The weeks after Gabriel had rescued his father were the happiest the boy could remember. It was January, and his father took him for bike rides, to movies, and for pizza at their favorite restaurants in Brooklyn. They strolled along the waterfront as barges and ferries passed by, and went sledding down the snowy hillsides of Prospect Park.

During these moments they tried to catch up on the years they had been apart. Mr. Finley wanted to know about the friends—Pamela, Abby, and Somes—who had helped Gabriel rescue him from Aviopolis; he asked who Gabriel’s best and worst teachers were and tried to answer his trickiest riddles. He wanted to hear about Gabriel’s hobbies and his favorite books, and where the tastiest dumplings could be found in the neighborhood.

Eventually, they got around to discussing a more serious matter—the torc—and how it had caused Gabriel’s mother to disappear when he was just a baby. On a sunny day father and son went kite-flying in the park. Mr. Finley released a seven-foot multicolored kite into the sky, and as it soared and swooped above them, Gabriel asked his father a question.

“Dad? Could you please explain exactly how Mom disappeared?”

Mr. Finley lowered the kite string and looked at his son with gentle surprise. “Yes, of course,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for you to be old enough to understand. You had just been born, and your mother and I were living in a little turf-roofed cottage in Iceland,” he began. “One day I went hiking in the caverns where there was a tomb—”

“Oh, I know that part,” Gabriel interrupted. “And I know how you got injured, and made a wish to get home, and your leg healed and you realized that the torc was on the staff you were using to help you walk. And when you did get home and stepped through the front door, you saw me, but—”

“Your mother vanished into thin air,” said Adam.

He paused to play out string and watch the kite float higher above the river.

“The torc answered my wish, but its price was to ruin me. One minute Tabitha was there, as full of life as anyone can be—and the next she was gone.”

Now Gabriel had to ask the dreadful question that haunted his dreams and lingered on the edges of his wakeful thoughts.

“Dad, is she dead?”

Adam accidentally jerked on the kite string. “Dead? Oh, my goodness. Absolutely not! If she were, I would feel it!”

“How?”

For a moment, Adam Finley looked embarrassed. He was a professor, a logical man who cited evidence to prove his points. He hated to admit that a feeling could be more significant than a fact. He chewed at his beard for a moment. “Well, I can’t explain it.”

Then he frowned at the kite and began to turn the string winder to draw it nearer. “I believe that when the torc makes people disappear, it splits them—soul from body. I think Tabitha is alive because…well, because I sense her with me.”

The professor looked worried that his son might laugh, but Gabriel seemed relieved.

“Dad, has she ever talked to you?”

“No. I just feel her presence.” Mr. Finley looked anxiously at Gabriel. “Has she talked to you?”

“No, but…” Gabriel shrugged. “Sometimes I feel the same thing. She’s here, somewhere.” He raised his hand to his heart and rested it there.

“Ah.” Adam nodded. “So it’s a matter of figuring out how, um…”

“To bring her back?” offered Gabriel.

Before Adam could reply, a gust almost wrenched the metal string winder from his grip. “Good heavens, this wind is quite strong,” he said. “Help me.”

They both wrestled to hold on to the winder, but snap! The frayed end of the string whipped away, and the untethered kite flew upward until it was lost in the great blue sky.

The two of them stared bleakly into an infinity of blueness.

“Oh well,” sighed Adam at last. “It’s just a kite.”

As they walked back along the path, Adam continued their conversation. “Gabriel…I am quite determined to find your mother. I promise you that. We will bring her back.”

“How?”

“Well, the one thing we know about the physical world is that nothing just disappears. That kite, for example, will land somewhere.”

“We just don’t know where,” said Gabriel sadly.

“Don’t lose hope,” said Adam. “On Monday I go back to teaching my classes, but I’ll use every spare minute I have to find out where ‘disappeared’ things go.”

“What can I do?” asked Gabriel.

“Continue with school, of course,” replied his father. “Teachers, classes, homework, the usual.”

Gabriel’s heart sank. How could he possibly go back to the usual when his father had raised the possibility of bringing his mother home? School was so boring after rescuing his father from a prison cell and defeating his demon uncle in a duel of riddles, not to mention escaping a collapsing underground city.

“But I want to help find Mom,” he said. “Don’t forget, I have my own amicus, Paladin. We could paravolate all over the city and even farther.”

“And there are plenty of valravens loyal to Corax who would relish capturing you, especially for revenge.”

“But I’ve fought valravens before. Paladin and I fought an eagle! And we have birds on our side, like the great horned owls!”

“Gabriel?” Mr. Finley suddenly became stern. “I don’t want you to paravolate.”

The boy’s shoulders dropped. “But why? I’m not like Corax when he was a kid.”

Adam laughed. “I wasn’t suggesting you are.”

By now, they were walking beneath the span of the Brooklyn Bridge. The slick gray current of the East River rolled by with immense power and speed.

“Dad?” said Gabriel, finally. “Do you remember me telling you about the robin named Snitcher who stole the torc after Corax vanished?”

“Yes, you followed him out of Aviopolis and he disappeared.”

“Well, what happens if he makes wishes with the torc?”

“Very good question,” replied Mr. Finley. “Have you seen him?”

“No, but if I do, shouldn’t I try to get the torc back?”

The professor paused for a moment to think. “I’m not too concerned about a robin,” he said at last. “They have such small brains; they’re much more likely to take orders than give them.”

“Whew,” said Gabriel. “I was worried about that.”