Flashback ( PDFDrive )

looked . . . scared.
“I’m fine,” she said, twisting one of her braids around her finger.
“It’s just . . . I can see how I might not be fine after a few years of this,
if that makes sense. That’s why I have to train. I’d rather not turn into
some creepy pyromaniac, you know?”
Sophie and Biana both tried to smile at the joke.
“So . . . yeah,” Marella said, twisting her braid tighter. “How soon
do you think I’ll be able to start training?”
“I’ll talk to Mr. Forkle as soon as I can get him away from the
Council,” Sophie promised. “But I think we might need to get through
the Celestial Festival first.”
She caught Marella up about Fintan’s other warnings.
“That’s fine,” Marella told her. “It’s only six days.”
And it hit Sophie then.
They were only six days from their next standoff with the Neverseen.
Six.
Days.
The monster liked that. It stretched its legs and sharpened its
claws, eager to dig up every flashback from all the other times she’d
battled her enemies—and lost.
But we have six days to prepare! she tried to remind herself. It won’t be
like the other times.
Six days wasn’t much, though.
The Neverseen had been preparing for way, way longer.
“Hey,” Marella said, snapping her fingers in front of Sophie’s face
to drag her out of her panic. “You still with us?”
“Yeah,” Sophie said, sucking in a slow breath and shaking her head
to clear it. “I was just . . . thinking about how much there is to do.”