Flashback ( PDFDrive )

Please, she transmitted. Don’t let them do this to you. It’ll ruin you,
and . . . I don’t want to lose you.
He sighed, and for a long second she couldn’t tell what he was
going to do.
Then he lowered the dagger.
“I told you,” Vespera said, stalking closer to Gethen. “They will
always make the wrong decision. They will always choose weakness.
And now it is time for them to pay the consequences.”
Alvar groaned and slumped to the ground.
“What’s wrong?” Sophie asked.
Before he could answer, the world went black—and the monster
roared.
But this time, the darkness didn’t last.
This time Tam was there, shredding Umber’s shadows as fast as she
could form them.
And Wylie was blasting the force field with searing blue light over
and over.
This time we win, Sophie thought as their glowing cage unraveled.
She grabbed a throwing star and lined up her aim as Tam launched
a bolt of shadows toward the Neverseen’s shield and . . .
Everything blinked away.
“I don’t understand,” Linh said as Wylie sent up a flare,
illuminating nothing but grass and trees.
“I think I do,” Sophie murmured. She wobbled on her feet, and
Keefe rushed over to steady her. “I think . . . that was an illusion—like
the Councillors were at the festival.”
“She’s right!” Wylie blasted light toward a mirror hidden among the
foliage, and the beam refracted off a dozen others.