Flashback ( PDFDrive )

“No,” Mr. Forkle called back to her, his voice bouncing off the walls
and making some of the ice crackle. “Fintan cannot spark a flame here
—you truly can trust that. And dressing this way shows him how
inconsequential he’s become—how your only concern today was for
your own comfort. Trust me, that will eat at him more than you could
ever imagine.”
“I guess,” Sophie mumbled as the path curved so sharply that she
lost sight of everyone. But when she rounded the bend, she found Fitz
waiting for her.
He offered his arm. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have gone ahead without
you.”
“I was fine,” she assured him. But she was glad to have someone to
lean on when the floor angled sharply downhill a few curves later.
“Think it’d be easier to plop down and slide the rest of the way?”
Fitz asked.
“No,” Mr. Forkle called back to him.
“I’m more worried about what it’s going to be like climbing back
out of here,” Sophie admitted.
Fitz groaned. “I wasn’t even thinking about that.”
On and on the path stretched, until Sophie was starting to feel
pretty tempted by Fitz’s treat-the-prison-like-a-frozen-waterslide
plan. But then it curved again and widened into a frozen bubble of a
room, with a narrow walkway surrounding a smaller, inner ice bubble.
And sitting inside on a lone block of ice was a sickeningly familiar
blond elf with pointed Ancient ears.
“Fintan,” Fitz whispered, and Sophie jumped in front of Mr. Forkle,
fanning out the sides of her cape and trying to shield him as much as
she could.