Flashback ( PDFDrive )

“Is that why you’re being so quiet?” Biana asked Vespera, and
Sophie noticed that Biana had thrown back the sides of her cape to
reveal her arms. The pale scars that Vespera had given her looked
slightly brighter in the moonlight, but Biana definitely wasn’t
ashamed—and her steps were steady as she stalked to the edge of their
force field.
Vespera flashed one of her flat, emotionless smiles and strode
closer to Biana, smoothing the front of her ridiculous gown. The gold
bodice hung loose on Vespera’s frail frame, and the skirt flared so
wide that Sophie wouldn’t have been surprised if there were hoops
sewn into it. Between the dress and the fabric headpiece that Vespera
had also worn the last time they saw her—which wrapped her dark
hair in a net of jeweled chains to block elvin abilities—Vespera looked
like she’d thought they’d be heading to a ball, not standing around in a
dark forest, ready for . . . whatever this was.
“I must say, I thought you’d have made a bit more progress on your
force field by now,” Gethen said, directing the comment to Tam. “I
heard you’d been training.”
“I have been,” Tam snapped back, weaving his shadows with the
purple rays that Wylie had started blasting. He slashed the beam at the
force field, cutting straight through the white energy like butter.
“Foolish,” Umber said, clicking her tongue as she waved her arm
and unraveled Tam’s shadows. “Polluting your power with light when
you should be thriving on the darkness.”
She hissed words Sophie couldn’t understand—words that made the
monster howl—and thick, unnatural black poured from her fingertips,
twisting into an arrow.