Flashback ( PDFDrive )

FIFTEEN
HOW LONG HAVE I BEEN asleep?” Fitz asked, his voice crackly from
all the days without use.
His expression was still sleepy and clueless—hair tousled, eyes
blinky, lips stretching into wide yawns—and Sophie hated to strip
away that innocence.
But she scraped together the courage.
“It’s been—”
“We’ll get to that question in a minute,” Elwin interrupted as he
rushed to Fitz’s side and slipped on his special glasses. “First I need to
check a few things to make sure you’re really up for that
conversation.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Fitz aimed the question at Sophie. “What
aren’t you telling me?”
“A lot,” she admitted as Elwin snapped his fingers and flashed one
of those layered light bubbles around Fitz’s chest.
Time crawled by—forty-three endless seconds—before Elwin
stepped back, scratched his forehead, and said, “Well, it’s probably
safe to tell him about the echoes.”
“Probably?” Sophie said in the same breath that Fitz asked,
“Echoes?”
Elwin shrugged. “No guarantees when it comes to any of this. And
yes,” he told Fitz. “You’re going to hear a lot about echoes. And