Flashback ( PDFDrive )

“There has to be another way,” Linh added.
“And if there isn’t?” Fitz asked, tears gleaming in his eyes. “Can
you live with yourselves if someone else dies tonight?”
“Yes,” Tam said immediately. “Because we’re not responsible for
what they do. Only what we do.”
“How noble,” Gethen scoffed. “I wonder, though, if others will
agree. Or if they’ll look back on this moment—after everything else
unfolds—and see it as proof that the moonlark and her friends are too
weak to do what needs to be done, even when the opportunity is
handed to them.”
Fitz sucked in a shaky breath, staring at the dagger in his hand—
not with fear, but determination.
“Please, Fitz,” Sophie begged. “I get it—I get why you think you
have to do this. But this isn’t who we are.”
“Isn’t it?” he argued. “Why have we been training, then? Why are
we carrying weapons if we aren’t going to use them? I thought we
were fighting back!”
“But this isn’t fighting back,” she corrected. “This is preemptive
murder.”
“She’s right,” Biana said, tears streaming down her pale cheeks.
“Whatever happens, we’ll deal with it—but not this. This will break
you—that’s what they want.”
Fitz stared at her for a long second, then at each of his friends,
before his gaze settled on Sophie. “If I let him go,” he whispered,
“we’re going to regret it.”
“Maybe,” she admitted. “But if you kill him, we’ll regret it more.
Even you.”