But it was only Wren, rummaging through her cupboard and pulling out an armload of objects.
“What are you doing?” Tamsin asked, bewildered, as Wren dumped feathers, crystals, a bundle of dried sage, and a tarot deck onto her kitchen table.
“Packing for you, since you seem incapable of doing it yourself.” Wren pointed to the spot where Tamsin still stood frozen. “Do you have a bag?”
“Incredible.” Tamsin shook her head in amazement.
Wren scowled. “What’s incredible?”
“How someone filled with so much magic can know so little about it.” Tamsin gathered up the objects and shoved them haphazardly back into the cupboard. “Those are trinkets to trick the simple minds of ordinary folk.” She let her eyes rove over Wren, who was appearing more and more ordinary with each passing moment. The girl squirmed beneath her stare.
When Tamsin finally grew bored with making Wren uncomfortable, she fluttered her fingers, and a small rucksack packed itself with a change of clothing and several bundles of herbs. For a moment she considered summoning the diary, but the panic she’d felt had not fully ebbed. She’d read the entries it had asked of her. She knew how her sister had felt, could taste the bitterness dripping from each page.
Marlena had resented her, and Tamsin had never known. But she did now, with her sister’s loopy handwriting seared into her memory, frustration and pain preserved in the pages Tamsin had read. She didn’t want to know the side of Marlena that the diary showed.
And so she sent it burrowing beneath her mattress, throwing a sticking spell on the book for good measure. As a consequence, Tamsin coughed until her throat went raw. Wren watched it all, openmouthed, her eyes sweeping across Tamsin’s body, not like she was looking at her but like she was looking through her.
“What?” Tamsin slung the bag over her shoulder, suddenly self-conscious.
“Sorry.” Wren shut her mouth. “It’s just that I’ve never actually seen magic coming from a witch before.”
Tamsin took a step back. “You can see my magic?” It felt vaguely intrusive, as though Wren knew more about Tamsin than Tamsin knew about herself.
“I can see all magic.” Wren offered up the ghost of a grin. “I told you, remember? I can help with the hunt. I’m not the burden you’re making me out to be.”
Tamsin highly doubted that. Still, if they were going to find the dark witch, the ability to track magic was likely to come in handy at some point, although she had no intention of telling Wren that. Tamsin wiggled her fingers again. The fire doused itself; the shutters sealed themselves. The house went quiet and still. Quiet, save for Wren, who sniffed loudly, her nose wrinkled with effort. Tamsin stared at her suspiciously.
“Are you smelling me?”
“No,” Wren snapped, turning away quickly.
“You are,” Tamsin said, barking out a laugh. “You’re smelling my magic.” Leya had been distractible too, more attuned to the world around her than Tamsin, but even she hadn’t been as obvious about it as Wren was.
“I wasn’t.…” Wren trailed off, her shoulders hunched, her body stiff.
“Sure you weren’t.” Tamsin sighed deeply, the ribbon around her neck tightening ever so slightly, as though mocking her impulsivity, mocking her decision to accept this impossible quest with this ridiculous person. “Let’s go,” she snapped, pulling her cloak from its peg and striding out the front door into the gray afternoon air, Wren at her heels.
As they walked from her cottage to the town square, Tamsin had to glance over her shoulder every few moments to make sure Wren was still there. The girl’s eyes clung to the sky, squinting up at the roof of every cottage they passed. She stopped more than once, biting her lip so hard she drew blood.
Tamsin hated the idea that there was something Wren could see that she couldn’t, that the world kept secrets only Wren could reveal. She knew she was more powerful than Wren, who couldn’t actually do anything with her magic besides house it. Still, after so many years of being the best, Tamsin did not enjoy the feeling of inadequacy that came from knowing the source could do something she could not.
“Wren,” Tamsin finally snapped, shifting her bag to the other shoulder. The world Within was already nearly five days’ trek from Ladaugh. At Wren’s current pace, it would take them closer to ten. “Can we at the very least get outside the village before the sun goes down?”
Wren jumped, startled. “Sorry, what?”
Tamsin sighed exasperatedly. “Walk. Faster.”
Wren hoisted her bag higher on her shoulder and hurried to catch up. She glanced backward. “It’s getting worse,” she said, her voice hushed. “The plague, I mean.” She pointed at something Tamsin could not see. “What kind of person casts a spell that steals memories?” She stared at Tamsin intently, as though she expected an answer.
“Someone with something they want to forget,” Tamsin said darkly.
“It’s evil,” Wren said, and chewed on her bottom lip. “To strip away everything that makes a person human. And then to steal their life? What’s it all for?”
Tamsin didn’t know. It did seem mercilessly cruel. To prolong death by first taking the things that made life worth living. There was a difference between existing and living. That was something Tamsin knew well.
“I can’t imagine what kind of monster chooses to use dark magic.” Wren shivered. “Surely even witches have morals?”
Tamsin went cold. Despite the fact that Wren couldn’t possibly know about her past, it still felt personal.
“You really do walk extraordinarily slowly,” she snapped. “If we’re going to end the plague, we need to first actually leave Ladaugh.”
She looked pointedly at her companion, who shut her mouth and turned her eyes to the dirt below her feet.
When they reached the square, Tamsin stopped walking abruptly, causing Wren—who was still watching the ground—to barrel right into her, sending a spark of
