned to the earth, siphoning out its magic and sending the world into chaos. Thus began the Year of Darkness.
After Evangeline’s downfall, the Coven became militant about rounding up magical children. Sources, they now knew, were natural gateways to the use of dark magic. Where before, Within had been only for witches, now the Coven searched all four corners of the world for witches and sources alike. They housed them together at the academy, where they could keep an eye on them. Train them. Protect them. Study them.
Tamsin didn’t know how Wren had managed to slip through the cracks.
If they were to go Within, it would be quite the strange homecoming for both of them.
Tamsin shook her head wildly. She could not believe she was even entertaining the idea. “I’m not going.” She couldn’t. Her eyes fell on the diary, still open on her bed. She couldn’t set foot Within. Not after what she had done to Marlena. Not after what had happened to Amma.
“Please.” Wren was in front of her again, her gray eyes wide with emotion. Tamsin felt no sympathy for her. She couldn’t. “I have to end the plague.” The girl bit her lip, clearly grappling with something. “And I need your help to do it.”
Tamsin kicked at a stray flower petal. If nothing else, the foreboding she’d felt when Wren first entered her cottage had all but disappeared. The girl wasn’t threatening. But she was irritating. “Why is this so important to you?”
Wren wrapped her arms around herself like a cloak. “My father.”
A buzzing started in the back of Tamsin’s brain.
“You care for your father, do you?”
Wren looked at Tamsin with confusion. “Of course I do. I love my father more than anything in this world. He’s all I have.”
The buzzing grew louder. “And that’s why you want to stop the plague?”
“I have to save him.” Wren stepped forward, closing the space between them. “Please.” Tamsin took a step back. Wren took another forward. “I’ll do anything.”
The buzzing in Tamsin’s head stopped, leaving a perfect plane of quiet. There were suddenly two options, each of them appealing. Either she agreed to help the girl and was paid in love so good and pure it would last her years, or Wren would blanch at the asking price and leave Tamsin alone once and for all.
Either outcome would suffice.
“All right,” Tamsin finally said. “I’ll help you hunt the dark witch.”
Wren exhaled a sob so sharp that she collapsed to the floor, a bundle of elbows and knees. Tamsin nudged the ball of girl gingerly with her toe. “But I will require payment. And I have to warn you, I do not come cheap.”
Wren looked up at Tamsin with dewy eyes. “I don’t have much money.”
“I don’t take coins.” A sneer spread across Tamsin’s lips. She had the upper hand once again. It felt familiar. It felt right. “I deal in love.”
SIX
WREN
But I don’t want to love you.”
The incredulous words burst forth before Wren had time to truly appreciate what she was saying. “I just think that’s a bit… odd, isn’t it?” she backtracked quickly, trying to abate the judgment radiating from the witch. “To force someone to fall in love with you?” Wren’s cheeks blazed with embarrassment. She was certain her face was as fiery red as her hair.
Tamsin sighed wearily, rolling her eyes so far back in her head that Wren could see only the whites. “I don’t want you to love me.”
“Oh.” That was a relief. Wren had heard stories of love potions, how they made a person highly suggestible, always at another’s beck and call. The idea of being controlled, especially by the likes of Tamsin, was nothing less than horrifying.
“I want your love for your father.”
The totality of Tamsin’s demand hit Wren like a load of bricks. She had hinged her entire life on being her father’s dutiful daughter. What would happen if she no longer was? Who would she be?
I’d be dead without you, little bird. Her father’s voice echoed in her ear. Her entire life, Wren had known that to be the truth.
But what if it isn’t? Another voice drowned out the memory, this one darker, sharper. Wouldn’t this be the way to find out?
“Absolutely not.” Wren shook away the wicked thought. The cost was simply too high.
“You didn’t even consider it.” Tamsin’s voice had taken on a particular whine.
“Do you understand what you’re asking me to part with?”
Wren was incredulous. If she no longer loved her father, she would hardly care if he died from the plague or not. Their entire quest would be moot. Even if they did manage to somehow end the plague, wouldn’t her father then die from starvation once Wren felt no bond, no duty to continue to care for him? Her father’s life hung in the balance either way.
“Love is not something to be taken lightly.”
Tamsin laughed humorlessly, her expression wry. “I wouldn’t know.”
Wren frowned, even as understanding dawned upon her. The witch’s eerily icy detachment. The dullness behind her brown eyes. “You can’t love.”
“Well, you don’t have to sound so smug about it,” Tamsin snapped.
“You know, that actually makes quite a bit of sense,” Wren said, laughing through the panic that had settled in her chest. “I was having trouble understanding how a person could ask for something so cruel, but now I understand. You’re heartless.”
Wren reveled in the pained look that flashed across Tamsin’s face. Perhaps it was the proximity of the empty-hearted girl, or the fact that she was acting so flippant about taking the most valuable thing Wren had to offer, but she wanted the witch to hurt as much as she did. “What would you do with it, anyway?”
“That’s none of your concern,”
