Flashback ( PDFDrive )

So it seemed especially timely when they heard from the caretakers
at the alicorns’ hive that the babies’ membranes were thinning.
The next day became a constant baby watch, with Sophie and her
friends—and Silveny and Greyfell—camped outside the hive. And
while it definitely wasn’t a place with happy memories, Sophie found
herself periodically wandering back to the last place she’d seen Tam.
She needed the reminder that even though she and her friends
weren’t going to tear apart the world to find him and risk putting him
in more danger—that they could never forget that Tam was gone, and
never stop looking for ways to take down their enemies.
A very tentative plan was already starting to come together—but
they were determined to be patient. The Neverseen pulled off their
victories by being meticulous and calculating. If she and her friends
were going to beat them, they needed to do the same.
In the meantime, Linh had made all of them promise that they
would still try to find joy in the small victories, because that’s what
Tam would want them to do. Like the moment several long hours later
when two very gangly, very slimy alicorn babies burst through the
gooey walls of their hive and stumbled into the world to nuzzle against
their overjoyed parents.
There were so many tears and hugs and shouts of “BABY OKAY!”
to echo Silveny’s transmissions that Sophie thought her heart—and
head—might explode from the sheer joy of it. Even Fitz was laughing
—something he didn’t do very much these days. And when Sophie
went over to join him, he pulled her into a hug and spun her around,
just like he had the day they’d first implanted the babies.
“You guys are good together,” Biana said later, appearing beside
Sophie in Havenfield’s pastures, where the happy alicorn family had