as the dolphins shed their harnesses and dove out of sight. There was a slap of their tails on the surface, and then they were gone, leaving the dinghy drifting in the vast sea.
Alice frowned and looked around. "We must be at Warwick's."
They were surrounded by ocean on all sides. Blue sky. Green ocean. Nothing else. "Do you see it?"
"No." Alice leaned over the edge of the boat and touched the water. "But Jada said it was hidden to all except those who know."
"So, we must know, then, right?" Ian closed his eyes and opened his preternatural senses. He breathed in the fullness of the air. He tasted salt in the wind...and soil. He smelled grass and flowers. He could hear the sounds of tiny claws skittering along dead leaves and the sound of leaves rippling in the wind. "We're here," he said. He opened his senses further, using the powers and skills his father had taught him so many years ago in the woods, to see with his mind and not with his eyes. He sensed the life force around them. Plants, animals, and the pulsing call of the earth itself. Tangled in the midst was the cold, dank energy of black magic, coating his pores like a heavy syrup of death and danger.
The brands in his arms began to burn, and he instinctively reached out for Alice, drawing her closer against him while he called out his mace with a crack and a flash of black light.
"Where is it?" Alice asked.
"Can't you feel it?" Keeping his eyes closed, he turned in a slow circle, using his preternatural senses like a radar, sending it out into the air. So much space and air over the water to the north and the west. He turned again to the east. More open space. He turned again, facing due south, and sent out a wave of energy.
It vanished, absorbed by whatever was in front of them.
He opened his eyes, but saw only ocean.
Alice was leaning forward, her gaze riveted in the same spot his was. She was holding out her palm, the one with the gray mark. "I can feel him," she said. "I can sense his magic."
Ian leaned over the edge of the boat and peered into the water. Just ocean. No sand. "Where is it?" It was here somewhere. He knew it was. But where?
Alice went down on her knees and stuck her hand in the water. It came away wet. She frowned. "I could swear it was right here."
"Me, too."
He crouched beside her and shoved his mace into the water. It sliced through easily, and he could see the blade beneath the surface of the water. "Just ocean."
For a moment, the two of them sat there, staring at the island that wasn't there. "Cardiff believes in angels," Alice finally said.
"So?"
"So, angels can't be proven. We don't look special or wear halos or float down from heaven." She chewed her lip. "You have to take us on faith."
Ian looked back across the expanse of water. "Faith." Faith wasn't a word he'd believed in. He believed in making things happen, in fighting relentlessly to discover the right solution. Faith was for people who didn't take action. He looked over at her. "Do you have faith?"
"Not really," she said, and there was no mistaking the regret in her voice. "And I should." Slowly, she rose to her feet. "Faith is the most powerful tool any of us can have," she said. "As powerful as angels are, there's nothing we can do for those who don't believe in us and allow us to help."
He raised his brows. "So, maybe that's why you can't save anyone. Because the people you want to save don't believe in you."
She looked over at him. "My mother was an angel. Of course she believed in me."
"So maybe you're the one without faith. You don't believe in yourself."
Her mouth tightened, and she inclined her head. "Entirely possible." She turned back toward the water again. "Cardiff has faith," she whispered. "Faith is what it's all about." She took a deep breath, and before Ian could stop her, she stepped up onto the edge of the boat.
"Hey." Ian eased toward her, his heart starting to race. "What are you doing?"
"I'm taking a leap of faith." And then she jumped.
Ian lunged for her, but his hands closed around empty air. He stopped in surprise, realizing that she had literally disappeared. Not into the water. She'd just vanished. Into Cardiff's hidden kingdom?