Even in the face of the obvious, she continued to resist the idea. I've noticed that people have a tendency to do that with the truth. "Even if that were true, surely her voice would be too small . . ." Diana began.

“Even untrained, her natural talent was enough to draw my attention,” I gently reminded her before she could finish. “But you're right, her voice alone could only rattle some doors, and it would take someone awake and like me to even notice it.” Yet another flash of lightning illuminated my grimace. “But then she went and traipsed off to lead a singing class, now didn't she?”

Diana answered by way of a silent nod of assent, and I realized I was losing her. She was starting to retreat further into herself. “But . . .” she protested in barely a whisper this time, “we're inland and you said--”

“I know what I said!” I snarled. “And it may shock you to realize that over the course of billions of years, this area has been covered in water a time or two, do try and keep up, there's a good girl.”

That snapped her out of it. “You did not just say that to me!” she hissed in surprised outrage. “Just who do you think you are anyway?”

I turned to face her, and if in the darkness she couldn't see the sad smile on my lips, I knew someone with her talent would be able to sense it even if she was too angry to hear it in my voice. “Right now I'm the guy who's trying to fix all this, and I'm going to need your help to do that. Are you with me again?”

The fury drained from her features as she nodded in understanding. “I think so.”

“Good,” I said as I pointed to the empty clearing we were standing in. “Because we're here, I can sense it, but . . .” I trailed off as I struggled to find my next words. “But there's absolutely no obvious physical sign of what happened here . . . and there should be, so I'm at a bit of a loss at the moment, and we don't have time for that. Can you tell me if your sister is still alive or not?”

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