First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2019

Published in this ebook edition in 2019

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,

HarperCollins Publishers

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London SE1 9GF

The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Text copyright © Derek Landy 2019

Skulduggery Pleasant™ Derek Landy

Skulduggery Pleasant logo™ HarperCollinsPublishers

Cover illustration copyright © Tom Percival 2019

Cover design copyright © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019

Derek Landy asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008293666

Ebook Edition © May 2019 ISBN: 9780008295660

Version: 2019-04-25

This book is dedicated to Laura J.

Because apparently having a book dedicated to you doesn’t count unless it’s a Skulduggery book. Hey, I get it. I do. But does that mean I can never stop writing these? Because that’s going to be pretty difficult, seeing as how everyone dies at the end of this one.

Aw, mannn … now look what you’ve made me do. I’ve ruined the ending for all the nice people.

Don’t worry, everyone, this book has a happy ending! Super-happy, with rainbows!

(Do you think they bought it? Yeah, me, too. Phew. That was a close one.)

(It’s a good thing you’re cute, it really is …)

And from the everything came the universe, which grew and spread and took its place beside the others.

And life grew, and spread.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Chapter 79

Chapter 80

Chapter 81

Chapter 82

Chapter 83

Chapter 84

Chapter 85

Chapter 86

Chapter 87

Chapter 88

Chapter 89

Chapter 90

Chapter 91

Chapter 92

Chapter 93

Chapter 94

Chapter 95

Chapter 96

Chapter 97

Chapter 98

Chapter 99

Chapter 100

Chapter 101

Chapter 102

Chapter 103

Chapter 104

Chapter 105

Chapter 106

Chapter 107

Chapter 108

Chapter 109

Chapter 110

Chapter 111

Chapter 112

Chapter 113

Chapter 114

Chapter 115

Chapter 116

Chapter 117

Chapter 118

Chapter 119

Chapter 120

Chapter 121

Keep Reading …

The Skulduggery Pleasant series

About the Publisher

Magic.

The place dripped with the stuff. It gathered in the corner booths, spilled over the long, lacquered bar, and crawled its way across the floor, grinning its slow, idiot grin. It was in everything – the music, the drinks, the words spoken and the laughs they provoked. It was stitched into clothes and etched into jewellery. It was in the coiffed hair. The lipstick.

That’s what sorcerers did now. Free from the old rules, they took their magic and they experimented. They pushed their powers into sigils scrawled on squares of paper. They shared and swapped, dipped in and dabbled. For some, it meant a night of unforgettable wonder. For others, it meant sinking into a cold, dark place with no walls and no floors and no way to climb out. But the party went on. The party always went on.

The sorcerers looked at Valkyrie when she walked in. They knew her. They all knew her. Valkyrie Cain, the Arbiter, the detective, her dark hair loose, still wearing her jacket, still cold from outside. Twenty-five years old, six feet tall and made of muscle and sinew, a pretty girl with a nasty streak.

And, where she was, he was, emerging from the other side of the bar. Skulduggery Pleasant, the Arbiter, the Skeleton Detective, wearing a black three-piece with a blue shirt and black tie, his hat pulled low over one eye socket. If bad news had a name, it answered to Skulduggery.

The conversation faded just for a moment, then swelled again, as if acting innocent was going to save anyone. They talked, and laughed, every one of them hoping that they weren’t the person the Arbiters were looking for. Not tonight. Please, whatever god you believe in, not tonight.

Valkyrie took off her jacket. There were those who were impressed and those who weren’t – but they all looked. They looked at her shoulders, carved from granite, and peeked at her abs when her T-shirt rode up, carved from marble. They saw the work she’d put in, the sacrifices she’d made. The punishment. Most of them would never know what it took to go through that. None of them knew the pain that drove her.

Christopher Reign, at least, knew of the effort involved. He was a man who loved his muscles as much as he loved his suits. The suits were from Italy. The muscles came straight from Detroit.

Valkyrie and Skulduggery sat at his table and didn’t say anything. Skulduggery took off his hat.

Reign watched them. Smiled. Nodded to Valkyrie. “Thought you’d be bigger.”

“No, you didn’t,” she said back.

He looked away, raised a hand. “I got a girl could bench-press you.”

His girl stood up. She was taller than Valkyrie. Bigger arms. Her thighs stretched her trousers.

Valkyrie barely glanced at her. “I’m not here to outflex your gym buddies. I’m here to talk to you about Doctor Nye.”

“I know you are,” said Reign, and laughed. “Everyone knows you are. You been looking for that messed-up freak since before Christmas. That’s over two months now. Why is that?”

“It’s a family matter.”

“A family matter involving Nye? Yowch.” He chuckled. “Ever think that maybe it don’t wanna be found?”

“We don’t much care,” said Valkyrie. “We’re going to find it anyway. We’ve heard you might know where it is.”

Reign shook his head. “I don’t associate with the Crenga. They may talk like they’re kinda human, but they’re not. They’re monsters. Intelligent monsters, hell, yeah, but monsters. You can’t trust a monster.”

Valkyrie put a square piece of paper on the table. It had a sigil drawn on it.

“I don’t know what that is,” said Reign.

“Of course you don’t. People are calling it a Splash.”

“Oh,” said Reign. “Oh, I heard about this. Little jolts of magic shared between friends, am I right? Just enough to make you feel good?”

“Sure,” Valkyrie said. “Completely harmless fun, if you don’t count the potential side effects.”

Reign’s smile widened. “Side effects, Miss Detective? Oh, you’re talking about those mages who lost control for a bit, right? Hurt a few people? Such a shame.”

“Yes, it was,” said Valkyrie. She tapped the piece of paper. “This is one of yours, isn’t it? One you’ve sold?”

“What a positively outrageous accusation. I am deeply, deeply hurt.”

“We talked to some people,” said Valkyrie. “We did our homework. These little Splashes started appearing six weeks ago. We traced them right back here.”

“Back here?” Reign said, eyebrows rising.

“Back here,” said Valkyrie, nodding.

“Wow. I mean, I’m assuming you have evidence …”

“You’ve been watching too many mortal cop shows, Christopher. We don’t need evidence. All we need is a suspicion, and then we let our Sensitives take a peek inside your mind.”

“That would be worrying, if indeed I was involved in a criminal enterprise, and I didn’t have the best psychic barriers that money can buy.”

For the first time, Valkyrie smiled. “I’m a bit of a Sensitive myself,” she said. “I’ve only just started to find out what I can do, but I bet I could break through those pesky barriers of yours.”

“I think I’d like to see you try.”

“How’d you do it, Christopher?”

His face fell. “Have we stopped flirting already?”

“Oh, that wasn’t flirting. See, we know you don’t have anyone in your crew who could come up with these Splashes. Something like this is relatively easy to replicate, but not at all easy to create. We think you had outside help.”

“Ah,” said Reign. “You think Doctor Nye is responsible.”

“That’s what we think.”

“And so you’re hoping that I still know where that gangly, no-nosed freak might be hiding out.”

“That’s exactly it.”

Reign finished his drink and a waitress appeared, taking the empty glass and replacing it with a fresh one.

Skulduggery watched her hurry away. “Do you have mortals working in your bar, Mr Reign?” he asked.

“Sure do. I got a few of ’em. It’s perfectly legal, and they’re cheaper than hiring one of us. No mage wants to wait tables or scrub toilets, you know?”

“Back to Doctor Nye, Christopher,” said Valkyrie.

“I told you, I don’t associate with Crengarrions. I’m a business owner. I run a bar. I’m not a criminal. I don’t deal drugs, magical or otherwise. I am a law-abiding citizen of Roarhaven, and I pay my taxes, the same as everyone else. Now, I just met you, and I like you, but right now I’m feeling … what’s the word? Harassed. I feel like you’re harassing me. You’re welcome to buy yourself a drink and stay, chat, make new friends. I would love to see you loosen up. But I’m afraid I’m gonna have to call a halt to the interrogation.”

“You don’t have much of a say in it,” said Valkyrie.

Reign’s gym buddy came over then, the tall woman with all the muscles.

“This is Panthea,” said Reign. “She’s one of the door staff here. She is well within her rights to throw you outta this bar. All she needs is an excuse.”

Valkyrie sighed, and stood. The chatter stopped. Only the music continued. Skulduggery started to rise, but Valkyrie put a hand on his shoulder as she stepped round him.

“You want to take the first swing?” she asked, looking up at Panthea.

Panthea sneered. “So you can arrest me for assaulting an Arbiter?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t arrest you for something like that.”

“So … I could knock you the hell out and I wouldn’t land in a jail cell?”

“I doubt you’d be able to,” said Valkyrie, “but sure.”

Panthea smiled.

“So how do you want to do this?” Valkyrie asked. “Want to go outside, want to clear a space, want to just throw each other over tables?”

“I can do whatever you want.”

“Not the third one,” said Reign, “please. These tables cost money.”

“I’ll give you the first shot,” Valkyrie said. “One clean shot, right across the jaw. See if you can knock me out.”

Panthea grinned. “A shot like that, you’ll be eating through a straw.”

“If I could just interject,” Skulduggery said, attempting to rise again.

Once more, Valkyrie put a hand on his shoulder, keeping him down. “Not right now,” she said. “I’m having a conversation with the pretty lady.”

Panthea arched an eyebrow. “You think I’m pretty?”

“You have gorgeous eyes.”

“Compliments won’t stop me from beating you up so bad you crawl home to your mammy.”

“I wouldn’t expect them to, beautiful.”

Panthea folded her massive arms. “OK, well, you can stop, because I am many things, but beautiful is not one of them.”

“Are you kidding?” Valkyrie said. “With your bone structure?”

“I’ve got a busted nose.”

“Your nose has character. It’s cute, and it makes the rest of you even cuter.”

Panthea sneered again, and looked Valkyrie up and down. “Your arms are amazing,” she said at last.

“You think so?”

“You’re hitting all the right angles,” Panthea said, nodding.

“Well, your arms are phenomenal.”

“Yeah,” said Panthea, “but it’s hard to find clothes that fit.”

“Oh, God, I know.”

“I’m confused,” said Reign. “I thought you two were gonna fight.”

Panthea hesitated, then glanced at her boss. “I don’t think I can, Mr Reign. I like her.”

“Awww,” Valkyrie said, “thank you. I like you, too. I’m looking for a gym to train at here in Roarhaven – where do you go?”

“Fit to Fight, down on Ascendance Street.”

“Hey,” said Reign, “I go there. I don’t want her at my gym.”

Valkyrie and Panthea ignored him.

“Actually,” said Panthea, “I only work doors part time – the rest of my day I spend down there as a personal trainer, so …”

Valkyrie bit her lower lip. “Do you think you could fit me in?”

“Definitely.”

Reign stood up. “OK, what the hell is going on?”

“We’re flirting,” said Valkyrie. “This is what flirting is, Christopher.”

“Panthea, you can’t flirt with her,” Reign said, scowling. “She’s an Arbiter and a … a customer.”

Panthea frowned. “Is she a customer if she hasn’t even bought a drink?”

“You have a boyfriend, Panthea.”

“So what?” Valkyrie said. “I have a girlfriend. Doesn’t mean we can’t indulge in a little harmless flirting.”

“Yeah,” said Panthea, “lighten up, Christopher.”

Skulduggery finally stood. “This night has not gone the way I had envisioned,” he said. “Mr Reign – the whereabouts of Doctor Nye?”

“I don’t know,” Reign said, all trace of good humour having left his eyes. “I don’t know where that freak is, and I don’t care. If it did come up with the Splashes – and I’m not saying it did or that I’d even know if it did – then it took its money and it departed without leaving a forwarding address.”

“And how did you contact the good doctor in the first place?”

“I told you, I’m not a criminal. But if I were a criminal, which I am not, then I’d still have nothing to tell you because it would have come to me with the proposal.”

“I see,” said Skulduggery. “Valkyrie, do you have anything to add?”

“Yeah,” she said, and pointed to a man sitting at a table nearby. “That guy.”

The man paled instantly and sat up straighter.

“You’ve been pretty handsy with the wait staff,” Valkyrie said, walking over. “A little pat on the backside here, a little pinch there.”

He shook his head quickly.

Valkyrie loomed over him. “You think that’s a nice thing to do?” she asked. “You think that’s acceptable?”

The man cleared his throat. “I … I …”

“Stand up, please,” Valkyrie said.

The man hesitated, then stood.

“You mind if I give you a little pat?” she asked, and she slapped him, the heel of her hand crashing into the hinge of his jaw. He went up to his heels and toppled backwards, unconscious before he hit the ground.

“Aw, man,” said Reign. “You can’t do that. Panthea, she can’t do that to a paying customer.”

“The paying customer assaulted staff,” Panthea said without moving.

“If you see Doctor Nye, please let us know,” Skulduggery said, picking up his hat and walking to the door.

“Be sure to tip your waitress,” Valkyrie said to the rest of the patrons, joining Skulduggery on his way to the exit. Panthea came up behind her, handed over her jacket. Valkyrie slipped it on, gave Panthea a wink and left.

“That,” Panthea said once the door had closed, “was pretty badass.”

“You’re mad at me,” Valkyrie said as they left the bar.

“I’m not mad at you,” Skulduggery replied.

“I made the situation worse.”

“Reign didn’t know anything that could help us. We knew that was a possibility before we set foot in the place.”

“I nearly started a fight.”

“You did technically assault a man.”

Valkyrie scowled. “Not him. Panthea. I almost started a fight with Panthea. I wanted to. I wanted to smack someone.”

“You certainly managed that.”

She stopped walking. It was a cold February night. They were saying it might snow. “There’s something wrong with me,” she said.

Skulduggery turned to her. “Yes. You’ve got a serious case of humanity. I’m afraid there’s no cure.”

“I’m not joking.”

“Neither am I,” Skulduggery said, and put his arm round her, pulling her into his chest. “You’re coping as best you can with Alice’s situation, but you’re angry. Not with me, because no one could be angry with me, but with others. And yourself.”

“Is that what we’re calling it now? Alice’s ‘situation’?”

“What would you prefer to call it?”

Valkyrie didn’t know. She doubted she could find a pithy way to encapsulate the killing of her own sister and the subsequent damaging of her soul. She shrugged. “Alice’s situation is fine,” she murmured, sagging against him. “But how are we going to find Nye now? We found it back in September when we weren’t even looking for it – but now, when we need the bloody thing, it’s vanished off every radar we can think of.”

“We’ll find Nye because that’s what we do. We find things. Clues. Truth. Inappropriate humour at inappropriate times.”

“Trouble,” she said.

“Yes,” said Skulduggery. “We find trouble.”

“No,” said Valkyrie, stepping away from his hug and nodding ahead of them. “Trouble.”

A City Guard patrol car was parked in the next street over. Its engine was silent, its lights off. Beside it was a small shop. The door had been kicked open. Crashes came from inside.

They ran across the road. Skulduggery was first through the door, Valkyrie right behind him. She readied herself for a fight, an unpleasant part of her hoping that the cops were heavily outnumbered and tonight was the night when she’d get to cut loose. She had a lot of anxiety to work through.

Instead, they arrived to find three City Guard officers trashing the place in the dark.

Two men and one woman. The woman noticed them, and hissed to the others. They stopped what they were doing and turned. Valkyrie recognised one of them – Sergeant Yonder. She didn’t like him.

“Well,” said Skulduggery, “this should be good.”

Yonder didn’t say anything for a few moments. When at last he spoke, what he said wasn’t very convincing. “This is official City Guard business. You can’t be here.”

“We’re Arbiters,” Skulduggery said, stepping over the remains of a smashed shelf. “We can be anywhere we want to be.”

Yonder bristled. “Your jurisdiction—”

“Is absolute. That’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it? You two – identify yourselves.”

The woman squared her shoulders. “I’m Officer Lush,” she said.

“And I’m Officer Rattan,” said the third cop.

“And what exactly is going on here?” Skulduggery asked.

“We had a report of a break-in,” said Yonder. “We came to investigate.”

Valkyrie picked her way across the floor. “Did you find anyone?”

Yonder glared. “The suspects had fled before we arrived.”

“And the mess?”

“It was like this when we got here.”

“Who owns this shop?” Skulduggery asked, and their attention switched back to him.

“I don’t know,” said Yonder.

“Do you think perhaps it might be a mortal?”

Yonder shrugged.

“Because we’ve heard stories,” Valkyrie said, and they all looked at her. “You know all those pesky mortals from Dimension X?”

“The Leibniz Universe,” Skulduggery corrected.

She ignored him. “You know how they were all given the empty houses in the West District? That’s quite close to here, isn’t it? They’ve only been there for five or six months, but they’re already working hard to make a new life for themselves, away from Mevolent and all the nasty, nasty sorcerers from their home dimension. Well, we heard that there were some nasty sorcerers over here, too, and they were robbing these mortals.”

“Not robbery,” Skulduggery said. “Extortion.”

Valkyrie snapped her fingers. “That’s right. Extortion. Their little businesses would be targeted and threatened, and they’d have to pay these nasty sorcerers to not trash them.”

Yonder didn’t seem overly sympathetic. “That’s too bad,” he said. “Protection rackets are the bane of small business. Have these crimes been reported to the City Guard?”

“Well, that’s the problem,” Valkyrie said, passing Lush. “It seems the nasty sorcerers doing all this damage are City Guard officers. Like you guys.”

“That’s a serious accusation,” Lush said.

Valkyrie smiled at her. “I’m in a serious mood.”

Yonder’s radio barked to life for a moment. When it went quiet, he nodded. “OK, duty calls. You two have a good night.”

He went to walk out, but Skulduggery stood in his path.

Yonder narrowed his eyes. “You’re impeding a sergeant of the City Guard.”

“I’m just standing here.”

Yonder went to walk round him, but Skulduggery stepped into his path again.

“Now I’m impeding you. Did I ever congratulate you, by the way? On your promotion? Congratulations. Sergeant Yonder, Officers Lush and Rattan – you’re all under arrest. Surrender your weapons and we won’t have to hurt you.”

There was a heartbeat of silence, and then Yonder laughed, and looked at his friends and they laughed, too, as if Valkyrie and Skulduggery couldn’t read the intent in their eyes. Yonder went for his gun and Lush went for hers and Valkyrie punched her in the throat and shoved her back. Rattan had his gun out and he was aiming at Skulduggery, but Skulduggery was throwing Yonder to the floor and Rattan couldn’t get a clear shot so he switched targets, swinging the gun round to Valkyrie. Valkyrie’s hand lit up and lightning streaked into his chest, blasting him backwards and filling the air with ozone.

Still gasping, Lush pulled her gun and Valkyrie grabbed her wrist with one hand and punched her in the face with the other. She ripped the gun away, tossing it into the shadows, and Lush snapped her hand out and a wall of air took Valkyrie off her feet.

She hit the ground and rolled, looked up in time to dodge a fireball. Energy crackled around her body. The fine hairs on her arms stood up. Lush threw another fireball and Valkyrie straightened, holding out her left hand, her magic becoming a shield that the fireball exploded against. Lush ran for her gun, but Valkyrie caught her in the side with a streak of lightning that spun her sideways and sent her down.

Valkyrie pulled her magic back in and quelled it before it scorched her clothes. That was getting to be a problem.

Yonder was lying on his belly, his hands cuffed behind him.

“You can’t do this!” he raged. “I’m an officer of the City Guard!”

“Not for long,” Skulduggery said.

Yonder rolled on to his side so he could glare at him. “No one will believe you! Commander Hoc knows you’ve had it in for me from the beginning! He’ll take my side!”

“He won’t have a choice,” Valkyrie said, walking over. “He’ll do what Supreme Mage Sorrows tells him to.”

Yonder snarled. “You’re so smug, aren’t you? You’re in with the Supreme Mage, so you get to strut around, doing whatever you want. Let me tell you, let me be the one to tell you – that time is coming to an end. You hear me? Things are going to change around here.”

Despite her worries, despite her anxiety, despite everything that had happened and everything she had done, Valkyrie looked down at Sergeant Yonder and found she still had the capacity to laugh at stupid people.

“Omen,” Miss Gnosis said, leaning forward, her elbows on her desk and her fingertips pressed together. “We need to talk about your future.”

Omen Darkly nodded. The office, filled with the morning sun, was nice and neat and smelled of some exotic spice that was not too pungent. Miss Gnosis had books everywhere. Her desk was packed full of stuff. She looked like she had a lot going on.

“Omen,” she said.

He looked up. “Yes?”

“Your future. How do you envision it?”

“I haven’t really thought about it too much.”

“I realise that,” Miss Gnosis said in that cool Scottish accent. She pushed a form towards him. “Do you know what this is?”

“It’s the SYA.”

“And what does SYA stand for?”

“Senior Years Agenda.”

“Very good.” Miss Gnosis sat back. “What age are you now, Omen?”

“Fifteen.”

“So you’ve got another two years of school after this one, and maybe two years after that before your Surge. Do you have any idea yet what discipline you want to specialise in?”

“Well, I … I mean, I suppose being an Elemental would be, you know …” He trailed off.

“Do you want to be an Elemental?” Miss Gnosis asked. “You don’t sound too enthused.”

“Yes, no, I mean, sure.”

“Is there anything else you’d rather be?”

Omen shrugged.

“Rack your brains, Omen. Is there any discipline other than Elemental magic that you would like to do for the rest of your life? Because that’s what we’re talking about here. The discipline you’re focused on when you have your Surge is the discipline you’re stuck with from then on.” She hesitated. “You do know how the Surge works?”

“Yes, miss.”

“Good, good.”

“Like, it’d be cool to be a Teleporter,” Omen said. “I’m always late for stuff and I get car sick on long journeys, so that would solve a lot of my problems.”

“Teleportation is one of the tricky ones,” Miss Gnosis replied. “You generally have to be born with the aptitude for it, like Never was.”

“Yeah, I know,” Omen said, a little glumly. “See, miss, the problem is I’m just not very good at most things.”

“Ah, Omen, don’t be so hard on yourself.”

“It’s true, though. I’m not. I’m no good at Energy Throwing or—”

“Proper names, please.”

“Sorry. I’m no good at Ergokinesis and I did want to be a Signum Linguist, but I just find it hard to understand all the letters.”

“Which is a problem when it comes to language,” Miss Gnosis said. “But you’ve still got time to decide. What I want you to do is come up with a list of seven disciplines – realistic disciplines – to take into your final two years of school. Then you can figure out which one you want to specialise in.”

“And what if I can’t?”

“Then you’ll still have two or three years after you leave in which to make your decision. You’re putting a lot of pressure on yourself to have this worked out, but do you want to know a secret? Nobody has it worked out. We’re all just playing it by ear. No one knows what the future has in store.”

“Auger knows.”

“Your brother’s situation is slightly different.”

“Sensitives know what’s in store.”

“No, they don’t,” Miss Gnosis said. “Sensitives can see a future – not necessarily the future. But what about that? What about becoming a Sensitive?”

Omen’s face soured. “We’re doing one of Miss Wicked’s modules right now.”

“And how’s that going for you?”

“She paired me up with Auger, because siblings have a strong psychic connection, and twins have an even stronger one.”

“I’m aware.”

“And we did that test, you know the one, where we sit opposite each other and I look at a card with a pattern on it and he has to, like, read that pattern in my mind, and then we switch? Auger got every single one right.”

“And how did you do?”

“I fell off my chair.”

“Oh.”

“I think it’s a balance thing. Miss Wicked says psychic stuff can upset your equilibrium, so … Anyway, today we’re going to try to talk to each other using only our minds.”

“You might be better at that.”

“I don’t see how.”

Miss Gnosis smiled. “Omen, come on. A little self-belief wouldn’t hurt, now, would it?”

“It’s just, we’re the only set of twins in the class, and Auger can do it all brilliantly, and I’m kind of holding him back.”

“I doubt he sees it that way.”

Omen gave a little grunt.

Miss Gnosis let him out a few minutes early, which allowed him to get to the toilets without being caught in the sudden crush of students. In fact, he had time to take the scenic route to his next class, past both the North and the East Towers. He descended the staircase in the main building, quickening his pace ever so slightly, and arriving outside his next class just as the bell rang.

Doors opened and each room vomited forth a never-ending torrent of teenagers dressed in either black trousers or skirts with white shirts and black blazers. A few of Omen’s fellow Fourth Years passed. Their blazers, like his, had green piping. He nodded to them. They ignored him. He shrugged.

He took his seat in the next class. Never came in, looking half dead from exhaustion, and sat next to him.

“You doing OK?” Omen asked.

“No,” Never said, gazing blearily at her desk. “Did we have homework to do?”

Omen took out his books. “Yes. You didn’t do it?”

Never gave a groan as an answer, and peered at Omen through one eye. “Why are you smiling?”

Omen shrugged. “It’s just very unusual to have you being the one who’s struggling while I’m doing all right, that’s all. Maybe it’s a sign that I’m finally getting my life in order, that I’m finally becoming the person I’m meant to be.”

“Or,” Never said, “this could not be about you, and actually be about me, and how hard it is to juggle being fabulous at school with being fabulous at having adventures. So, really, it could be either.”

“All those adventures taking a toll, are they?”

Never laid her forehead on the desk so that her hair covered her face. “I’m bruised. And battered. I get into fights now. Real, actual fights. Me. A pacifist.”

“You’re not a pacifist.”

“Well, no, but I hate fighting. I hate the pain aspect. Also the effort aspect. Fighting would be so much easier if you could do it from your phone, you know?”

“Damn these physical bodies.”

“Ah, now,” Never said, sitting up and flicking her hair back, “I wouldn’t go so far as to damn my physical body, Omen. I’m blessed with this form. See these cheekbones? I will never take these for granted. But I do ache. I mean, I can’t be expected to follow your brother into every single battle, can I? He’s the Chosen One. He’s got the strength and the speed and the skill. I just have the bone structure and the attitude.”

“Kase and Mahala aren’t Chosen Ones,” said Omen. “How do they do in these battles?”

“They’ve been doing this for longer,” Never countered. “They’re better at it than I am.”

“There you go,” Omen said. “You just have to give it time, and then you’ll be as good as they are.”

Never lolled her head back, and looked up at the ceiling. “Three days ago, we were fighting this guy, a Child of the Spider. Ever seen one of those people? They’re creepy enough in their human form, but when they change …”

“You actually saw him transform?”

“Oh, yes,” said Never. “It was gross. Like, seriously disgusting. He sprouted all these extra legs, his body contorted, his face became a spider face … and the sounds. Great Caesar’s Ghost, the sounds! Squelching and tearing and popping and more squelching … And, at the end of it, he’s twice as big as us, and a spider. A spider, Omen.”

“You’re not afraid of spiders, are you?”

“I tend to get slightly arachnophobic when they’re three times the size of me.”

“Understandable.”

“So, we were fighting this giant spider, and I realised I’d forgotten to do the biology homework.”

“You thought about biology when you were fighting a giant spider?”

“Well, yeah,” said Never. “It just popped into my head – the module where we studied insects and arachnids – and then we had that chapter on the Children of the Spider and how we still don’t really know how they came to, like, be spiders.”

“Yes,” said Omen, “I remember the lesson.”

“Do you?”

Omen hesitated. “No.”

“Thought not. Anyway, I asked Auger about the homework.”

“While you were fighting?”

“Oh, wow, no. I’ve still got a long way to go before I can have light-hearted discussions while trying not to die. I just don’t have the stamina. I’m out of breath the entire time. So I waited until after. And you know what he said?”

“He’d done the homework?”

“Well, yes, but do you know how he’d done the homework?”

“I would imagine by doing it in his spare time?”

“Will you please stop spoiling my stories by knowing what I’m going to say?”

“Sorry.”

Never sighed, and continued. “He did it at night. The previous night, after we’d sneaked back to our dorm rooms. Four o’clock in the morning and he’s making sure his homework’s done. The same with Kase and Mahala.”

“So … so why didn’t you do that?”

Never frowned. “Because I was sleeping.”

“But why didn’t you—?”

“Because I was sleeping,” Never repeated. “I love my sleep, Omen. It’s one of the eight things that I do best. You can’t expect me to not sleep because of homework. We all have our limits, the lines in the sand we do not cross. That is mine.”

Omen nodded. “It’s a great honour just to be around you sometimes.”

Mr Chou walked in and closed the door.

“Can I copy off you?” Never whispered.

“Oh,” Omen whispered back, “sorry, no. I didn’t do the homework, either.”

“Why the hell not?”

Omen shrugged. “I was thinking about other things.”

Never glared.

“Right then,” said Mr Chou, “let’s start off with last night’s prep. Who can give me the answer to the first question? Never?”

Never sagged.

Razzia was bent over the sink in the Ladies, doing her make-up, because that was practically the only room in the whole of Coldheart Prison where the light was good enough, and Abyssinia was in there with her, the two of them just spending time together, not bothering to talk, just two Sheilas hanging out, enjoying the silence, alone with their thoughts, and then Abyssinia said, “I don’t know if I do.”

Razzia stopped applying her mascara, and frowned. Had Abyssinia been speaking this whole time? Had Razzia been answering? Was this another one of those conversations she forgot she was having halfway through?

Strewth, as her dear old dad used to say. Her dear old dad used to say a lot of things, though. Her dear old dad could talk the hind legs off a kangaroo.

Was that a saying? Was that a popular phrase, back in Australia? She couldn’t remember. Her past got so hazy sometimes. She wasn’t even sure if she had a dear old dad, at least one that she’d known. She had a vague image of a nasty man, quick with his fists, but she didn’t like that image, so it went away, and was replaced by Alf Stewart, the cranky but lovable old guy from Home and Away, the greatest television show ever made. Yep, a much better dad to have, she reckoned. Maybe. She hadn’t seen that show in years. Did they still make it?

Oh, bloody hell. Abyssinia was still talking. Now Razzia had completely lost track of what was going on. The only thing she knew for sure was that her mascara wasn’t all done, so she went back to applying it.

Knowing Abyssinia, she was probably talking about her long-lost-now-recently-recovered son, Caisson. She was always talking about him. Razzia got it. She totally understood. Caisson was family, after all. Nothing more important than family.

And it was nice seeing Abyssinia so happy. Those first few weeks, when Caisson didn’t do a whole lot more than have bad dreams while sedated, were the happiest she’d ever seen Abyssinia. She was so proud of her son for sticking it out, for surviving all that pain.

It had reinvigorated her, too, having her son around. Suddenly her attention was back on the plan, because the plan secured Caisson’s legacy. That focus had slipped a little, but now it was back on track. In less than two weeks, it would all kick off.

Razzia couldn’t wait. She hadn’t killed anyone in ages.

But, now that Caisson was up and about, it had quickly become clear to anyone paying attention that he was a weird one.

That wasn’t easy for Razzia to admit. She’d always seen herself as the weird one in Abyssinia’s little group of misfits, so to voluntarily hand over the title to a newcomer – even if he was the long-lost son of the boss – just felt wrong.

But there was no denying it: Caisson was an oddball.

She couldn’t blame him, of course. He’d been tortured pretty much non-stop for ninety years. That would lead anyone to hop on an imaginary plane and take a sojourn from reality. His flesh was scarred, his silver hair – so like his mother’s – grew only in clumps from a damaged scalp, and his eyes always seemed to be focused on something not quite in front of him, and not quite in the distance.

The fact was, though, he could have been a lot worse. According to Caisson, this was all down to his jailer, Serafina. She knew that if he retreated deep enough into his mind there wouldn’t be much point in torturing his body. So, every few weeks Caisson would be given the chance to recover, to get strong … and then it would happen all over again.

The whole thing was just so delightfully sadistic. Razzia hoped one day to meet Serafina. She’d been hitched to that Mevolent fella from ages ago, the one who’d caused all that bother with the war and all. Razzia reckoned she could learn a thing or two from someone like that.

Abyssinia sighed. “What do you think?”

Razzia blinked at her in the mirror. Abyssinia clearly wasn’t asking about her hair, because it was the same as it always was – long and silver. The red bodysuit, maybe? Abyssinia’s recently regrown body was still pretty new, and the suit did a lot to keep it maintained, but she’d been wearing variations of it for months and so Razzia didn’t think she had chosen now to ask how she looked.

Must be Caisson again.

“Well,” Razzia said, “the real question here, Abyssinia, is what do you think?”

Abyssinia exhaled. “I think we press ahead.”

“Yeah,” said Razzia. “Me too.”

“This is what we’ve been working towards, and I shouldn’t let new developments derail us from our goals. I’ve been promising you a new world for years, and I’m not going to abandon you, not when the end is finally in sight.”

“Good to hear.”

“But I just don’t know what to do about the Darkly thing.”

Razzia did her best to look concerned. She did this by pursing her lips and frowning at the ground. She didn’t see what the problem was. The Darkly Prophecy foretold a battle between the King of the Darklands and the Chosen One, Auger Darkly, when the boy was seventeen years old. That was still something like two years away. Plenty of time to kill the Darkly kid before he could kill Caisson. It all seemed simple enough to Razzia.

Abyssinia, like most people, had a tendency to overthink things.

“Prophecies are dodgy,” Razzia said, applying a bit of Redrum lipstick. “If a prophecy foretells what happens in the future, if nothing changes from this point onwards, then all you have to do to avert that prophecy is not do what you otherwise would have done. Bam. On the other hand, how can you be certain that what you don’t do is in fact what leads to the prophecy being fulfilled? Fair dinkum, it’s a complicated business, but, like most complicated businesses, it’s also deceptively simple.”

Abyssinia frowned. “I don’t think that’s entirely true, though.”

“What do I know?” Razzia asked, shrugging. With the back of her hand, she smudged the lipstick to one side, then down to her chin. Perfect. “I’m nuts.”

Valkyrie let herself into her parents’ house, went straight to the kitchen and found her mother reading at the table.

“Oh, good God!” Melissa Edgley said, jerking upright.

Valkyrie laughed. “Sorry. Thought you’d heard me.”

Melissa got up, hugged her. “You don’t make a sound when you walk. I suppose that’s all your ninja training.”

“I don’t have ninja training.”

“Sorry,” her mum said. “Your secret ninja training.”

Valkyrie grinned, and eyed the notebook on the table. “What are you reading that has you so engrossed?”

“This,” said Melissa, “is your great-grandfather’s diary. One of several, in fact. Your dad found them in the attic, packed away with a load of junk.”

“Ah, diaries,” said Valkyrie. “The selfies of days gone by. What are they like?”

“They’re beautiful, actually. Beautiful handwriting and beautiful writing.”

“So that’s where Gordon got his talent from.”

“Well, he didn’t lick it off a stone.” Melissa hesitated, then looked up. “Your dad’s in the other room. He’s, uh … not in the best of moods.”

“What’s wrong?”

Melissa waved the diary. “He’s flicked through a few of these. Your great-granddad was a firm believer in the legend that the Edgleys are descended from the Ancient Ones.”

“The Last of the Ancients,” Valkyrie corrected. “But why does that make him grumpy? He knows it’s all true now.”

“And that,” her mother said, “is the problem.”

Valkyrie took a moment. “Ah,” she said. “Maybe I should talk to him.”

“That might help.”

Valkyrie walked into the living room. Desmond was sitting in his usual chair. The cricket was on.

“Hello, Father,” she said.

“Hello, Daughter,” he responded, not taking his eyes off the screen.

She sat on the couch. “Enjoying this, are you?”

“Yes, actually.”

“Who’s playing?”

Desmond nodded at the TV. “They are.”

“Good game?”

“Not sure.”

“Who’s winning?”

“Don’t know.”

“What are the rules?”

“No idea.”

“I didn’t know you even liked cricket.”

He sat up straighter. “This is cricket?”

She settled back. “Mum told me about the diaries.”

Desmond muted the TV. “My granddad had the best stories,” he said. “The three of us would sit round his armchair and he’d just … I don’t know. Regale us, I suppose. Regale us with family legends about magic men and women, doing all these crazy things, all because we were descended from the Last of the Ancients. But my father, well … he’d grown up with those stories and he was sick of them. He suffered from a, I suppose you’d call it a deficit of imagination. And he used to ridicule the old man, every chance he got. In front of us. I didn’t like that.”

“Right,” said Valkyrie.

“And Fergus followed suit. Turned his back on granddad and his stories. He’d always needed our father’s approval more than Gordon or me, so siding with him against what they both saw as nonsense and fairy stories was one way of building a bond Fergus felt he was missing. I wonder what he’d say now if we told him the truth. I don’t think I could do that to him.”

Valkyrie didn’t say anything to that. It wasn’t her place.

“Me, I loved the stories,” Desmond continued. “They meant something. They meant there was more to life than what I could see around me. They meant I could be more than what I was. Because of my granddad, I wasn’t restricted like my friends were. I had, I suppose, a purpose, if I wanted to seize it.”

“So you believed him,” said Valkyrie.

“I did,” Desmond said. “For a few years. When I was a kid. But I got to age ten, I think, and my dad sat me down and told me there were no such things as wizards and monsters. How wrong he was, eh?” Desmond smiled. “Gordon was the troublesome one. Always had been. Even his name rankled our dad. Fergus and I had good strong Irish names – but Gordon … ha. My mother insisted on naming him after the doctor who delivered him. It was her first pregnancy and there were complications, but that doctor worked a miracle, and the future best-selling author came into the world and brightened it with every moment he was here. Our granddad passed all those stories, all that wonder, down to Gordon, and he just absorbed it. He believed, like I did, but unlike me he never allowed our father to trample that belief. That’s what he had that I didn’t, I suppose. A strength.” Desmond shifted in his chair. “All those stories, they’re in the diaries. You should read them.”

“I will,” said Valkyrie.

Desmond took in a breath. It was shaky. He expelled it slowly, and looked at her. “I’m glad we know about the magic,” he said. “It’s terrifying, knowing that you’re out there, endangering your life, and it makes the world a scarier place, but I’m glad nonetheless. I wish I’d kept believing when I was younger, I really do. Still, I’m thankful Gordon did. Our granddad needed someone to believe him.”

Valkyrie didn’t know what to say, so she got up and hugged her dad. He hugged her back, and then shrugged himself out of his bad mood and turned off the TV.

“Cricket is a silly game,” he said, “and none of it makes any sense. Where’s your mum?”

“Kitchen,” she said, and followed him out.

“Are you in a better mood?” Melissa asked when they walked in.

“I am,” Desmond responded, kissing the top of her head. “Sorry for snapping at you earlier.”

She looked up, surprised. “You snapped at me?”

“Didn’t I?”

“When?”

“Earlier.”

“I don’t recall that.”

“Well, maybe I didn’t snap, as such, but I was curt, and for that you have my most sincere—”

“When were you curt?”

He frowned at her. “Earlier,” he said again. “When we were talking. About the diaries. I was curt when we were talking about the diaries. You didn’t notice?”

“I noticed you being a little grumpy.”

He looked offended. “That wasn’t me being grumpy. That was me being curt. That was my inner darkness shining through. Weren’t you scared by the glimpse of the monster lurking beneath the surface?”

“Not … really.”

“Oh.”

“Sorry, dear, you’re just too cuddly to be scary.”

“I am frighteningly cuddly,” he admitted. “But I’m sure I was dark, too, once upon a time.”

“You were pretty dark that day you threw that guy through a window,” Valkyrie said.

“That’s what I’m thinking of,” said Desmond, clicking his fingers. “I knew I’d done something cool.”

“My cool dad,” Valkyrie said wistfully. “So are you going to read the diaries?”

“I am,” he replied. “I will. I owe it to my granddad. It might even give me an insight into what you get up to, saving the world every single day.”

“I don’t save the world every single day,” Valkyrie responded. “I take time off. I go for walks. I go to the gym. I train.”

“Wait now,” said her mum. “Where’s the part in that schedule where you have fun?”

“I have loads of fun.”

“Do you have any friends? Do you go to the cinema? Go out for dinner? What about boys?”

Valkyrie opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

Her dad narrowed his eyes. “You’re hesitating. Why are you hesitating? It’s because we’re not going to approve, isn’t it? What is he? Is he a werewolf? Is he a mummy?”

“Dad …”

“Is he a cannibal?”

“God, no. Why would I go out with a cannibal?”

“Love is blind, Stephanie. If you love someone, that means you’re willing to overlook flaws in their character, like cannibalism and being too pretty. Your mother possesses one of those flaws. I’ll leave it to you to figure out which one.”

“Such a charmer,” said Melissa.

“I’m not dating a cannibal,” Valkyrie said.

“Are you dating someone?” her mum asked.

Valkyrie nodded.

“And? When are we going to meet him?”

It was on the tip of her tongue. It’s not a him. So easy. Such an easy sentence to say. All she had to do was open her mouth and say it.

But she took too long, and now her dad was nudging her mother’s shoulder. “It’s your fault,” he said. “She won’t bring him home to meet us because she’s afraid you’ll embarrass her. This is always a problem when you have one really cool parent and one lame parent.”

Melissa shook her head. “I preferred you when you were grumpy.”

“I wasn’t grumpy, I was dark.”

“I’m going to say hi to Alice,” Valkyrie said, turning on her heel.

“We’re not finished with this boyfriend stuff!” her mum called out after her.

Valkyrie retreated, away from the possibility of disappointing her parents. Even though she knew they’d understand. They were liberal, progressive people, after all. They’d handled the truth about magic without unduly freaking out – she was sure they’d have no problem with the whole girlfriend situation.

But, even so, it made her tummy flip as she climbed the stairs.

Her sister’s door was open. Alice sat in the corner of the room, peering into the hamster cage.

“Hey, you,” Valkyrie said.

“Stephanie!” Alice cried, scrambling up and launching herself forward.

Valkyrie laughed and caught her and hugged her. “Hey, gorgeous girl.”

“Are you staying for dinner?” Alice asked, face buried in Valkyrie’s hip.

“I can’t,” Valkyrie said, prising her off. “I’ve got to go to work.”

“With Skulduggery?”

“Yep. But I couldn’t pass without calling in to say hi to the best little sister in the world.”

“Do you want to see me dancing?”

“I’d love to, but I don’t really have time. Did you learn any more moves?”

“Yeah, a few,” Alice said. “Do you want to see them?”

“Tomorrow or the next day,” said Valkyrie. “And bad dreams?”

Alice laughed. “You always ask me that!”

“I know I do. I’m interested.”

“I never have bad dreams.”

“Not even about the horrible man?”

“Ew,” said Alice, making a face. “No. I don’t think about him. He was smelly. I still haven’t told Mum or Dad about him. It’s still our little secret.”

Valkyrie forced a smile. “Thank you,” she said, feeling the guilt start to weigh down on her. She quickly walked over to the hamster cage, eager for a change of subject. “So how’s SpongeBob?”

Alice laughed. “That’s not his name.”

“Is it not? Are you sure?”

“It’s Starlight.”

“Starlight the hamster … yes, I think I remember something about that. Where is he? Is he hiding?”

“There he is,” said Alice, pointing at a lump of fur in the corner of the cage.

“Hello, you,” Valkyrie said, hunkering down. She poked a finger through the cage and petted little Starlight. He was cold.

“He’s dead,” said Alice.

Valkyrie stopped petting him. She withdrew her finger and said, “Oh.”

“He died during the night sometime,” Alice continued. “Last night I fed him – well, Dad fed him – and I cleaned out his cage and I put new hay in and new newspaper because he likes playing in newspaper and he rips it all up sometimes, and then he died, I think.”

Valkyrie let herself sit, her back against the wall. “And when did you find out that he’d died?”

“A few minutes ago,” Alice said. “Like, ten. Or five. I can show you my dancing, if you like.”

“Let’s just wait a moment, sweetie. How are you feeling?”

Alice shrugged. “I’m fine.”

“Did you love Starlight?”

Alice nodded.

“Did you love him a lot?”

“Like, loads,” said Alice. “I used to close my bedroom door and let him out so he could run around and then he’d come over to me and climb on to my lap and I’d pet him. Like, I didn’t love him as much as I love Mum and Dad and you, but I still loved him.”

“Will you miss him?”

“Um, yes.”

“Are you sad?”

“Yes,” Alice said, and nodded again.

Valkyrie held out her hands, and when Alice took them she pulled her gently down. “Come here,” she said. “Sit.” When Alice was seated, Valkyrie gave her a soft smile. “When you say you’re sad, do you actually mean you’re sad, or are you saying it because you think I’m expecting you to say it?”

Alice didn’t answer.

“It’s OK,” whispered Valkyrie. “You’re not in trouble. I’m just interested.”

“Um,” Alice said, “I’m not really sad.”

Valkyrie nodded, and kept nodding, waiting for the panic in her chest to settle down. “OK,” she said. “OK, thank you for telling me. Will you miss him?”

“Yes,” Alice said with absolute certainty. “I’m going to miss him loads.”

“And do you know what missing him means? Have you ever missed anyone before?”

A shy smile broke out. “Not really,” Alice said.

“Missing someone is when you get sad that somebody isn’t there any more. Do you think you’ll get sad now that Starlight isn’t alive and you can’t pet him and cuddle him?”

The tip of Alice’s tongue came out and took up temporary residence at the corner of her lips. “Um … maybe.”

Valkyrie switched on her aura-vision, reducing her sister to a dark outline, throbbing weakly with a dim, almost imperceptible orange. It was so spread out, so diffused, that it was barely there at all.

She switched off the aura-vision before it made her sick with guilt, pulled Alice in and wrapped her up in a hug. “You know what love is, don’t you?”

“Of course,” said Alice.

“And you love me?”

“With all my heart.”

“And I love you, too, with all my heart.”

They sat there, hugging.

“Is it OK that I don’t get sad?” Alice asked softly.

Valkyrie kissed her head. “I’m going to fix that. You don’t have anything to worry about. I’m going to find someone who can help you, and I’m going to fix everything.”

Alice nodded and didn’t respond, and Valkyrie hugged her closer and tried not to cry.

“It’s nice here, isn’t it?” Axelia Lukt said.

Omen looked up. He’d been daydreaming about being good at things, about being as cool as Skulduggery or as tough as Valkyrie or as capable as Auger. He hadn’t even noticed the tram emptying the closer they got to the Humdrums. It was only Axelia and him left on it now.

He looked out of the window. “I suppose,” he said, although to him this part of Roarhaven looked pretty similar to most of the other parts – apart from the fact that it was right beside the enormous wall that encircled the city. Was that what Axelia was talking about? Did she like walls?

“The wall’s pretty,” he tried.

“The wall’s ugly,” Axelia said immediately. “It’s horrible and grey and horrible.”

“That’s what I meant.”

“It blocks out the sun in the mornings for this whole part of town.”

“It’s so horrible,” Omen agreed.

“But the rest of it,” said Axelia, “it’s so nice. It’s peaceful, isn’t it? Quiet.”

Omen nodded, but he wasn’t quite sure that was true. The Humdrums were where the mortals lived, the more than 18,000 refugees who had trudged through the portal from the Leibniz Universe to escape their very own Mevolent, who was still alive and terrorising the ones left behind over there. Roarhaven had taken them in, mainly because there was nowhere else to keep them, and the High Sanctuary had assumed responsibility for turning them into productive members of society.

Axelia had grown up in a magical community in Iceland, where she’d had very limited interactions with mortals. Omen was beginning to think that maybe she viewed mortals, and these ones in particular, as quaint, somewhat primitive beings. It was ever-so-slightly condescending, he felt. And possibly ever-so-slightly racist.

The tram stopped and off they got. The Humdrums was definitely quieter than other parts of the city. No one here had cars, because no one could drive yet. Back in their own dimension, these mortals had been the serfs to the ruling class of mages. They’d lived in huts and hadn’t had access to technology.

Here they were free. They worked and were paid. They’d been introduced to the delights of television and the Internet. They could walk the streets without being accosted by sorcerers.

“Hello,” said Omen to a passing mortal. “Would you like a pamphlet?”

The mortal shrank back, but took a pamphlet and hurried on.

The bag over Omen’s shoulder was weighed down with these pamphlets. This week, they were handing out information about the First Bank of Roarhaven, China Sorrows’s pride and joy. Even mortals could save their money there, according to the pamphlets – it was perfectly safe and truly wonderful. Omen doubted this would work. The mortals here were more inclined to stash their money under their mattresses than hand it over to some huge institution where they didn’t know the rules.

But volunteering for this stuff got Omen out of the last class of the day, so he didn’t mind too much.

They folded pamphlets and stuck them through letterboxes and chatted whenever they regrouped at the end of a street. Axelia had already handed in her Senior Years Agenda. She wanted to be an Elemental, she said. There were a lot more of them flying these days, like Skulduggery did. She’d always wanted to fly.

Flying would be cool, Omen admitted. But he was wary of the fact that it required so much concentration. His mind was inclined to wander, after all.

They made their way to the square in the middle of the sector. It didn’t have a name yet – the mortals intended to vote on one in the coming months. The High Sanctuary even offered to have a statue erected to someone they admired, mortal or mage. They were still deciding on that as well.

Aurnia was waiting for them with a few other mortals. She waved as they approached. Her companions, one girl and three guys, left her to it. As they passed, one of the guys rammed his shoulder into Omen’s.

Before Omen knew what was happening, he was being loomed over and forced backwards.

“What?” said the guy who’d rammed him. “What?”

Omen blinked up at him. “What?”

“What?” demanded the rammer, his teeth bared, his eyes wide.

“I’m sorry?”

The guy’s friends were pulling him back, and Axelia was suddenly standing between them and Aurnia was running up.

“Hey,” Axelia said. “Hey! Back off!”

The guy glared at her, glared at Omen, and allowed himself to be dragged away.

“Are you OK?” Aurnia asked. “Omen, did he hurt you?”

“No,” Omen lied, rubbing his shoulder. “Who was that?”

“That’s Buach.”

Axelia frowned. “Boo-ock?”

“Buach, yes,” said Aurnia. “He’s … I don’t know. He doesn’t like sorcerers, and he wants everyone to know it. He just gets very angry sometimes. Living here, surrounded by magic people … it makes him unhappy.”

“Well, I’d stay away from him, if I were you,” said Omen. “You really don’t want to be around someone who’s that volatile.”

“He’s my boyfriend,” Aurnia said, wincing.

“That’s your boyfriend? I thought your boyfriend was nice and sweet and happy. Didn’t you tell me that?”

“And Buach is all of those things,” Aurnia replied, “when sorcerers aren’t around. Also, I think he doesn’t like you because you wanted to kiss me.”

“That’s hardly fair,” said Omen immediately. “When I wanted to kiss you, he wasn’t your boyfriend. And why would you even tell him that? Of course he hates me now.”

“Buach needs to learn that you are not his property,” Axelia said.

“Oh, he knows,” Aurnia replied. “He’s just being stupid. He’s really very sweet. And kind. He makes me happy.” She sighed. “But what he did just now was terrible, and he’ll either apologise to you or he won’t have a girlfriend any more.”

“You’d break up with him?” Axelia asked.

“That’s the expression I was searching for,” said Aurnia, pointing at her. “Break up with him, yes. I still don’t know the proper phrases. In our culture, we don’t even have equivalents. Anyway, yes, I’ll break up with him if he doesn’t say sorry.”

“That’s OK,” said Omen. “It’s no big deal. He doesn’t have to.”

Aurnia reached into Omen’s bag, took out a handful of pamphlets and flicked through them. “Of course he does,” she said. “There’s a polite way to behave and a rude way. I’m not going to go out with someone who’s rude.”

Axelia grinned. “I like you more and more, every time I see you.”

Aurnia grinned back. “I like you, too.”

“Does anyone like me?” Omen asked hopefully.

“Sure we do,” said Axelia. “You carry the bag.”

The car hit a pothole and Valkyrie cursed, glared at nothing in particular and carried on. The roads around here were getting worse. No mortal officials bothered with them because, as far as they knew, these were tiny country roads that led nowhere, and no magical officials bothered with them because these were, technically, mortal roads, and mortals had to take care of themselves. Those were the rules.

Valkyrie slalomed very carefully round the next set of potholes, fully aware that she was using her irritation about the potholes to push her worries about Alice into the back of her mind. As long as it worked, she didn’t much care.

She turned on to a wider road. An old man nodded to her. She nodded back. The road was better here. The giant potholes that Swiss-cheesed the surface were nothing but illusions – she could drive right over them and suffer not one jolt. The air shimmered ahead.

She drove through the cloaking shield, and the walled city of Roarhaven appeared before her.

The Cleavers let her through Shudder’s Gate and she swiftly weaved her way towards the Circle. She gave Oldtown a miss – that was the only area where the traffic built up – and approached the High Sanctuary from the south. She took the ramp down into the car park, then walked across and stood on a tile and it shot off the ground, twirling as it ascended. It clicked into place in the floor of the marble foyer and she stepped off.

Skulduggery was waiting beyond the steady stream of mages, wearing a black three-piece, black shirt, red tie, with a red band on his black hat.

“You look like a gangster,” she said, joining him.

“Good afternoon to you, too.”

“Should I have dressed up? We get to see China so rarely these days that I feel I should have dressed up, maybe worn a hat of my own.”

Skulduggery shrugged. “When in doubt, wear a hat, that’s what I always say.”

“You do always say that.”

A young woman approached, well dressed, her fingers swiping a tablet screen. She tapped it off and held it by her side as she reached them. “Arbiters,” she said, “please follow me. The Supreme Mage is waiting.”

“Lead on,” said Skulduggery, and they followed her from the foyer. “You’re the new Administrator, are you?”

She glanced back. “I am. My name is Cerise.”

“The Irish Sanctuary has not had the best of luck with Administrators,” Valkyrie said. “They’re like drummers in Spinal Tap, you know?”

“Spinal Tap, Detective Cain?”

“There’s a high turnover is what I mean. You sure you want this job?”

“I have been a student of the Supreme Mage since I was sixteen years old,” Cerise responded. “It is an honour to serve her now.”

“But to handle the day-to-day running of the whole High Sanctuary …”

“The High Sanctuary is run by mages more talented and resourceful than I,” Cerise said. “All I have to do is run them.”

Valkyrie didn’t say anything, but she thought that was a pretty good answer.

Cerise led them to a set of double doors – solid and plain – and she bowed again as they passed her. The chamber was small. There was a table at its centre with six chairs round it, four of which were occupied.

China Sorrows sat on the far side of the table, her posture perfect, her head up, her blue eyes unfocused.

“Detective Pleasant, Detective Cain, welcome,” Aloysius Vespers said as soon as they entered. The English Grand Mage came over and shook their hands. He was one of the only sorcerers Valkyrie knew who wore actual robes, like a wizard in a movie. His white hair was long and his beard was braided. He had small teeth. “Please,” he said, indicating the chairs, “sit.”

The chairs were sturdy and hard. No padding. This was a chamber for doing business and making decisions, not for idle conversation and time-wasting.

The American Grand Mage, Gavin Praetor, poured them each a glass of water. He slid one to Valkyrie, started to slide the other to Skulduggery, then must have realised Skulduggery didn’t drink, because he picked up the glass and took a sip from it himself without missing a beat.

“Should we begin?” Sturmun Drang said. “We are all busy, are we not? And time is not on our side.”

“It never is,” said China, blinking her way out of the Whispering and disconnecting from the city around her. “Skulduggery. Valkyrie. Thank you for coming.”

“It’s so hard getting an appointment to see you,” Skulduggery replied, “so, when you call, we’re all too happy to oblige. I assume you want to talk about the problem in the City Guard.”

China waved her hand. “I’m meeting with Commander Hoc later today to discuss the fate of Yonder and his little friends, but I definitely see jail time in their future. That is not why I called you here, however.”

She tapped the table and the wooden surface flickered, and small screens came to life beneath the grain. The screens showed a photograph of the American president, Martin Flanery, walking across the White House lawn, deep in conversation with a slight man in an ill-fitting suit. “The man next to the president is Bertram Wilkes, Flanery’s personal aide. Grand Mage Praetor?”

“A little under six months ago,” Praetor said, “Wilkes disappeared. The official line is that he resigned due to the workload, and planned to travel extensively in order to recharge his batteries. He has not, as far as we know, been seen since three days before he left his job, but that has been difficult to ascertain due to the fact that he has no family and, apparently, no friends to note his absence. It is our belief, however, that Wilkes was a mage, and we believe he was murdered.”

Skulduggery shifted ever so slightly in his seat. “Go on.”

Praetor tapped the table, and a black-and-white photograph appeared of a group of friends smiling for the camera. “We retrieved this from a woman we believe Detective Cain interviewed last year in San Francisco.”

Valkyrie recognised a few of the faces – Richard Melior, Savant Vega, Azzedine Smoke and a friend of Temper’s, Tessa somebody. Four others, too – one of them being Bertram Wilkes with radically different hair.

“We don’t know his actual name,” said Vespers. “All we know is this Wilkes persona which, as you can imagine, is a well-executed forgery. But, judging by the company he kept, it is not far-fetched to conclude that he may well be associated with Abyssinia.”

“So you think Abyssinia sent him in undercover to the White House,” Skulduggery said. “Why?”

“We don’t know,” China responded. “But we believe that the American president had him killed.”

“You think Flanery knows about sorcerers?” Valkyrie asked.

“We do.”

“So how bad is this situation?”

“We have had worse scenarios,” said Drang. “World leaders, law-enforcement officials, media organisations – they have all learned of our existence and we either find a way to guarantee their silence or we resort to more extreme measures to keep our secret.”

Valkyrie frowned. “What do you mean, ‘more extreme’?”

“Now is not the time,” said China.

“How extreme have we gone?”

China sighed. “Lengths,” she said. “Sanctuaries have gone to lengths to preserve our anonymity. We may have to go to lengths again here, as Flanery is not the most stable of mortal leaders.”

“Whether Flanery knows about us or not,” Skulduggery said, “we’ve got to find out why Abyssinia felt the need to send a spy into the Oval Office. Do we know anything at all about Bertram Wilkes?”

“The only lead we have is this person,” China said, her fingernail tapping the table. A new photograph appeared. A tall man leaving a house, his dark hair shot through with grey. “We’ve identified him as Oberon Guile, an American sorcerer who has just completed a three-year sentence in Ironpoint Gaol for robbery. That is, roughly, the sum total of the information we have about him.”

“This is Bertram Wilkes’s house that Mr Guile is leaving,” said Praetor. “We’ve been watching it for months and Mr Guile is the only person we’ve seen, coming or going. This photograph was taken three days ago, and we’ve been keeping discreet tabs on him since then in the hope that he leads us to something more concrete. But our feeling now is that we must act.”

“Which is where we come in,” Skulduggery said.

“I am fully aware that, as Arbiters, you do not work for me,” China responded, “but I would greatly appreciate it if you would make contact with Mr Guile and find out what he knows and what he’s after and how it connects back to Abyssinia and whatever dastardly plan she’s hatching. Does that sound acceptable?”

“It sounds positively acceptable,” Skulduggery said. “And in the meantime you’re going to be looking into corruption in the City Guard and seeing how far it’s spread, yes?”

China settled her gaze on him. “Yes,” she said eventually, a hint of reluctant amusement in her voice. “I was just about to announce that.”

Valkyrie and Skulduggery stood up to leave.

“One more thing,” China said. “I have a favour to ask, actually.”

Skulduggery tilted his head. “This should be interesting.”

“I find myself somewhat conflicted of late,” China began. “Abyssinia is, obviously, a threat that must be taken seriously. We don’t know what her plans are, but we can rest assured that they will not be in our best interests. She sees herself as a ruler, the Princess of the Darklands and, I am sure, its future queen, and she will not stop until both the mortal world and the magical world are under her control.”

Whereas China would only be happy once the magical world stayed under her control was something Valkyrie decided not to say out loud.

“Abyssinia’s actions, and the actions of her little gang of killers, are to be condemned. However, I must admit to being cautiously happy that Caisson has been broken free from his almost-century-long torture. As everyone in this room knows, I raised him, and he was almost like a son to me.”

Valkyrie kept her mouth shut.

“But more trouble is stirring,” said China. “Serafina Dey wants Caisson back. She seems to think that because he killed her dearly departed husband, she owns the poor boy. So, as part of her efforts to recover him, she’s coming here.”

“I don’t suppose she’s planning a quiet visit, is she?” Skulduggery asked.

China smiled. “Not entirely. She expects crowds, a red carpet, a reception, dinners … And that is what I have to request of you.”

“I don’t eat dinner,” Skulduggery said.

“And you don’t have to,” China responded. “I’m going to be greeting her on the front steps of the High Sanctuary on Saturday at noon. My esteemed Council of Advisors will be in attendance, of course, and I would greatly appreciate it if you two would be there also.”

“Why?” Valkyrie asked.

“A show of strength,” China said. “A show of solidarity.”

“And also because we’re Arbiters,” Skulduggery said, “and we operate outside the jurisdiction of any one Sanctuary. In theory, we’re the only people with the authority to challenge someone like Serafina Dey.”

“There is that, too,” China conceded.

Skulduggery looked at Valkyrie, and she shrugged.

“We’ll be there,” she said. “I’m not going to pass up the opportunity to meet the woman who married Mevolent. I can only imagine what kind of freak she’s going to be.”

“Mr President, we were thinking that maybe you need a cat.”

Martin Flanery, the President of the United States of America, the most powerful man in the world, the most important man in the world, and the most famous man in the world, swivelled his chair round and looked at the aide who had spoken.

The Oval Office was full of people. His Chief of Staff, his Directors of Communication, his Press Secretary, aides and advisors and assistants and one or two others. All their voices blurred into one after half an hour. This guy had caught his attention.

“What?” he said.

“A cat,” the aide repeated. Flanery didn’t know his name. Aides’ names were rarely important. “Or a dog. A pet, basically. We feel it might soften your image.”

“What’s wrong with my image?”

The aide paled. “Nothing.”

Flanery leaned forward, elbows on his desk. “Then why do I need to soften it?”

The aide looked around for help. None came. That pleased Flanery. He liked to see people flounder.

“We just thought,” the aide said, not nearly so confident now, “that it might be a good idea to present a, uh, a more relatable image to the voters.”

“They seemed to relate to me fine when they voted for me,” Flanery said. “You think they’ve forgotten that? You think they’ve forgotten who I am?”

“I … I didn’t mean anything by it, sir.”

“You know your problem? The lot of you? You’re approaching it all wrong. People don’t want to relate to me. They want to emulate me. They want to be me. I offer them what nobody else does. I offer them glamour. Celebrity. I offer them opulence, and that’s what they want. When they’re paying for groceries or standing in line for a hot dog or watching the game, they think about me and they know that if they put in the time and the effort, they could have what I have.”

This was a lie, of course. In order to have what Flanery had, they’d need his money and his keen understanding of power, a talent that allowed him to take risks that the average person couldn’t even begin to comprehend. He was so far beyond them that it had stopped being funny a long time ago – but the fantasy seemed to keep them happy.

The conversation turned to matters of policy, and Flanery’s mind drifted to Dan Tucker, the vice-president, and the interview he’d given that made it sound like he was mocking Flanery’s intelligence. Flanery would have to talk to him about that. Or get his Chief of Staff to talk to him. He was sure it had just been a mistake. It had to have been.

Then he thought about the Big Plan that he’d come up with, and he thought about Abyssinia and about how much he despised her. She was a witch, and she treated him with disrespect. Because of that, he didn’t like talking to her. He quite enjoyed it when she rang his private phone and he didn’t answer. That was a power move. His father had taught him all about power moves, and Flanery had added a few of his own over the years. He was an expert at power moves.

When the meeting was done, he dismissed them all and left the Oval Office. He went down the corridor and kept going until he entered the Residence. He went into the dining room and shut the door, then turned on the TV to find out what the press was saying about this whole Dan Tucker mess.

It was not good.

“Everything OK, Martin?”

Flanery yelled and jumped. Crepuscular Vies sat at the table, halfway through a meal. His shirtsleeves were rolled up and he wasn’t wearing his hat. His bow tie had butterflies on it.

Flanery didn’t like to see him eating. Having no lips made it unpleasant. “How did you get that food?” he asked, looking away.

“I picked up the phone and ordered it,” Crepuscular answered, and then, in a startlingly precise impression of Flanery’s own voice, said, “Bring me a steak, fried to a crisp, with some fries. No vegetables.’ You’re not a difficult man to impersonate, Martin, even though I was restricted to the terrible orders you regularly make. Steak, well done? That’s a crime against cattle.”

With no idea how to respond to that, Flanery decided to let it go. To cover up this momentary weakness, he jabbed a finger at the TV. “You hear this crap? You hear what they’re saying?”

Crepuscular sawed through another bit of meat, then popped it between his teeth. “I did.”

“They’re saying Tucker insulted me,” Flanery said, feeling the anger rise again. “They’re saying he called me stupid. He’s the vice-president! He wouldn’t do that. I’m the one in charge. He wouldn’t be vice-president if it wasn’t for me picking his name out of a hat!”

“You might not want to tell him that part.”

“You’re supposed to help me,” Flanery grumbled. “Isn’t that what you said you’d do? Isn’t that what you promised?”

Crepuscular didn’t say anything. Good. That meant Flanery had him on the back foot. Not responding to a challenge showed weakness, which was why Flanery always responded to opponents with insults or scorn. Crepuscular, for all his arrogance, hadn’t learned that yet.

“As far as I can see,” Flanery continued, “you haven’t lived up to your part of the deal. This shouldn’t be happening. The media shouldn’t be reporting this stuff. What are you going to do about it? I get enough incompetence with my staff, I do not need it from you!”

Flanery stopped, and waited for Crepuscular to respond.

Crepuscular finished eating, and dabbed at his lipless mouth with a napkin before he stood. He pushed the chair back into place and unfolded his shirtsleeves, buttoning them at the wrist as he came forward. He reached out and his hand closed round Flanery’s throat and he walked him backwards.

“You seem to be mistaking me for someone else,” Crepuscular said.

Flanery wasn’t a particularly athletic man, and he’d never played sport or learned how to box or wrestle, and in many respects he’d never had to actually lift anything heavy in his life, but even so he was surprised at the ease with which Crepuscular pinned him to the wall. His height, his weight, his importance – none of it meant anything. To Crepuscular, Flanery was nothing but a weakling.

“You seem to be mistaking me for Mr Wilkes,” Crepuscular continued. “He was the one you barked at, and complained to, and insulted. He was the one who scurried after you. Do you think I’m him, Martin? Is that what you think?”

Flanery tried to answer, but all he could do was gurgle. He could barely shake his head.

“I’m the one who killed him, Martin,” Crepuscular said. “I’m the one who snapped his neck after he’d finally had enough. I remember the look on your face when he stood up to you. Your bullying didn’t seem to work on him then, did it?”

Darkness clouded Flanery’s vision. He was aware of his own spittle on his chin. He was aware of the ridiculous sounds he was making. He was aware of his hands, tapping weakly against the scary man’s arm. His head pounded. His legs were jelly.

And then Crepuscular moved him away from the wall and swung him round, and the backs of his knees hit something and he collapsed into a chair and Crepuscular was walking away.

Flanery doubled over, gasping for air.

“You’re doing a great job, Mr President,” Crepuscular said, his voice coming from somewhere behind the drumming of Flanery’s own heartbeat. “Don’t let the liberal media get you down. They don’t understand you. They don’t see why the people love you. And they do love you. More than any other president since Lincoln.”

Nodding, Flanery straightened up in his chair.

Crepuscular had put his jacket on. He was wearing another one of those checked suits he liked so much. He put on his hat and straightened his bow tie. “Ten days,” he said. “Ten days and your plan goes into action. Ten days and the world changes, sir, and you go down in history. Are you looking forward to that?”

Flanery nodded quickly.

“Then who cares what they say on the news? And who cares what Vice-President Tucker may or may not have called you? None of it matters. The only thing that will matter, in ten days’ time, is the small naval base in Whitley, Oregon, and all the people who died there.”

It was a messy business, crying.

Sebastian hated it. His tears would fog up the lenses on his mask and his face would get all wet and dribbly and there wasn’t anything he could do about it except wait. Eventually, the mask would soak it all up, just like it did when he perspired. Or sneezed.

Sneezing was the worst. Well, sneezing was the worst so far. Every night, before he went to sleep, he prayed that there would be no reason for him to throw up the next day.

His suit. God, he hated that thing. The beaked mask that made him look like a crow. The heavy coat. The hat. Why was there even a hat? Why was the hat necessary?

He hated it all. He longed to touch his own skin, to rake his fingers through his hair. Ever since he’d put the suit on, he’d been unable to scratch himself. Itches drove him mad.

And breathing. Oh, how he missed fresh air. How he missed the taste of it. And the feel of it. A breeze. What he wouldn’t give to feel the slightest breeze against his face.

But the worst thing about this whole mission was the loneliness. The sheer, terrifying loneliness of his situation. Every other day, he’d get an update on the continuing search for Darquesse. He’d stand there and nod while Forby took him through the details of what he was doing, pretending to grasp at least some of the fundamentals when it came to scanning an infinite number of dimensions for the slightest trace of Darquesse’s energy signature. He was sure Forby now regarded him as an idiot, and probably regretted voting for him to be the leader of their little group, but for Sebastian it was one of the few chances he got to interact with a real live person, so he loved it. He loved every mind-numbingly confusing second of it.

And, every week, they’d have their meeting. They’d all get together at Bennet’s, or Lily’s, or Kimora’s. Never at Ulysses’s house, because his wife didn’t approve, and never at Tarry’s, because he said his place was always a dump, but they got together and they chatted and either Ulysses or Lily would bring cake, and even though Sebastian didn’t need food – his suit took care of his nourishment – and he couldn’t eat even if he wanted to, it was good. He had friends.

But then the meeting would end, and they’d all head back to their families and to their lives, and Sebastian would return to the empty house he’d made his own, and sit there. In the dark. In the silence.

Metaphorically, of course. Every house in Roarhaven came fully furnished and hooked up to electricity, so he actually sat in a warm, brightly lit house, watching TV or reading a book.

But no amount of TV and no amount of books, as wonderful as they were, could ever provide him with the friendship he needed – that he’d once had, but he’d left behind. For the mission. For the damn mission.

For the mission he was failing at.

Of course he was going to fail. It was inevitable. He was going to let them all down. The world needed Darquesse. They needed her power, even if they didn’t realise it. And it was all up to him to find her. All up to Sebastian Tao, the Plague Doctor, the Idiot Who Was Going To Ruin Everything.

There was a doomsday clock, somewhere in the world, and it was ticking steadily down.

A knock on the door snapped him out of his melancholy. He opened it. Bennet stood there, holding two bottles of beer.

“Hey, buddy,” Bennet said. “I was passing, and …”

Sebastian frowned behind his mask. “There’s nothing beyond this house except more empty houses.”

“Well, I meant I was in the neighbourhood and …” Bennet sagged. “The fact is, my TV packed up on me, and there’s a game on tonight that I’ve been looking forward to, so I was wondering if I could watch it with you …?”

“Sure,” Sebastian said, the brightness in his voice surprising him. “Come on in. I’m afraid I can’t offer you anything, because I don’t eat or drink.”

“That’s why I brought these,” said Bennet as they walked into the living room. “They’re non-alcoholic, don’t worry. I have to drive home.”

“Wise man,” said Sebastian. He sat in the armchair, searching for the remote, while Bennet took up his position on the couch. “I’m pretty sure I have the sports channels. I vaguely remember flicking past a football game once.” He found the remote and sat back.

“It’s nice and quiet here,” Bennet said.

“Yeah,” Sebastian responded. “No traffic outside. No neighbours.”

Bennet sipped his beer. “It’s been pretty quiet at my place, too. Christmas was particularly hard. I’m just used to, you know, decorations and the tree, and the music and all the fuss and the … the feeling, you know? But the house was very quiet this year. Very quiet. I didn’t bother with any of the … things. That was Odetta’s area.”

“How is Odetta?”

“She’s good,” Bennet said with a sad smile. “She really seems to be happy with Conrad. He doesn’t say much, you know. Or anything, really. Apparently, Hollow Men can grunt, if they churn their gases in a certain way? But I’ve never heard him make a sound. He treats her well, though. I think. I don’t know. He doesn’t do a whole lot except stand there.”

“Right.”

“Makes you wonder how bad a husband I must have been if Odetta chose a Hollow Man over me, eh?” Bennet said, and laughed. “But naw, she’s good. She’s happier. And Kase is living with them. He’s doing well at school. He’s a good kid.”

“He is,” Sebastian agreed. “Do you spend much time with him?”

“Not as much as I’d like. And now, with my new job and all, I’ve got to focus on not getting fired, so that cuts down on the father-son thing.”

“You want my advice?” Sebastian said. “Spend more time with him. He deserves all the attention he can get from parents who love him.”

“Yeah …”

“We never know how much time we have left, Bennet.”

Bennet took another sip of his beer. “This is true.”

“If I had family, I’d be cherishing every moment I had with them.”

“You don’t have family?”

“Not any more.”

“You … want to talk about it?”

“Not especially.”

“Sore subject?”

“Yeah.”

“OK,” said Bennet. “But, if you ever do need to talk, that’s what friends are for.”

“Thank you,” Sebastian said, fighting the sudden rush of warmth that threatened to bring tears to his eyes. He clicked on the TV. “So what channel is the game on?”

“Do you ever doubt what we’re doing?”

Sebastian lowered the remote. “What do you mean?”

“What Forby’s doing with the machine and all?”

“Looking for Darquesse?”

“No. Well, yes, but not the search itself – just the likelihood of finding her.”

Sebastian sighed. “It’s tricky,” he admitted. “I’ve got this little voice in my head and every day it whispers to me, Maybe Darquesse is dead. Maybe the Faceless Ones tore her apart years ago.”

“Or maybe, if we find her, she won’t want to come back.”

Sebastian frowned. “You think that’s a possibility?”

“Don’t you?”

“I don’t know. It never occurred to me that she might not want to return. I mean, this is her home.”

“That she left.”

“Well, yeah, but she left under false pretences, didn’t she?”

“Which brings me to my next point,” Bennet said. “What if she comes back to finish the job? If we find her, if we tell her that she was fooled into thinking she’d ended all life on earth … what if she only comes back to do it for real?”

“That,” said Sebastian, “is a possibility. We all know that. But do you believe it?”

“No,” said Bennet. “But can I be trusted? Can any of us be trusted? We saw what Darquesse can do. We saw her power and it unlocked something in us, a love and a devotion that could quite possibly be self-destructive. I don’t think she’d kill us if she returned. But I might be wrong. We all might be wrong.”

“Sounds like you’re going through a crisis of faith, my friend.”

Bennet suddenly looked flustered, like he’d miscalculated. “I mean … I mean, I’m still devoted to—”

Sebastian held up a hand. “I didn’t mean it as an accusation. Of course you’re doubting all this. Everything you’ve said is one hundred per cent true. These are the thoughts that go through my mind a thousand times a day.”

Bennet relaxed. “So how do you handle it?”

“I … believe, I suppose. I choose to believe that it’ll work out, that we’ll find her, we’ll bring her home, and that everything will be OK. You’re not alone here, Bennet.”

Bennet finished his first beer, and put the empty bottle on the coffee table. “Well, neither are you. I hope you know that.”

Sebastian smiled. “Thank you. So, which channel is the game on?”

“I don’t know,” Bennet answered. “I don’t even like football. I came over here because I was lonely and I thought we could hang out. Do you have any video games? I’m pretty good at—”

Bennet’s phone beeped at the same time as Sebastian’s buzzed. They looked at their screens at the same time. It was a message. From Forby.

I think I’ve found Darquesse.

Valkyrie got back to Grimwood House at a little past nine. She got out of the car and Xena ran up to her and they cuddled until the dog calmed down enough for Valkyrie to open the front door.

She flicked on the lights, dumped the day’s post on the hall table and fed Xena. She ate leftovers in the quiet kitchen, washed the plate and put it away, then went upstairs to have a shower. Her phone chimed when she got out. It was Temper Fray, asking them to meet him the next day. She messaged him back, then dressed in pyjama bottoms and a light top. On her way back down the stairs, the doorbell rang.

She padded across the hall in her bare feet, and opened the door.

Tanith Low stood there in jeans and a warm coat open over a Prince T-shirt, her blonde hair tousled.

Valkyrie leaped forward, wrapping her in the biggest hug she could muster.

“Holy crap,” Tanith wheezed.

“I missed you,” Valkyrie said into her shoulder.

“I miss my lungs,” said Tanith. “I’m sure they were there a second ago …”

Valkyrie released her and jumped back, looked her up and down. “Your hair’s shorter. I love it. Where have you been?”

“Away.”

“What have you been doing?”

“Things.”

“How are you?”

“Tormented.”

“I want to hear every last little detail.”

She made them each a cup of tea and they sat on the couch, legs curled beneath them.

“Look at you,” Tanith said. “Right up until you answered that door, I still had this picture in my head of you as a … not a kid, but … a girl. But you’re a proper grown-up, aren’t you?”

“Technically.”

“How’s Skulduggery?”

“Same as ever. We’ve been dealing with a bit of a thing lately. Abyssinia, you heard of her?”

Tanith nodded. “I try to keep up with what’s happening. Is it true she’s Skulduggery’s ex?”

“That is true, yes.”

“Wow. Must have been quite a shock to learn he had an ex-girlfriend back on the scene. How about you?”

“How about me what?”

“Any boyfriends I should know about?”

“Not right now,” said Valkyrie. She took a breath. “There is a girlfriend, though.”

“Really?” Tanith said, drawing the word out as her eyes got wider. “You dark horse, you. When did this happen?”

“Few months ago. Her name’s Militsa Gnosis. She’s a teacher at Corrival Academy. Necromancer.”

“Oooh,” said Tanith, “a bad girl.”

Valkyrie laughed. “Not really.”

“So is this it? The full switch, girls-only from now on?”

“Ah, I still like boys, too.”

“You played that close to the chest, didn’t you? I’m usually good at picking up on things like this, but you’ve surprised me.”

Valkyrie shrugged. “You meet the right person at the right time, and you discover brand-new things about yourself. I was a little surprised, too, to be honest, but there you go.”

“Have you told your folks?”

Valkyrie hesitated.

Tanith smiled. “Yeah, that tends to be the hard part. Coming out to other sorcerers isn’t a big deal – we’re all at it. But those limited life spans mean that mortals tend to be a little more conservative. Some of them.”

“They’re going to be cool about it,” Valkyrie said.

“Of course they are.”

“But I’m still nervous.”

“Course you are.”

“How about you?” Valkyrie asked, sitting back. “Boys? Girls? Both?”

“Neither,” said Tanith. “Been too busy for distractions.”

“Is that why you’re back in Ireland?”

Tanith sipped her tea, then put the cup on the saucer and the saucer on the coffee table. “Yeah.”

“Are you in trouble?”

“When am I not?”

“Anything I can do to help?”

Tanith shook her head. “I got myself into this, Val. I’m going to get myself out.”

“How brave,” said Valkyrie. “How noble. How dumb. If I can help, let me help. You have friends.”

“I know I do,” Tanith said, her voice quiet. She let a few seconds go by before speaking again. “Have you heard of Black Sand?”

“Sure,” Valkyrie said. “The terrorist group in Africa.”

Tanith did not appreciate that. “They’re not terrorists, Val. You can’t believe everything the Sanctuaries tell you. They’re a resistance group.”

“And what are they resisting?”

“OK,” Tanith said, shifting slightly, “China wants control of the African and Australian Sanctuaries, right? I mean, that’s fairly obvious.”

“Of course,” said Valkyrie. “She already controls one Cradle of Magic – she’d love to control all three.”

“But she’s not actually doing anything about it, is she? She would like control – but she’s not trying to take control. That would be like declaring war on your allies, and she’s not going to do that.”

“Right.”

“Except she is.”

“Tanith—”

“Just listen. I could get you proof, but this isn’t your fight. I need you to understand why I’m doing what I’m doing. She can’t just take them over, as much as she’d love to, so she’s being sneaky about it. As far as I can tell, she’s focusing on the three African Sanctuaries first. She’s got spies and double agents working in a, quite frankly, bewildering array of schemes designed to usurp the Council of Elders, and replace them with her own people. Then they’ll bow to China as their Supreme Mage, and she can focus her attention on Australia.”

“And Black Sand …?”

“Black Sand are resisting,” Tanith said. “They’re targeting her schemes and disrupting them wherever they can.”

“And you’re involved with them, aren’t you?”

“They needed fighters and I …”

“You needed somewhere to go,” Valkyrie finished.

Tanith looked away. “I was lost,” she said. “With what happened to Ghastly, and Billy-Ray … I couldn’t stick around, you know? I was looking for a fight, and they offered me one.

“But, a few months ago, Sanctuary forces rounded up a load of friends and families of Black Sand members. Innocent people, Val.”

Valkyrie frowned. “They would have been interrogated by Sensitives,” she said. “They can’t be that innocent.”

“They knew what was happening, but they had no part in it. And now the Sanctuaries – who have no idea we’re doing all this for them, to keep them independent – have decided to make an example out of them by sentencing them to thirty years in prison. Each.”

“So you’re here to convince China to release them?”

“No,” said Tanith, “that’d never work, and she wouldn’t be interested anyway. I’m here to offer up the Black Sand leader in exchange for the people they’ve imprisoned.”

“The Black Sand leader,” Valkyrie repeated.

“Yes.”

Valkyrie closed her eyes. “Tanith, please tell me you’re not the Black Sand leader.”

“I can’t exactly do that, Val.”

Valkyrie groaned. She put her cup on the coffee table and leaned forward. “They’ll throw you in prison. Not one of the good ones, either. Ironpoint, maybe, or Coldheart, if it was under Sanctuary control.”

“I know.”

“The other convicts will kill you,” Valkyrie said. “You won’t last a week.”

“Oh, ye of little faith,” Tanith said with an unconvincing smile. “I give myself two, easy.”

“Let me talk to China. Me and Skulduggery. We’ll sort it out.”

“You won’t be able to,” Tanith said. “This is bigger than your friendship with her, Val. You know her. I know her. From her point of view, she’ll have no choice but to be seen as ruthless, and lock me away in the worst prison she has. The fact that she hates me and I hate her will have nothing to do with it. She’s set herself on this course, just like I have.”

Valkyrie blinked. “But … OK, wait, so why are you here? I mean, what’s the plan?”

“I told you the plan.”

“No, you told me the stupid plan where you go to prison. I mean the good plan where all this is taken care of and you stay out of prison.”

“That plan doesn’t exist.”

“Not yet it doesn’t, but that’s because you’ve just come to me about it. I’ll come up with a good plan. Skulduggery will … well, he’ll watch as I come up with a good plan.”

“Skulduggery’s not very good with plans,” Tanith agreed.

“Don’t do this yet,” said Valkyrie. “Promise me that, OK? Give me a little time to think of something.”

“Val, I appreciate the offer, but there’s really nothing you can do.”

“Give me time.”

“Innocent people are in jail cells as we speak.”

“A few more days isn’t going to matter,” Valkyrie said. “It’ll give them time to maybe work out in the yard or something. Start a diet. Make new friends. Don’t rush into this.”

“No one’s rushing, believe me.”

Valkyrie clutched Tanith’s hand. “Help us.”

“Help you what?”

“Help us with this thing,” she said. “This Abyssinia thing. We need all the help we can get. There are bad guys all over the place – more of them than there are of us. Help us with this, and then if your thing hasn’t been sorted or we don’t at least have a good plan, then you can continue with your stupid one.”

“Val …”

“Give me a chance to help you. Please.”

Tanith sighed, and Valkyrie grinned.

Tanith got on her motorbike and rode away, and Valkyrie locked up the house and went to bed, Xena curled up on the floor beside her.

She woke almost two hours later to Xena barking madly at two people stumbling through the bedroom.

Valkyrie sprang out of bed, hands crackling with energy. Her bedroom was not her bedroom. Her bedroom was a town, at night. Cars were on fire. Bodies lay on the streets. Gunshots and screams in the distance. The stumbling figures were the Darkly brothers.

She shook the magic from her hands, and knelt beside the dog. “It’s OK,” she said. “It’s not real. It’s OK.”

Xena stopped barking but kept growling.

The brothers changed direction and the town shifted around Valkyrie, keeping them in view. The effect was dizzying.

She’d seen this before – it was part of a vision of the future she’d had multiple times – but never like this, never focusing on just this one event. Something was different about it. It felt … more real. It felt more urgent.

She knew why. It was closer. It was going to happen, and it was going to happen soon.

Auger was bleeding badly. Omen dragged him on. The people in the helmets and black body armour came after them, guns up, swarming across the road. Professional. Relentless.

They opened fire. Three bullets struck Omen and he went straight down without even crying out, and Auger turned to help him and another burst of bullets sent him spinning.

“Stop,” Valkyrie snarled. “Stop.”

The vision slowed, and then froze.

Valkyrie stood.

This was new. She’d never done this before. She’d never even considered that she could do this.

Xena came forward, too, sniffing at Omen, confused when she detected nothing but empty space.

Valkyrie moved towards the people with the guns, but they were beyond the walls of the bedroom, and, as much as she tried to shift the vision to bring them closer, it wouldn’t budge. She doubted she’d be able to glean anything new from them anyway. They wore no badges, no patches, no identifying markings. The only thing she knew about them was that they were well armed and that they killed teenagers.

The vision flickered. It was breaking down, and giving her a headache while it did so. Grimacing against the pain, she looked around for a clue as to where she was, where this was happening. Was going to happen.

There was a car parked by the side of the road just beyond the wall behind her bed. The vision flickered again.

She just had time to glimpse the licence plate before the vision washed away, leaving her pressed against the wall.

Oregon.

Omen Darkly was going to die in America.

Lunchtime. Omen finished eating, grabbed his bottle of rock shandy and went looking for someone to talk to. Mr Peccant passed and scowled for no reason other than scowling at Omen was what he did. Omen was pretty sure it was becoming Peccant’s favourite hobby.

He found Never on one of the benches in the second-floor corridor, talking to Grey Keller. They laughed, and Grey got up and made another joke, then laughed again as he walked away.

Omen sauntered over, took Grey’s place on the bench and wiggled his eyebrows.

Never frowned at him. “What’s your face doing? It’s weird and I don’t like it.”

“My face is asking you a question,” said Omen. “It’s asking, is there anything going on that I should be aware of?”

“And my answer is, undoubtedly,” Never said. “Like, a serious amount is going on that you should be aware of. Schoolwork is only the beginning of it.”

“I mean about Grey.”

“What about Grey?”

“You and Grey.”

“Oh,” said Never, taking a drink from his bottle of water. “Naw. Grey is lovely and everything, and undeniably cute, but he isn’t interested in me.”

“You want me to talk to him?”

Never looked horrified. “About me? Great googly moogly, no. Why would you even suggest that?”

“I have a few classes with him. We chat occasionally. I could tell him how cool you are.”

“First of all, he knows how cool I am. Everyone knows how cool I am. Look at me. Second, he’s not interested in me because, from what I can tell, he’s not interested in anyone. Being interested in people is just not his thing.”

“Huh,” said Omen. “I wonder what that’s like.”

Never grunted. “I’m sure it has its problems, the same as everything else. Speaking of everything else, any movement in your love life?”

“Not really,” Omen admitted. “I met Aurnia’s boyfriend yesterday.”

“Aurnia …” Never said, squinting. He clicked his fingers. “Mortal girl from Mevolent’s dimension! Got it! Yes, and how was her boyfriend?”

“Large,” said Omen, “and I’m pretty sure he wanted to fight me.”

“Well, he did just meet you, so I can understand the impulse.”

“Oh, cheers for that.”

Never grinned. “Did you puff out your chest and square up to him?”

“No,” Omen said, frowning. “Was I supposed to?”

“Not really. Good boy, Omen. I’m proud of you.”

“I’m not sure what for, but OK.”

A Fifth Year girl whose name Omen didn’t know walked by. She smiled at Never. Never winked back.

Omen frowned. “Is that something I should be aware of?”

“We’re just friends,” Never said casually.

“That was a flirty look she gave you.”

“How would you know?”

“I’ve seen them in movies,” Omen replied, a little defensively.

“You are surprisingly well versed in romantic comedies,” said Never. “But we’re just friends, really. It might lead to something more, or it might not. Whatever.”

Omen sagged. “You’re so lucky.”

“I know,” said Never. “But remind me – how, exactly?”

“You’re bisexual. I wish I was bisexual.”

Never laughed. “Feeling cheated, are we?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, it’s like I’m cutting off half my potential love interests without even thinking about it. If I liked boys as much as I liked girls, I’d at least have the chance to … to … Well, to be turned down by more people. But that’s not the point.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it, Omen. Most sorcerers eventually turn bi because they grow tired of viewing relationships from a traditional, mortal perspective. They gradually allow themselves to be free – the key word being gradually. It just takes a little time.”

“But what if I’m not bi?” Omen asked, keeping his voice low. “What if I’m one of those sorcerers who’s, like, straight or gay their entire lives?”

Never patted his shoulder. “It won’t be so bad. I’ll still invite you to parties.”

“You promise?”

“Omen, I’m going to be having so many parties you won’t know what to do with yourself, and I want you there, standing in the background, maybe handing out canapés. The dream.”

“The dream,” Omen said, and they tapped their bottles together just as the bell rang.

“Aw, crap,” Omen muttered.

“You just remembered what class we have now, didn’t you?”

Omen grumbled in reply, and got up and trudged after Never. They made it to their seats just as Miss Wicked walked in.

Omen liked Miss Wicked. She was scary, but in a good way. Or at least a mostly good way. But this latest module was not proving to be a strong point for him.

The class went quiet before the door had even closed behind her. She went to her desk, turned on her heels and watched them.

Madcap Fenton, a self-proclaimed class clown, stood, a confused expression on his face, and walked to the front of the class and started to write on the board. Omen glanced at Never, then at Auger. They both looked as mystified as Omen felt.

Madcap wrote TELEPATHY and then returned to his seat.

Omen, and everyone else, stared at him. After a moment, Madcap blinked and said, “Whoa.”

Miss Wicked flicked her wrist, and her telescopic pointer shot out to full length. The tip, covered with a tiny rubber ball, quivered mere centimetres from Diana Whist’s eye. Miss Wicked swept her arm back, and tapped the board.

“Telepathy,” she said. “The transmission of information from one person to another via psychic link. This can take the form of images or words or simple feelings – or all three at the same time. Entire conversations can be held and distance is no obstacle. Minds can be read. Secrets can be unlocked. Control can be taken.”

She whipped the pointer away from the board, and levelled it at Madcap. “Why did you write this word?”

“I … I don’t know,” he answered.

“You wrote it because I told you to,” Miss Wicked said. “I entered your mind and I gave you an instruction.”

October Klein’s hand went up, somewhat tentatively. “Excuse me, miss? Isn’t that, like, not allowed?”

Miss Wicked looked at her.

October swallowed, but managed to continue. “Aren’t you supposed to, kind of, ask a student’s permission? Before you enter their mind?”

“You gave me your permission when we began this module,” Miss Wicked said, “or at least your guardians did. Did none of you read the form you took home for them to sign? No one? You disappoint me, class. I thought you were strong, independent individuals. It appears I was mistaken.”

October frowned. “My parents had no right to give permission for something like that.”

“Indeed, they didn’t,” said Miss Wicked. “But they did it anyway, didn’t they? Because until you grow up, take responsibility for yourselves and everything that comes with it – including, but not limited to, reading the small print – then other people are going to continue to make your decisions for you. In this case, they granted me permission to enter your minds for the purposes of this module. Which means I can read your thoughts from the moment you step into this room, and I can do so without warning. So, and I mean this quite sincerely, clean up your thoughts, everyone.”

A blush wave passed over the class, and hit Omen particularly hard. Even Auger took to just staring at his desk.

“We’ll touch on other aspects that a fully rounded Sensitive would need in later modules,” Miss Wicked continued. “You’ll be given the chance to try out telekinesis, pyrokinesis and astral projection. But telepathy is where we begin because telepathy is where the real power lies. Apart from communication, apart from reading somebody’s thoughts and controlling their minds, you can alter an enemy’s memory, take possession of their body, and change their very personality.” She smiled. “What’s throwing a little ball of energy compared to something like that?” She whacked the pointer against her desk. “Pair up. This next hour is going to be interesting.”

Around the corner from Decapitation Row, tucked under an arch, was a charming little café with cakes in the window. It had a bell above the door that tinkled when Valkyrie entered. The place only had five tables, and only one of them was occupied, right at the very back.

Militsa stood as Valkyrie walked over.

“Hey, you,” Valkyrie said, kissing her. “Am I late?”

“Not at all,” Militsa answered.

“Really?”

“Of course you’re late. You’re always late. But that’s all right.”

They sat, and Valkyrie looked around. “I’ve never been here before. Is it good?”

“I have no idea.”

“Hello there,” the waiter said, appearing at their table. He smiled as he handed them the menus. “The soup of the day is leek and potato. Could I get you some drinks to start?”

“I’ll have a glass of still water,” Militsa said.

“Me too,” said Valkyrie.

The waiter smiled again. “Absolutely. Coming right up.”

He gave a little bow, which transformed into a turn, and then he swept away. A little dramatic for a café in the early afternoon, but fair enough.

“How did your meeting with Temper go?” Militsa asked.

“We haven’t had it yet,” Valkyrie said.

“Oh, I thought it was this morning. Any idea what it’s about?”

“None at all. He was being cagey, though.” She shrugged. “I’ll find out soon enough.”

“And then you’re heading off to America?”

Valkyrie nodded. “We shouldn’t be too long. We just have to find this Oberon Guile guy and work out if he’s got anything to do with that missing White House aide. Just a normal day at work, all in all.” She gave Militsa a smile.

Militsa tucked a strand of red hair behind her ear. “Something’s up.”

Valkyrie frowned at her. “How can you tell?”

“You just have that look about you. So what’s on your mind, pretty lady?”

Valkyrie sighed. “Ah, I don’t know. Everything? I’ve got so much going on that it’s hard to keep it all straight.”

“Then tell me what’s uppermost in your mind.”

“Well, I suppose, right now, that would be Omen and Auger. I’m worried about them.”

Militsa leaned forward slightly. “Is this the vision again?”

“I had another one last night. It’s about to happen.”

“Any idea when?”

“Soon. Weeks. Maybe days. Omen’s going to be shot and killed. Auger’s going to be shot. I don’t know what happens after that.”

“Any other details?”

“It happens in America.”

Militsa frowned. “OK, then we make sure they don’t go to America in the next few weeks and boom, lives saved.”

“I don’t think it’s that easy.”

“Of course it is,” Militsa said. “You know better than anyone how much future timelines can change because of the slightest alteration. Actively stopping them from leaving the country? That entire timeline will probably be rewritten just like that.” She clicked her fingers.

“Maybe,” said Valkyrie.

The waiter came back, produced the bottle of water with a flourish, and filled their glasses. “Have you decided what you’d like to order?” he asked.

Valkyrie snatched up the menu. “Oh, sorry, let’s see …”

“Take your time,” said the waiter. “Take all the time you need.”

“How are the wings here?” Militsa asked.

The waiter shrugged. “Fine.”

Militsa smiled. “You don’t sound overly enthused.”

He sighed. “They’re grand. Order them if you want.”

Valkyrie raised an eyebrow.

“OK,” Militsa said slowly. “Then I’ll have the wings, I suppose.”

The waiter made a note.

Valkyrie closed the menu and handed it back to him. “And I’ll have the chicken.”

“What a wonderful choice,” he responded, smiling broadly. He bowed, backed away, turned and disappeared into the kitchen.

“I think he fancies you,” Militsa said.

“Oh, then that’s a wonderful way to impress me, by being rude to my girlfriend.”

“I do like it when you call me that.”

“I know,” Valkyrie said, giving her a smile before getting back to the subject. “So what are the Darkly boys getting up to these days?”

“You don’t know?”

“I haven’t spoken to Omen in weeks.”

“You really should, you know,” said Militsa. This is when the teacher in her came out – when she used that disapproving tone. “He’s such a nice lad, and it’s not really fair that you only check in on him when you’ve wrapped him up in whatever might get him killed next.”

“I don’t only talk to him then,” Valkyrie answered, a little defensively. “I just … I don’t have a reason to talk to him at any other time.”

“Friendliness isn’t a reason?”

“We’re not exactly friends, though, are we? He’s fourteen.”

“Fifteen.”

“When did he turn fifteen?”

“New Year’s Day.”

Valkyrie winced. “You think I should send him a birthday card?”

“Almost two months late? Probably not. And you don’t have to be friends in order to be friendly.”

Valkyrie sighed. “Yeah … maybe. So are you going to tell me how they’ve been?”

“Omen’s struggling with classwork because he doesn’t put in the effort, as per usual, and he’s also trying to figure out what he wants to do with his life. And Auger … Auger’s the Chosen One. He’s off doing Chosen One things, having adventures, risking his life, fighting bad guys …”

“How does the school allow that stuff to keep happening?”

Militsa shrugged. “What choice do we have? Besides, everyone – and I mean the school and his own parents – sees this as a vital part of Auger’s training and development. This is all building up to that momentous day when he’ll have to confront the King of the Darklands.”

“Don’t worry,” said Valkyrie, “we’re keeping an eye out for anything to do with Abyssinia and, if Caisson does graduate from Prince of the Darklands to King, we’ll step in.”

“And do what?”

“And do something incredibly drastic and foolhardy that will alter the future so Auger won’t have to confront anyone.”

“But that’s if you can find Caisson,” Militsa countered. “Unless I’m very much mistaken, Coldheart Prison is still flying about somewhere and none of you lot even know where to look.”

“Finding hijacked prisons is not my job.”

The door opened and a man came into the café. Militsa had her back to the door, but her eyes widened and she sat up straighter.

“Death,” she whispered.

Valkyrie reached forward, patting her hand. “It’s OK,” she said. “There’s no danger. It’s just a vampire.”

The vampire walked over. Dark-haired, with delicate features, and a thin scar running down one side of his face. He stopped beside their table. His tone was quiet. “Please forgive the intrusion.”

“It’s been a while,” Valkyrie said. “Militsa, this is Dusk. He’s tried to kill me a few times, and he bit me once. I didn’t turn into a vampire, though. Obviously. We’re cool now, though. I think. Aren’t we cool?”

“We are,” Dusk said, “cool.”

Militsa smiled up at him. “Hello.”

“Hello,” said Dusk. “Valkyrie, even though we are … cool … I feel I must apologise for my past behaviour.”

“You’re here to say sorry?”

“No,” said Dusk, “but I am making amends for my mistakes, and I take my opportunities when I can.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Valkyrie said. “I mean, who hasn’t tried to kill me, really?”

A tight smile. “That may indeed be the case, but when we first met I was undergoing a process for which we vampires don’t have a name.”

“Oooh,” Militsa said, and then blushed.

Dusk looked uncomfortable, and Valkyrie frowned. “What? What is it?”

“I’ve … I’ve heard of this,” Militsa said. She winced at Dusk. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologise to him,” said Valkyrie. “He tried to kill me, remember?”

Militsa leaned forward and kept her voice low. “For roughly three or four weeks every year, a vampire’s human side will become dominant. It’s, uh, something they don’t like to talk about.”

“In polite society,” said Dusk.

Valkyrie folded her arms. “So your human side was dominant when we first met? Then why were you so intent on murdering me?”

Dusk hesitated to answer. Instead, he looked at Militsa.

She cleared her throat. “Vampires are rather cold creatures, both physically and … emotionally. If Mr Dusk was intent on murdering you, like you say, then that was probably due more to his human side than his vampire side.”

“Seriously?” Valkyrie said. “The worst thing about a vampire is his humanity?”

“I’m afraid so,” said Dusk.

“Wow,” Valkyrie said. “That’s depressing for pretty much all of the human race.”

“I was wondering if I could have a word with you,” said Dusk. “In private, if you don’t mind. It will not take long, I assure you.”

Militsa stood. “I have to pee,” she announced, and walked away.

Valkyrie motioned to the chair, and Dusk sat. “What’s on your mind?” she asked.

“A gentleman came to see me,” he said. “He said his name was Caisson.”

Valkyrie sat up straighter. “You’re working with Abyssinia?”

“No,” Dusk answered. “I stay out of human affairs as much as possible. The Supreme Mage uses me and my fellow vampires when she needs us, but by and large she – and, by extension, the City Guards – leaves our district alone. I like this arrangement. I do not wish to see it change.”

“Then why did Caisson go to see you?”

“He came to see me because he heard of our interactions, and he wants to see you,” Dusk said. “He asked me to pass on the message.”

“Why does he want to see me?”

“I do not know.”

“Why does he think I’d say yes?”

“He merely stated that you two are not actually enemies, so you have no reason not to.”

“Huh,” said Valkyrie. He had a point.

“He would like to meet you at ten a.m. on Saturday, in the Fangs. The directions are written here.” He slid her a folded piece of paper. “Naturally, he would expect you to come alone.”

“Naturally.”

He stood. “I apologise again for my behaviour in the past.”

“Well … I suppose I’m sorry for, you know …” She indicated his face.

Dusk smiled. “My scar is hardly your fault. I blame Billy-Ray Sanguine and that straight razor of his, the scars from which never fade.”

Valkyrie showed him the palm of her right hand. “Believe me, I know.”

Dusk nodded to her, and turned to leave.

“What did you see?” she asked suddenly.

He stopped moving.

“When you bit me,” she said. “You told Billy-Ray Sanguine that you saw something in my blood. He said it was punishment enough. What was it?”

Dusk’s response was slow. Measured. “It is perhaps best if you do not know.”

She laughed. “Well, that’s not going to work.”

“There are secrets we hide, Valkyrie, even from ourselves. We need to, in order to survive this world.”

“Seriously? Even now, after Darquesse, after all that? You’re saying there’s something worse?”

“I will tell you if you truly wish to know. But I advise against it. Strongly.”

Valkyrie had to smile. “There’s really not a whole lot left that could upset me.”

He looked at her. “Take some time. In a few days, if you still believe you should know, come and find me. I’ll tell you what I saw.”

The waiter came over before Valkyrie could respond, and Dusk took that opportunity to leave. The waiter dumped Militsa’s plate on her side, then gently laid Valkyrie’s in front of her.

“There you go,” he said warmly. “Have your friends left?”

“My girlfriend is just in the bathroom.”

His smile widened. “In that case, can I just say, and I hope I’m not being out of line here or anything, that I am a huge, huge fan. The idea that I’m even talking to you right now is blowing my mind.”

“Right,” said Valkyrie.

“Could I be incredibly cheeky and ask you to sign an autograph for me? Is that terrible? It’s probably terrible.” He put his notebook and pen into her hands and waited there, still beaming.

Militsa retook her seat. The waiter ignored her. She did her best not to laugh.

“Sure,” Valkyrie said reluctantly. “Who’ll I make it out to?”

“Haecce. H A E C C E. Thank you.”

“To Haecce,” she murmured as she wrote.

He peered at what she was writing. “And could you maybe sign it Darquesse?”

The pen stopped. Valkyrie looked up. “I don’t do that.”

“Aw, just this once!”

She closed the notebook, held it out for him. “I don’t do that,” she repeated.

His smile faded. “I’m just asking you to write your name.”

“That isn’t her name,” Militsa said.

“Are we talking to you?” the waiter said angrily.

Valkyrie was out of her seat before she knew what was happening and the waiter was bent backwards over a table with her hand on his throat and energy burning behind her eyes. She became aware of Militsa tugging at her, trying to pull her back.

She released her hold and the waiter slipped sideways and fell off the table, sending chairs crashing into each other.

“We’ll eat somewhere else,” Militsa told him as he tried to right himself. “We’re not paying for this food, by the way. You can explain that to your manager. Also, you’re not getting a tip. I always tip, because I appreciate floor staff and kitchen staff, and I realise that, generally, you’re not paid an awful lot, but you’re getting nothing this time. I think you know why. Sweetie, shall we take our leave?”

“Yeah,” Valkyrie said quietly. “Let’s go.”

Militsa linked arms with her, and marched her out on to the street.

Once they were out of view, Militsa stopped and turned. “Are you OK?” she asked. “You don’t usually fly off the handle like that.”

“I’m good,” said Valkyrie. “I’m fine. Just … just got a little angry.”

Militsa hugged her. “Want to go somewhere else? I still have half an hour left of my break. Are you still hungry? What do you want?”

“I want a muffin,” Valkyrie mumbled into her shoulder.

“My baby wants a muffin,” Militsa said, “my baby gets a muffin. Come on.” They started walking. “So what did tall, dead and handsome want to talk to you about?”

Valkyrie smiled. “‘Tall, dead and handsome’. That’s good.”

“Isn’t it? I thought of it when I was peeing.”

“You’re very clever.”

“I am a teacher.”

They walked on, looking for somewhere that sold muffins.

Temper Fray left his sword and his City Guard uniform in his locker and dressed in civilian clothes for the meeting. He slipped his badge into his back pocket and his gun into the holster beneath his jacket. If there was one good thing about winter, it gave cops like him a good excuse to wear bulky coats.

He took the tram across the city. He liked the tram. It was smooth, efficient and good for the environment. Just like him.

He grinned to himself. That was funny.

The store where he’d arranged to meet the guy was called The Cabinet of Curiosities. If it had existed in any mortal city around the world, it would have been one of those weird little shops that attracted only the most discerning customer, those with dark sensibilities pursuing arcane delights.

But, because it was in Roarhaven, it was just another store that sold magical junk.

Temper nodded to the guy behind the counter and walked to the back, where an over-the-hill surfer type with shaggy hair was trying on lacquered masks over his sunglasses. When he saw Temper coming, he tried to stuff the masks on to a nearby shelf. One of them fell, hit the floor and broke into two pieces.

“Awwwwwww,” the surfer said.

“Adam Brate?” Temper asked.

“Yeah,” Brate said, eyes still on the broken pieces. “Aw, man.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Temper said quickly. “I’ll pay for the damage.”

“That’s a Necromancer ceremonial mask,” Brate responded. “It’s worth more than my house.”

“In that case, let’s talk over here,” Temper said, and led the way to the far corner. “You know who I am.”

“Yeah, dude, I know who you are. Of course I do. I mean, I got in touch with you, didn’t I? You’re the traitor.”

Temper let that one slide. “I guess I am.”

“That’s, uh, that’s why I called. I figured you’d understand the, well, the implications of what I have to tell you.”

“Sounds ominous.”

“Oh, it is,” said Brate. “I mean, I think it is. I don’t have the full story, and you’ll certainly know more about this than I do, but … but I had to tell someone. For years, I’ve been … I mean, I have been devout, you know? My family have worshipped the Faceless Ones, we’ve gone to church, we’ve done the prayers, the offerings, read the Book of Tears …”

“I’ve got some friends coming,” Temper said. “They’ll want to hear this, too.”

Brate frowned. “What friends?”

“Trusted friends. Don’t worry, you’re quite safe with them.”

“I don’t know, man. I find it very hard to trust people. I’m a naturally paranoid person, you know?” He spun suddenly. “What the hell is that?”

“That’s a wall, Adam.”

“Oh,” said Brate, calming down. “Sorry. I’ve also taken a buttload of drugs over my lifetime? So I kinda see things that aren’t really there?”

“Good to know. Ah, here are my friends now.”

Brate turned as Skulduggery and Valkyrie walked in.

“That’s … that’s Skulduggery Pleasant.”

“Yes,” said Temper.

“That’s Skulduggery Pleasant and Valkyrie Cain.”

“It is.”

“Oh, I don’t know about this,” said Brate. “I don’t know. I mean, these guys … Trouble follows these guys around, you know? I don’t wanna get killed, man.”

“You won’t.”

They came over, and Temper nodded to them. “Skulduggery, Valkyrie, this is the gentleman I asked you here to meet.”

Brate stuck out his hand. Skulduggery shook it. “Dude. Adam Brate’s my name. I know who you are, of course, and I’ve waited a long time for this moment.”

Skulduggery tilted his head. “Is that so?”

“You have no idea, man. No idea at all. I just need someone to take me seriously, you know? Someone to believe me. I’ve been warning people about this for years, but no one has listened. Now, after all this time, I have the three of you.” He switched his attention to Valkyrie, shook her hand vigorously. “I feel like I know you already, I really do. Oh, hey, I apologise for wearing the sunglasses, you know? Not making eye contact? See, I’m in disguise. I think it’s safer for me if you don’t know who I am.”

Valkyrie frowned. “But you just told us your name.”

Brate stopped shaking her hand. “Aw, hell.”

“Adam has some important information to share,” Temper said quickly. “That’s what you told me, right, Adam? Why don’t we get down to business?”

“Yeah, man,” said Brate, “OK. Well. I’m … I was telling Temper here that I am, or I was, up until recently, a devout member of the Church of the Faceless. My family, back in California, were fanatical, and that’s how I was raised. I kinda drifted away in my adult years, but a few years ago the True Teachings were introduced, and I came back.”

Valkyrie frowned. “The True Teachings?”

“Peace and love,” said Brate. “The idea that the Faceless Ones were bringers of warmth and harmony instead of, you know, oppression and death.”

“Ah,” said Valkyrie. “You’re talking about the Great Pivot.”

“Am I?”

“It’s what we call it,” Skulduggery said. “The Church needed to soften its philosophies in order to be allowed to practise, and suddenly they were all about sweetness and light.”

Brate seemed a bit put out by that. “That’s a … that’s a cynical way to view what happened, man. Warmth and harmony have always been part of what the Faceless Ones promised us.”

“Providing we worship them,” Skulduggery said.

“Well, yeah,” said Brate. “But that’s the same with all religions, right? Obey our rules, worship our gods, and you’ll be rewarded, and the non-believers will burn in whatever hell we imagine there to be.”

“I think we’re getting a little sidetracked here,” said Temper.

“Yeah, sorry,” Brate said. “My thoughts and feelings towards my religion are not actually relevant to what I have to say. I don’t think they are anyway. I dunno. I’m conflicted. But I have to do what I think is right.”

Temper hoped his smile was both patient and reassuring. “Why did you bring us here, Adam?”

“Arch-Canon Creed,” said Brate, squaring his shoulders. “He’s resumed his search for the Child of the Faceless Ones.”

Temper’s chin dipped to his chest. “Damn.”

“I’m sorry,” Valkyrie said. “The search for who?”

“The Child of the Faceless Ones,” said Brate. “The offspring. The heir.”

Valkyrie frowned. “The Faceless Ones had a kid?”

“Temper,” Skulduggery said, “do you want to take this?”

“I guess,” Temper muttered. He took a breath before speaking again. “OK, so, according to the legends, back when the Faceless Ones ruled the earth, before the Ancients rose up against them, they didn’t need human vessels. Back then, for whatever reason, they could survive in this reality in their true forms. But then the Ancients did something to turn the environment inhospitable, and, from that point on, the Faceless Ones needed to possess human bodies.”

Valkyrie nodded. “I’ve seen that happen. Continue.”

“The vessels didn’t exactly last too long, so most of the time the bodies would burn themselves out and the Faceless Ones would vacate them, move on to the next, and then the next, leaving a trail of burnt-out corpses behind. But sometimes they vacated the body before it burned out, and, if that happened, the person would return to normal.”

“I‘ve understood all of this so far,” Valkyrie said. “This is good. Go on.”

“So we’re left with a few ex-vessels getting back to their old lives,” said Temper, “and, for the most part, everything is the same – except for the slight alteration that has been made to their DNA. Nothing obvious. Nothing that changes their appearance or behaviour, nothing that changes their personalities. Nothing to mark them out. These ex-vessels have children, and pass on this particular strain of DNA. Generation after countless generation. We emerge from the mists of time, venture into recorded history, and still we go on. Generation after generation.”

Valkyrie frowned. “So there are people out there, in the world, with Faceless Ones DNA? Seriously?”

Temper nodded. “And Arch-Canon Creed wants to find them.”

“One, actually,” Skulduggery interjected.

“Yes,” said Temper. “He’s looking for one in particular.”

“To do what?” Valkyrie asked.

“Bring about the end of the world,” said Brate, eager to get involved in the conversation again. “Call the Faceless Ones back, man. Have them wipe the earth clean and allow their disciples to live in ecstasy for all eternity – while the rest of you heathens burn and die.” His smile faltered. “Which is, obviously, not cool.”

Valkyrie stood there with her hands on her hips – one of those hips cocked. “How many?” she asked. “How many people are out there who are, you know, actually descended from insane supergods?”

“It’s estimated that one in seven people carry this particular strand of DNA,” said Temper.

Valkyrie stared at him. “That’s … that’s, like, a billion people. There are a billion people with Faceless Ones genes walking around? Well … Jesus. I mean, how do we stop Creed from finding them?”

“Oh,” said Temper, “he’s already found them.”

“What?”

“He found thousands of them before his experiments were shut down. Tens of thousands. More, probably. He’d been conducting experiments for centuries. We didn’t have the terminology we do now, but essentially what he was doing, even back then, was Activating these latent genes. There’s someone out there, statistically there has to be, with a strong enough DNA strand to become the Child of the Faceless Ones. Once they’re Activated, they’ll be able to call their cousins home. Creed just hasn’t found the right subject.”

“And what happened to all the people he’s experimented on?”

“We call them the Kith,” said Skulduggery. “Creed Activated their genes, which led to a certain transformation. Their faces were … lost.”

“Lost?” Valkyrie echoed.

“They melted away,” said Temper. “They were left with, I don’t know, smoothness. No hair, no features, no eyes or ears, no mouth. And, from what we could tell, their minds were wiped. After they were Activated, they didn’t need to eat or drink. They didn’t communicate. They just … stood there. Some of my best friends are still standing in a bunker somewhere.”

“Your friends?”

Temper smiled weakly. “I was a Disciple. You knew that already, right?”

“Pretty much.”

“I followed Creed. I was young, and stupid, and I needed somewhere to belong. Out of all my friends, he said I was one of his favourites. This gene had been detected in us, and it was strong. We were prime specimens. Creed would Activate others, develop this technique or that approach, and then take what he’d learned and apply it to us, one by one. He failed, over and over again. Like I said, my friends … I watched them being led away, excited at the possibility of being turned into the Child of the Faceless Ones. Next time I saw them, they’d be standing in a row, without a face, and the Activations and the experiments would continue. So I left. I renounced it all and ran.”

“Years later, in order to take over the Church,” Skulduggery said, “Creed had to prove that he’d left his old ways behind. No more Activations. No more Kith.”

“But he’s doing it again,” said Brate. “This Religious Freedom Act that was passed last year? It’s letting him get away with more and more.”

“Where is it happening?” Skulduggery asked. “If we can catch him in the act, or at the very least find some of these new Kith, Supreme Mage Sorrows will have all she needs to have Creed arrested.”

“We wouldn’t arrest him ourselves?” Valkyrie asked.

“We could, but for something like this, something this big, it would be wise to have the support of the Sanctuaries.”

“I don’t know that I can be of any, like, assistance, man,” said Brate. “I don’t know where the latest Activations are taking place. It might be in the Dark Cathedral; it could be in a whole different country. The Church of the Faceless, they got, like, places everywhere.”

“Can you poke around?” Temper asked. “Nothing too aggressive. Just chat to people. See what they think. No one in the Church will speak to me any more, and they certainly won’t speak to these two.”

“He has a point,” said Skulduggery. “Adam, we need to make this quite clear – we are not asking you to put yourself in any danger. We’re not even asking you to be a spy. We’re asking you to have a few casual conversations with people who might know something. Do you understand?”

“I understand, man,” said Brate. “So do I need, like, a code name?”

“I don’t think you understand.”

“No, I get it, I do.”

“OK.”

“But …”

“No.”

“But,” Brate continued, “I think a code name might be a good idea. Like … Condor. Or Rattlesnake. Or, uh …”

“You won’t need a code name because you’re not a spy,” Valkyrie told him.

“I could wear a disguise.”

“No.”

“I’m really good with disguises. I bet if I wore a disguise you wouldn’t even recognise me. I’m not talking about sunglasses, even. I’m talking about a proper, full-on disguise. Like a moustache, or something.”

“You don’t need a disguise,” said Valkyrie, “because you’ll be chatting to people who already know you. They wouldn’t chat to you if they didn’t recognise you, would they?”

“Ah. Yeah. I guess not.”

“Maybe this isn’t a good idea,” Skulduggery murmured.

“No, dude,” Brate said quickly. “I can do it. I can. I won’t mess it up. No one has ever believed in me. No one has ever trusted me with something this important. No one has ever trusted me with anything, man. But you guys do. You guys see something in me. Potential, maybe. True courage, perhaps. A steely-eyed determination, no doubt. I will not let you down. Skulduggery, Valkyrie and Temper – you’re, like, my Three Musketeers, you know? And I would be honoured to be your d’Artagnan in this time of need.”

Temper looked at Skulduggery, and Skulduggery looked at Valkyrie, and Valkyrie looked fed up.

“Fine,” she said. “You can be our d’Artagnan.”

“One for all!” Brate cheered.

“Don’t do that,” said Skulduggery.

“Sorry.”

“Empty your mind,” Miss Wicked said, and someone muttered, “That was fast.”

Omen grinned as the class chuckled. Everyone shut up quickly and Omen knew that Miss Wicked had just used one of her glares. He couldn’t see it, of course. He was too busy sitting there with his eyes closed.

He heard them all around him. The shuffling of feet. The creaking of desks. The entire class was watching Auger and him sitting opposite each other, trying to speak to each other without making a sound.

All he had to do was concentrate, Miss Wicked had said. Focus. Twins had a higher chance than most of getting this right. For once, Omen could be ahead of everyone else. If he could just manage this one simple thing.

Oh, God. He wasn’t concentrating. He was thinking too much.

He stopped thinking.

Stopped.

It wasn’t easy.

Every time he tried to stop thinking, it was like a thousand thoughts were knocking on the door of his mind, screaming to be let in.

He was doing it again. He was thinking about his thoughts. Dammit. OK. He was definitely going to stop now. Definitely.

Was Miss Wicked reading his thoughts right now? Was she checking on him? No. That could interfere with what they were trying to do. She wouldn’t do that. He hoped she wasn’t doing that. He hoped.

But what if she was?

So many thoughts about her, so many images, getting worse, filling his mind, one after the other, an unstoppable flow of images and thoughts and—

Take a breath.

She wasn’t reading his mind. Relax. Focus. Empty the mind.

Empty as a tin can. An empty tin can, not a tin can full of peas or something. Maybe it once had peas, but now it didn’t have anything. It was just—

That wasn’t working.

Not a can, then. A box. A box was better. An empty box. Obviously, an empty box. Maybe it had once been full, but now it was empty. Maybe it had been full of cans of peas.

Peas again. Why peas? Why was he thinking of—

OMEN!

Omen shrieked and fell out of his chair.

He hit the floor, eyes open, and Auger stood up, a delighted smile on his face.

“You heard that, right?” Auger asked. “You heard that?”

“I … I heard it,” said Omen.

“That was so cool,” Auger said, pulling him to his feet. “It was like there was a tunnel between us. Did you feel it?”

“Well done, gentlemen,” Miss Wicked said. “Auger, you spoke to Omen. Omen, did you answer?”

Omen hesitated.

“I think he was about to,” Auger said quickly. “I could feel him about to say something, but I think I did something wrong and I broke the link.”

“Is that so?” Miss Wicked murmured. “Omen, do you think you could re-establish that link?”

“Probably not,” he said.

“Could you try?”

“I … suppose.”

There was a knock on the door. Kase poked his head in.

“Miss Wicked, excuse me,” he said, “but could I, uh … Auger and Never are needed in the … the, um … They’re needed.”

Miss Wicked raised an eyebrow. “Are they now?”

Kase nodded. “Urgently. Please, miss.”

She sighed. “Auger, Never – it would appear that you’re needed elsewhere. I trust you won’t be long.”

“We’ll try not to be,” said Auger, suddenly all business, and the class watched as he followed Never out of the door.

They all knew what was going on. There was something happening, something terrible and something dangerous, and only Auger Darkly and his friends could stop it and save the day. The rest of them had to just sigh with envy and get back to work.

Except Omen didn’t really sigh with envy any more. He’d been in the thick of the action and he didn’t really want to be there again. Saving the day, in his experience, usually meant a lot of running and quite a bit of hiding, with some really scary bits in between. He was fifteen years old and in school. He had enough running, hiding and scary bits as it was.

Valkyrie roamed the halls of Corrival Academy, listening to the voices that rumbled behind the classroom doors. She wondered how differently she’d have turned out if this place had been around when she was a teenager. Maybe it would have steered her clear of the trouble that had lain ahead of her. Maybe it would have made things worse. Maybe she would have made some friends her own age. That would have been weird.

She’d tried to get Skulduggery to come with her to talk to Omen while they waited for Fletcher to become available. He’d tilted his head, told her he had someone else to talk to, but wouldn’t tell her who, and strode away.

She’d shrugged and walked in the opposite direction. For all she knew, he didn’t have anyone to talk to and he was just being mysterious. Probably hiding in a toilet cubicle somewhere, waiting for the time to pass.

The thought amused Valkyrie for a brief moment, because the truth was she was quietly happy that he’d gone off.

There were a lot of things she hadn’t got round to telling him yet, but the idea that she should let him know about her upcoming meeting with Caisson was pulling on her thoughts.

But no – as awful as it was to keep something from him, she couldn’t risk him scaring Caisson away. There was a part of Valkyrie that wanted to spring a trap on him herself – having Caisson in shackles would bring Abyssinia to her knees – but if there was even the slightest chance that meeting with Caisson could offer a solution to everything that had been going on …

Besides, as Dusk had mentioned, Caisson wasn’t actually an enemy. As far as Valkyrie knew, Caisson had done nothing wrong. In fact, he could conceivably be labelled a hero. He did kill Mevolent all those years ago, after all.

So she was going to keep it a secret, for just a little while longer. She’d tell Skulduggery afterwards. He’d understand – she was sure of it.

Militsa had told her where to go, so when the bell rang she was standing right outside Omen’s classroom. They came out, the chattering youth, and their eyes widened as they passed her. Some stared in wonder, others in fear.

Yeah, she could understand that.

And then Omen was there, standing in front of her. He’d grown taller since she’d seen him last.

“Happy birthday,” she said.

He looked puzzled. “Thank you?”

“I was just passing so I thought I’d drop by, see how you’re doing.”

“You … you dropped by to see me?”

“Well, we’re waiting until Fletcher – that’s Mr Renn to you – can take us somewhere, but yeah, I came to see you while I wait. Is that OK?”

“Sure,” Omen said. “I’m just … surprised.”

“Why? We’re friends, aren’t we?”

He blinked. “Are we?”

“Aren’t we?”

“I mean, yes, OK, we can be friends, sure.”

“Good.” They started walking. The crowds parted for them. “So how are things?”

“Great,” Omen said. “Yeah, great. Just … great.”

“Girlfriends? Boyfriends?”

“Neither.”

“Pets?”

“None.”

“You getting nervous about the exams?”

“They’re not till June.”

“You should do what I did – get a reflection to do the studying for you and then absorb all the information afterwards. Or just get the reflection to sit the exams.”

“Yeah, that’d be cool. But we’re not allowed. They have ways of stopping reflections from helping us with that stuff.”

“So you have to do all the work yourself?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, that sucks.”

“It really does.”

They walked on.

“How’s Never?” Valkyrie asked.

“Good. Spending a lot of time with Auger and the others.”

“A good Teleporter is hard to find,” she said. “Do you ever join them on their adventures?”

Omen gave a little smile. “No. That’s not for me, I don’t think.”

Valkyrie raised an eyebrow. “This is a change.”

“I just don’t think I’m any good at it, really. I’m not like Auger, and I’m not like you. You guys are special, and determined, and all those cool things, and I’m just … ordinary.”

“Nothing wrong with being ordinary, Omen.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“So,” Valkyrie said, figuring she’d skipped round the subject long enough, “any plans?”

“Plans?”

“To go away anywhere.”

“Like holiday plans? Um, no. It’s the school term, and …”

“Of course,” said Valkyrie. “Of course. Hey, can you do me a favour? Can you stay out of trouble?”

“Sorry?”

“Trouble,” she said. “If you could stay out of it, that would be great.”

“What trouble am I in?”

“None,” she said.

“So … what trouble am I going to be in?”

She laughed. “None! Wow, you are paranoid!”

“I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking me to do.”

Valkyrie turned to him. “OK, look. There’s something going on. A case. It’s got something to do with America, or, at the very least, Americans.”

He looked doubtful. “Do you need my help?”

“No. In fact, we need the opposite.”

“You need my … hindrance?”

“We need you to stay out of it.”

This was puzzling Omen. That was plain to see. “But I’m not in it,” he said. “I don’t know anything about it. This is the first I’m hearing of it. I don’t even know what it is.”

“I realise that this might be confusing.”

“Oh, good. I was worried.”

“But I need you to promise me.”

“I … I promise,” he said. “Can I ask a question, though?”

“No.”

“Just one.”

“If you know anything at all about it,” Valkyrie said, “telling you might involve you, and we don’t want that, do we?”

“I suppose not.”

“You just focus on having a boring, ordinary few weeks, and I’ll explain it all to you when it’s over, deal?”

“I … suppose so.”

She smiled. Finally, she’d done something right. “OK then, buddy. You’d better get back to class.”

“School’s over.”

“Oh,” she said. “Don’t you usually have detention, or something?”

He sagged. “Yeah,” he said, and trudged off.

Valkyrie knocked on the staffroom door.

Militsa opened it, and grinned. “Well, this is a lovely surprise! My girlfriend’s come to pick me up from work!”

Valkyrie winced. “Actually, I’m here to see Fletcher.”

“No!” Militsa gasped, clutching her heart. “Mr Renn! Are you trying to sneak away with my woman?”

“I’ll win her back if it’s the last thing I do!” Fletcher warbled from somewhere Valkyrie couldn’t see.

Militsa grinned again, and gave Valkyrie a peck on the cheek. “He’ll be with you in a second,” she said. “I’ve got some students that need extra tutoring, though, so I shall see you tomorrow, my petal.”

“Yes, you will,” said Valkyrie, giving her a squeeze before she let her walk away.

The door opened further and Fletcher stood there with his ridiculous hair. “Hey,” he said.

“Hey.”

“Haven’t seen you in a while. Is it just you?”

Valkyrie shook her head. “Skulduggery will be here once he’s stopped being mysterious.”

“Fair enough,” Fletcher said, ushering her into the otherwise empty staffroom. “You want anything? We’re out of tea, but I can make you a coffee.”

“Ha, no thanks. I’ve heard about the coffee here. So how are things going? How’s life?”

“Ticking along,” he said. “And actually, now that you’re here … I have a question.”

“OK.”

He hesitated. “So … we dated.”

“Yes, we did.”

“We had fun.”

“Loads of fun.”

“You were my first serious girlfriend.”

“And you were my first serious boyfriend.”

“It didn’t end too well.”

“This is true.”

“You kind of cheated on me.”

“Not my proudest moment.”

“With a vampire.”

“Which turned out to be a huge mistake.”

Fletcher nodded. “It’s good of you to acknowledge that.”

“Haven’t we been over this, though?” Valkyrie asked. “I’m pretty sure I apologised about a million times.”

“Three times,” Fletcher corrected.

“Is that all?”

“I counted.”

“Three times seems … less than I remember.”

“Well, that’s how many it was.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” She smiled. “I feel like you’re skirting round a subject, however, and it’s not about Caelan the sulky vampire.”

“Did I, um … did I turn you gay?”

Valkyrie laughed. Really, really laughed. She hadn’t laughed like that in a long time.

“No,” she said when she’d finished. “No, you didn’t, you muppet.”

“Because you never indicated that you were, you know, interested in girls when we were dating.”

“I don’t see why I would have.”

“Well, yeah,” said Fletcher, “but … like, is this a new thing? I mean, I’m thrilled for you, I really am. Militsa is so cool and so, so nice. I’m happy you’re happy, basically. But did you … was there an awakening or …?”

“Wow,” said Valkyrie. “An awakening.”

“I don’t really know what I’m trying to say.”

“Do you want me to sit you down and go through it all?”

Fletcher brightened. “Would you?”

“No,” said Valkyrie. “I liked boys. And I appreciated how girls looked, but they never really registered with me in that way until I got a bit older.”

“So there was no big bombshell moment when you realised?”

“Not really. Just a growing certainty.”

“And is Militsa your first—”

“Not going to go into too much detail, Fletch.”

“Right, yes, of course. Boundaries.”

She smiled. “I have no boundaries, you should know that by now. But I’m not going to go into detail because Skulduggery’s just arrived.”

“Ah,” said Fletcher, and turned to Skulduggery, standing in the doorway. “Skulduggery, I know you don’t indulge in small talk, so all I’ll ask is: where do you need to go?”

“Seattle,” Skulduggery said.

“Seattle,” Fletcher repeated, clapping his hands. “Home to Nirvana, Soundgarden and Jimi Hendrix. I can take you to the site of the first Starbucks, which is no longer there, or the Space Needle, which is still there, or the airport. Which is still there, too.”

“We’ll need to rent a car,” Skulduggery said, “so the airport would be handier.”

“You got it,” said Fletcher, and narrowed his eyes.

After a moment, Valkyrie asked, “Is everything OK?”

“I’ve been trying to do what Nero does,” Fletcher said. “He doesn’t need to be in physical contact with other people in order to teleport with them. I can’t seem to figure out how he does it, though.”

“Nero’s a Neoteric,” Skulduggery said. “That means even he doesn’t know how he does it. You should stick to the old-fashioned method.” He put his hand on Fletcher’s shoulder. “It’s what you do best.”

Fletcher looked at his hand, then smiled. “Thanks, Skulduggery. Your support means a lot to me.”

“I’m just waiting for you to teleport.”

“Oh,” Fletcher said, and Valkyrie laughed at him.

Fletcher took them to Sea-Tac Airport and then teleported away, leaving them to rent a car. There was snow on the ground, turned to brown mud by the side of the roads. Once they were driving, Valkyrie was able to tell Skulduggery about Tanith’s arrival, and Alice’s hamster, and the rerun of the vision about Omen and Auger.

She didn’t tell him about Caisson, though. She was going to keep that to herself until after their meeting.

“I’ve been having this vision since before Abyssinia returned,” she said, “and not a whole lot about it has changed. Auger’s still injured. Omen still dies.”

“The more information we get about it, the better our chances of averting it,” Skulduggery responded. “The latest detail you picked up was that it happens here, in America – possibly in Oregon. It stands to reason – though I make no assumptions – that what we are investigating now is somehow linked to what happens to the Darkly brothers in an indeterminate amount of time. So I would suggest that we continue as we are, and learn as much as we can about what’s going on.”

“But we’ve got so many things going on,” Valkyrie countered. “We’ve got Alice’s soul to heal, President Flanery’s missing aide to investigate and now we have Temper’s melty-face people to find.”

“Kith.”

“Melty-face people is more descriptive. My point is, we can’t do everything.”

“Of course we can,” Skulduggery said. “We’re Arbiters. We’re detectives. We have incredible bone structure.”

“All that is undeniable, but aren’t we in danger of missing something if we have all these different things calling out for our attention? I don’t want to lose a chance to find Doctor Nye because we’re chasing down a lead on Flanery’s assistant.”

He shook his head. “Flitting between investigations will keep us sharp, and prevent us from developing tunnel vision. It’s a good thing to be so busy.”

“I told Omen to stay out of America for the next few weeks,” Valkyrie said. “Do you think that was a good idea?”

“Yes.”

“OK.”

“Unless by telling him to stay out of America you’ve inadvertently set him on a collision course with the events you saw in your vision.”

“Oh, God. Do you think I have?”

“Probably not.”

“Phew.”

“But maybe.”

“Skulduggery, I swear to God …”

They turned right at a junction. “When it comes to visions of the future, we can’t know anything,” he said. “We could continue on exactly as we are and not one thing you saw will actually come true. Or we could second-guess every decision we make from now until then, and the future would happen just as you foresaw. From what we know, there are an infinite amount of possible futures that stem from any given moment. Sensitives can glimpse one of these possible futures, but there’s no way of knowing how close it is to what will eventually transpire.”

Valkyrie let his words soak in. They didn’t make her feel any better. In fact, they made her glum. Which in turn made her wonder.

“Am I as much fun as I used to be?” she suddenly asked.

“No,” Skulduggery said immediately.

She shot him a look. “You could have taken a little more time to think about it.”

“You’ve had a lot on your mind for the last thirteen years,” he responded. “First you found out that your uncle had been murdered, then you had to help save the world, then you met some transdimensional supergods, after which you found out that you were this Darquesse person that all the Sensitives were so worried about. Then you thought you were going to be the Death Bringer, then Darquesse emerged, and then she took over your body, and then you died, and then you had to fight her, and then you were in America for five years to recover, and now you’ve come back and you’ve had to rescue your sister from a serial killer who blamed you for the death of his serial-killer apprentice, and now this whole thing with Alice’s soul … But I think there was maybe a three-week gap somewhere in there, before things got too serious, when you were what could be considered fun.”

She grunted. “We’ve been busy.”

“Yes, we have.”

“And do you think I’ve become too … serious?”

“It’s a serious world.”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

“You’re as serious as you need to be,” said Skulduggery. “And you’re as flippant as you need to be. It’s a balancing act. If you tip too far one way or the other, you fall off the wire. People like us, Valkyrie, it’s our purpose in life to walk that wire.”

She nodded, and looked out of the window. “I don’t think I’m as happy as I used to be.”

“It would astonish me if you were.”

“I’ve got issues. About everything that’s happened. I think I need to talk to someone.”

“You can talk to me.”

She smiled. “Thank you. But I think I have to talk to someone else. You’re … I don’t mean this in a bad way, but—”

“But I’m a part of the problem,” Skulduggery said.

“Yes. Sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m a bad influence, and I always have been. You need a professional. China has a few on her staff at the High Sanctuary.”

Valkyrie looked at him. “I might make an appointment, so.”

He nodded. “That’s probably a good idea.”

“Would you ever consider it?”

He flicked the indicator and they overtook a slow-moving truck. “I’m too far gone, I’m afraid,” he said. “I have my demons, but they work to keep each other in check at all times. My mind is in a permanent state of finely tuned chaos that I would be loath to disrupt.”

“And you don’t think it’s too late for me?”

He angled his head towards her. “Your traumas have made you who you are, but they don’t define you. You can live with them, I have no doubt.”

Valkyrie nodded. She was satisfied with that. For the moment.

They got where they were going a little over an hour later. An operative from the American Sanctuary indicated the car on the other side of the street, the one Oberon Guile was sitting in. Valkyrie nodded her thanks to the operative, who ignored her, and drove off.

“I don’t think that guy appreciated handing this case over to us,” Valkyrie said as they parked. “Can we send him a muffin basket or something?”

“No.”

“Then can we get muffins?”

“Sure.”

They got out and Valkyrie crossed the road, approaching Oberon’s car with a bright smile on her face. She motioned for him to wind down the window, and as she reached the car Skulduggery slipped in the passenger side, gun levelled at Oberon’s midsection.

Valkyrie leaned in. “Hands on the dash, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“This is really not a good time,” Oberon said, complying. He was stubbly, and even better-looking in person, and he had a nice accent and a nice voice. It had an edge to it.

“Who are they?” Valkyrie asked. “The people in the house you’re watching?”

“I’m not watching anyone, Miss Cain,” Oberon said. “I’m just sitting here in my car.”

“You know who I am.”

“I may not be the most sociable of sorcerers,” said Oberon, “but I’ve heard of the Skeleton Detective and the girl who almost killed the world.”

“My nickname sucks.”

Oberon looked at Skulduggery. “You can put the gun away. I’m not your enemy.”

“I’ll decide what you are,” Skulduggery replied. “My partner asked you a question that you haven’t answered.”

Oberon drummed the dashboard with his fingertips. “The people in that house are of no concern to you. You want something – tell me what it is so I can get back to sitting here. But, Miss Cain, would you mind getting in the car? I’m trying not to draw attention to myself.”

Valkyrie got in the back, then scooted over so she could look at Oberon while they talked. His car was very clean.

“Bertram Wilkes,” Skulduggery said. “You were in his house last week.”

“So?”

“So why were you there?”

“Maybe I was his guest.”

“For you to be his guest, he would have to have invited you in. That would be rather hard to do, seeing as how he’s been missing for six months.”

“OK then, I broke in,” said Oberon. “He owes me money.”

“How much?”

“Few hundred.”

“Did you get it?”

“No.”

“When was the last time you spoke to him?”

“Well,” Oberon said, “how long did you say he’s been missing? Six months? So, let’s say that I haven’t spoken to him in six and a half.”

“Why are you lying to us?” Skulduggery asked.

“I don’t really see a reason why I should answer any questions at all, to be honest. I’m not part of your Sanctuary thing. You got no jurisdiction over me.”

“We can arrest you.”

“For what?”

“Obstructing an investigation. Wasting our time. Not being forthcoming.”

Oberon gave a little laugh. “That’s a crime now, is it?”

“We’re Arbiters,” Skulduggery said. “That means we can make up our own crimes.”

Oberon sighed and scratched his cheek.

“OK,” he said at last, “I’ll tell you the truth. But you gotta do something for me in return. You gotta help me raid that house.”

Valkyrie sat forward. “Who’s in there?”

“Bad guys,” he answered. “I think they might have my son. I haven’t been able to confirm that because there’s one of me and nine of them – but, with you two, I could probably make a go of it.”

“Why would they have your son?” Skulduggery asked.

“You know who Wilkes was, right? His job?”

“President Flanery’s personal aide.”

“My ex, Magenta, that’s Robbie’s mom, she’s a Sensitive, the kind that specialises in persuading people to do things, oftentimes against their own interests. That’s a very particular talent to have, and it’s one of the reasons we broke up. She’s not a bad person by any stretch, but I don’t think she could resist some small manipulations to get her way every now and then. That’s got nothing to do with anything, though.

“Four years ago, right after we split, she mentioned something about taking a job for a mortal politician – Flanery. It paid good money and it wasn’t overly time-consuming, so she could give Robbie the support and attention he needed. I wasn’t around much, so I got to see him at weekends and whenever I was back this way. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked.

“Magenta was used to convince senators to vote a certain way, to push judges to make favourable decisions, that kinda thing. She said Flanery had an advisor, a sorcerer.”

“Wilkes,” said Valkyrie.

“No,” said Oberon. “Wilkes came later. I don’t think Flanery knew that Wilkes was a mage. Or maybe he did, I don’t know – but his advisor was somebody else.”

“Where does your child come into all this?” Skulduggery asked.

A muscle flexed in Oberon’s jaw. “When Flanery started his bid for the presidency, he needed Magenta more and more. She resisted. She was talking about quitting. That’s when Robbie was taken.”

Valkyrie’s eyes widened. “Your son has been missing since before Flanery became president?”

“Three years now,” Oberon said. “Every two or three days, Magenta gets to spend a few hours with him. As I’m sure you know, I spent most of that time in a prison cell, so I didn’t know that Robbie had been snatched until I got out of Ironpoint and received a letter she’d left for me.”

“Why were you in Wilkes’s house?”

“I was trying to find what you detectives call a clue. Am I pronouncing that right? Clue?”

“Surely your wife could help you …?”

“I haven’t been able to speak to Magenta,” Oberon said. “I haven’t been able to get close. She’s got the Seven-As-One guarding her.”

Skulduggery grunted, then turned to Valkyrie. “The Seven-As-One are—”

“Seven Sensitive siblings,” Valkyrie said, “who maintain a psychic link at all times. They’re used to guard people and places, making it almost impossible for anyone to sneak up on them without the alarm being raised.”

Skulduggery tilted his head. “How do you know all that?”

“I do get out every now and then,” she said, returning her attention to Oberon. “So you think your son is being held in the house across the road.”

“I don’t know,” Oberon said, deflating slightly. “I only know that the people over there are sorcerers, and they’re involved. Maybe they have Robbie in there, maybe they don’t. But they definitely know more about what’s going on here than I do, so, if you wanna know who’s behind all of this, I’d say that helping me bust in there is a great place to start. And I ain’t gonna give you much of a choice in the matter. I’m going in.”

He got out of the car and started striding across the road.

“Oh, I like him,” Valkyrie said.

“I thought you might,” said Skulduggery. “Go round the back, will you? Let’s at least pretend like we’re professionals.”

Valkyrie put her boot to the door and it burst open and in she went, shock sticks swinging, catching the first guy in the jaw and the second guy in the knee, the back, and then the face. They both fell and she moved out of the kitchen, down the short corridor. There were a lot of crashes coming from the front of the house. Lot of cries of pain.

A woman came hurtling out of a doorway, not even looking where she was going. Valkyrie jabbed her in her chest with both sticks and there was a flash and she went flying back.

“Clear,” she heard Skulduggery say.

“Clear,” she responded.

She put her sticks away, forming a cross on her back, and stepped into the living room. Five unconscious people in here – one still conscious, bleeding from a busted nose and sitting on a chair. Skulduggery and Oberon stood over him.

“What’s your name?” Skulduggery asked. The man twisted his lip as he was about to answer and Skulduggery hit him. “Rudeness will not be tolerated – let’s just make that clear right at the start. I’m Skulduggery, she’s Valkyrie, he’s Oberon. What’s your name?”

The man spat out a tooth. “Sleave,” he said.

“Where’s my son?” Oberon demanded.

Sleave frowned. “How the hell would I know? Who’s your son?”

“Robbie,” said Oberon. “His name’s Robbie.”

“Ah,” Sleave said, “you’re his dad, are you? Not much of a family resemblance, if I’m being honest.”

“Where is he?”

Sleave held up his hands. “I refer you to my earlier reply. To wit: how the hell would I know?”

“You move him around, don’t you?”

“I did,” said Sleave, “with the rest of these mooks. Every week, we’d take the kid somewhere new and guard him, feed him, put up with his nonsense and take him to see his mommy two or three times a week. But recently we were informed that our services were no longer required. Sadly, I have been made redundant.” His voice suddenly filled with hope. “I don’t suppose you have any other kids we could kidnap, do you?”

Oberon lunged and Skulduggery held him back, and Sleave laughed.

Valkyrie hunkered down in front of him. “How long were you on this particular job?” she asked.

Sleave shrugged. “Four months, maybe five.”

“So you’re not the first to keep him moving around.”

“And we’re not the last, either.”

“Who’s your boss?”

“We’re freelance. We don’t have a boss.”

“Then who hired you? Who gave you your instructions? Who did you report to?”

Sleave grinned. “The answer to all those questions is the same name, and I’ll tell you what it is – providing you let us go.”

“I’m afraid that’s not how it works.”

“Then you should probably change how it works, because you may have come in here and kicked all our asses, and some of them twice, but, from where I’m sitting, I’m the one in the position of power.”

“Careful now,” Valkyrie said. “We can always send a Sensitive into your head, and who knows what they might scramble while they’re in there.”

Sleave didn’t look too worried. “You don’t think I’ve got defences for that sorta thing? Sure, those defences don’t last forever, but I’d hold out for as long as I could, just out of spite. Let us go. All of us. Even the stupid ones. Then I’ll tell you the name of the man you’re looking for.”

With Oberon now at the other side of the room, Skulduggery straightened his tie. “We won’t do that,” he said. “But you tell us his name, and, when we’ve verified that you told us the truth, then we’ll let you go.”

“That’s more like it!” said Sleave. “See, girl, this is how you negotiate! May I stand?”

“By all means,” said Skulduggery.

Sleave stood. “I like your counter-offer, Mr Pleasant. It shows potential. But we’re not gonna be able to accept this whole being released afterwards thing. The problem is, yeah, we’re criminals, and so decidedly untrustworthy – but you’re Sanctuary folk, and so you’re absolutely untrustworthy.”

“You obviously haven’t heard,” said Valkyrie. “We’re Arbiters now. We don’t report to anyone.”

“Huh,” said Sleave. “I didn’t know the Arbiters were still a thing.”

“They weren’t,” Skulduggery said. “They are now.”

“But you’re still working with the Sanctuaries,” Sleave said, “which means you’re bound by their rules.”

“Not all of them.”

“Then you can let us go, and once you do that I’ll tell you his name. If I don’t, or if I lie, you feel free to hunt us down. Contrary to what you might be thinking, we’re really not that smart, so you won’t have too much trouble finding us.”

Skulduggery looked at Oberon, and then at Valkyrie. She shrugged.

“OK,” Skulduggery said. “We won’t arrest you.”

Another smile broke out across Sleave’s face. “Knew you were a man with an open mind. I could see it in your eye sockets.” He kicked one of his unconscious friends until they stirred. “Hey! Hey, get up. Wake the others or drag ’em out. You got two minutes.”

They stood silently while Sleave’s friends were either revived or hauled out through the back door. It took a lot longer than two minutes.

When they were gone, and only Sleave remained, he pulled on his jacket. “It was very nice to meet all of you,” he said. “Detective Pleasant, you’re a surprisingly reasonable fellow for a bunch of bones in a suit. Detective Cain, you’re a scary lady and that’s all I’ll say about that. Robbie’s dad, I don’t know anything else about you, so all I’ll say is that you just need to calm down in general and maybe people will like you more.”

Skulduggery took out his gun and aimed it at Sleave’s head. “The name.”

Sleave raised his hands slowly. “We only met him once,” he said. “He came to see us, told us what he expected, told us when and where to move, and explained how we’d be getting paid. We never saw him again, never saw anyone else working for him.”

“His name.”

“Crepuscular Vies.”

Skulduggery glanced at Valkyrie, then at Oberon.

“Never heard of him,” Oberon said.

“I’m not surprised,” said Sleave. “I didn’t have a clue who he was, either, and I still don’t. He’s tall, about the same height as you fellas, and wears a suit, bow tie and a hat. But I wouldn’t worry about what he’s wearing, because his face is … It’s just wrong. You’ll know it when you see it.”

“Nationality?” Valkyrie asked.

Sleave laughed. “Don’t you know? Irish, of course. The most evil people in the world are Irish.”

“What do you think of him?” Valkyrie asked as they waited in the diner for Fletcher to come and pick them up.

One eyebrow rose on Skulduggery’s façade. “The waiter?”

“Oberon,” she said, and took a sip of coffee. It was not good.

“He seems capable,” Skulduggery said. He had a glass of water before him that he was never going to touch. “He threw around some of Sleave’s people without too much bother.”

“Do you believe him?”

“I have no reason not to. You?”

“Yeah, I believe him.”

“Well, OK then.”

It was pitch-black outside, and the diner was empty of customers apart from them and a drunk guy in the corner booth who kept getting up to play sad country songs on the jukebox.

Valkyrie took another sip of her coffee. It wasn’t getting any better. “Do you think he’ll be able to find out anything about this Crepuscular Vies?”

“Probably not,” Skulduggery said. “Oberon’s motivations may be pure, and he could have useful contacts in the criminal underworld that might provide a lead, but we’ll probably have to devote some time to it ourselves after our show of strength for Serafina tomorrow. Once all this is out of the way, I promise we’ll come up with a way to find Doctor Nye.”

Valkyrie nodded and took another sip, hoping he wouldn’t spot the look of guilt that flashed across her face.

Fletcher came in. Valkyrie scooched over so he could sit beside her. “Everything good? Everyone unharmed? Sorry I’m late. Had a bit of trouble finding the place. How’s the coffee?”

“Wonderful,” said Valkyrie. “You should get some.”

“Naw, caffeine makes me jumpy, and I’m going straight back to sleep after this.”

She winced. “We’re sorry for getting you out of bed. Aren’t we, Skulduggery?”

“Absolutely,” Skulduggery said.

“And we appreciate you doing this, don’t we, Skulduggery?”

“Thoroughly.”

Fletcher smiled. “The way I look at it, I’m not only helping you, I’m also helping the environment. That’s one of the great tragedies about keeping magic a secret, isn’t it? If everyone knew about us, Teleporters could transport people all round the world without a single harmful emission. Makes you wonder if we should just tell them for the sake of the planet.”

“I’m not entirely sure that the war that would inevitably follow wouldn’t damage the environment all over again,” Skulduggery said.

“You should have more faith in mortals,” Fletcher countered. “Not all of them are war-hungry simpletons, you know.”

“No,” Skulduggery said, “but they do tend to scare easily and, when people are scared, they lash out.”

Fletcher adjusted his hair slightly. “You have such a dim view of the people you fight every day to protect.”

“I’m just waiting for them to prove me wrong.”

Fletcher looked at Valkyrie. “Please tell me you have a cheerier outlook on life. You can’t be as miserable as him. You just can’t.”

She smiled. “I believe that people are good.”

“Thank you,” Fletcher responded.

“Most of them anyway.”

“OK.”

“I mean, not any that I’ve met, but—”

“You can stop there,” he said. “Wow, the two of you must have fun saving the world for people you don’t even like.”

“I’m joking,” said Valkyrie.

“I’m not,” said Skulduggery.

“I believe people are good,” Valkyrie continued, “though flawed, and, given all the information and enough time, they will do the right thing.”

Skulduggery picked up his hat from the seat, and put it on the table. “And I believe that life is arbitrary and when time moves on it will be as if we never existed. Do you want any pie?”

“No,” said Valkyrie.

“Then we should probably get going.”

“You’ve changed,” Fletcher said, not moving. “The both of you. You have. Remember when we used to be a team? Remember the energy? The excitement? The laughs? Whatever happened to all that?”

“When who used to be a team?” Skulduggery asked.

“The three of us,” said Fletcher. “And Tanith and Ghastly.”

“And you?”

“Yes, me. You never took me seriously, but I was a vital part of the team.”

“You were the bus.”

Valkyrie laughed and Fletcher smirked.

“I helped out more than that and you know it,” he said. “You just don’t want to admit that I’ve grown. Hey, I understand. You knew me when I was a kid. Now I’m an adult, and I have a job, educating young people, moulding young minds. I have responsibilities. Obligations. We’re both alphas. You probably feel threatened by me. Also, you’re jealous of my hair. I get it. I’d be jealous of it, too. But I propose, right now, that we leave the past in the past and, from this day on, treat each other as equals. What do you say, Skulduggery?”

Fletcher stuck out his hand. Skulduggery observed it for a moment, then extended his own hand – and picked up his hat.

“You’re funny,” Fletcher said, nodding as Skulduggery put the hat on and stood. “That was well done.”

“Thank you,” Skulduggery said.

Valkyrie left a tip and got out of the booth after Fletcher, and they went outside and he teleported them home. He dropped Skulduggery beside the Bentley, and then left Valkyrie in her living room. She gave him a hug and he vanished, and Xena came bounding in.

Valkyrie had a few hours’ sleep, and then drove to Roarhaven to meet the Prince of the Darklands.

The Fangs was quiet this time of the morning. Vampires may not have been harmed by the sun, but they weren’t known to be early risers. The only people on the streets were those coming back from a night shift.

She followed the directions Dusk had given her and came to a theatre, a few years old and never used. She went round the back, found the opened door and climbed the stairs. With each step, she took the next one slower.

This could be a trap, of course. This was very likely a trap. It was so likely a trap that Abyssinia would have known that Valkyrie would be thinking that and would then dismiss it because of how likely it was, so then the possibility of this being a trap became even more likely.

Eventually, her thoughts became so confusing that she just marched up the rest of the stairs and emerged on to the roof of the theatre.

There was a man standing here, waiting. He was thin and had tightly-shaven silver hair, and pale scars on his pale skin.

“You must be Caisson,” said Valkyrie.

His smile was fleeting. Uncertain.

There was a nervous energy about him, like an animal getting ready to bolt.

Valkyrie proceeded with caution. “How are you coping with being back in circulation?”

“I have good days and … bad ones,” he said. He had a soft voice. “I’m having a good day now, in case you were wondering. I’m not going to attack you, or anything like that. I keep thinking I should attack you because … because we’re on different sides.”

“I keep thinking that, too.”

“Isn’t that odd? How we think that? How we’re almost ready to … to do that? For no reason other than the people we associate with.”

“It is strange, yes.”

Caisson’s eyes dipped. “You’re friends with the skeleton,” he mumbled.

“I am.”

“The skeleton murdered my mother.”

“He killed her, yes. But she came back.”

His eyes flickered up, and he gave another faltering smile. “I’m very confused,” he said.

“I don’t blame you.”

He was seized, all of a sudden, by an intensity that made Valkyrie want to step back. “The skeleton took my mother away from me!” he raged. “When I needed her! He hurt her! He killed her! She’s only alive today because he was too weak to finish the job! I hate him and I want to kill him and everyone he knows!”

And, as suddenly as it had arrived, the rage passed.

He started crying.

Valkyrie waited a moment. “What can I do for you, Caisson?” she asked softly. “Why are we here?”

It took him a moment to answer. It was a moment he spent wrestling with thoughts she’d never be able to understand.

“My mother,” he said eventually, “she has spies. I heard one of them say that you’re looking for someone. Something. A Crengarrion.”

She frowned. “Doctor Nye. Yes.”

“I know where it is. I heard my mother say.”

Valkyrie forced herself to wait.

“Is it important that you find this creature?” Caisson continued. “If it’s important, then I’ll tell you, but you need to tell me something first.”

“It’s important. I need Nye to help my sister. What do you want to know?”

“Greymire Asylum,” Caisson said. “Where is it?”

“I’ve never heard of it.”

“But you can find out, can’t you? You’re a detective. You can ask someone. Maybe the skeleton knows.”

“I can find out, sure. You tell me where Nye is and I’ll find where—”

“No!” Caisson screamed. “You tell me where Greymire Asylum is and then I help you! You first! You!”

Valkyrie held up her hands. “OK! OK, I’ll do that. I will.”

Caisson hugged himself and shook his head, muttering.

“What’s in there that’s so important for you?” she asked.

Caisson tapped his forehead. “It’s for my mind. My mind is … I can be quite erratic, and …”

“And there’s a cure for you in the asylum?”

He nodded. “A cure, yes. A cure for me in Greymire. K-49.”

“I know some really good doctors I could introduce you to. So does China, for that matter.”

Caisson blinked. “China …”

“China Sorrows. She raised you, right? She took you in and she raised you like you were her own child.”

His face contorted, hatred etched into every line and hollow. “China betrayed me. China gave me to Serafina to torture. She lies. She is nothing but darkness and coldness and lies. I’m going to kill her. We’re going to hunt her down and kill her, and kill anyone who stands with her. We’re going to tear her apart. We’re going to make her scream. We’re going to make her bleed. We’re going to—”

He stopped, breathing quickly, forcing himself to calm down. “No,” he said. “My only hope is K-49. My only hope is in Greymire Asylum. Find out where it is, and I’ll tell you where the Crenga is working now. Meet me here in two days. But … at night. I don’t like the day, it’s too … Meet me at night.”

“Monday night, then,” she said. “When it’s dark? Ten o’clock?”

“Yes. Yes, ten o’clock. At ten o’clock you will tell me what I need to know, and I will tell you how to find the creature you seek.”

All things considered, that had gone pretty well.

Valkyrie checked the time. Serafina wasn’t due to arrive for another ten minutes, and the High Sanctuary was only five minutes away. She’d make it over there by noon, no problem.

China had told her to dress formally, but she hadn’t quite known what that meant in this instance. She wasn’t going to be wearing a dress, she’d known that much. Nothing with heels, either. In the end, she had decided that black jeans and a smart coat were formal enough – plus, they allowed her to fight to the death if the situation called for it. Which was always a bonus.

This was a good day, Valkyrie decided. She hadn’t walked into a trap, and she’d managed to strike a deal with a guy who looked like he was barely keeping it together. If Skulduggery had been with her, she just knew he’d have said the wrong thing and it would all have imploded.

It was a good thing she hadn’t told him. It was definitely a good thing, and he would totally understand.

Totally.

She came round a corner, and braked.

There was traffic. There was actual traffic.

“No, no, no,” she muttered, craning her neck to see past the line of cars.

This was unheard of. For one thing, apart from Oldtown, the streets of Roarhaven were designed to flow unimpeded. That had long been a bragging point, another area where mages could feel smug when discussing their mortal cousins and their constant traffic woes.

For another, Valkyrie hadn’t even known that there were enough cars in Roarhaven to form a traffic jam. Most people here used the tram system.

“Why didn’t you all take the tram?” she shouted, even though no one could hear her.

People walked by. People crossed the road, darting between Valkyrie’s slow-moving car and the slow-moving car in front. Large groups of people. Very large groups. Some of them held signs.

She finally got closer, and a City Guard officer checked her Sanctuary tags and waved her into the Circle zone, and she sped down the ramp to the parking area beneath the High Sanctuary, then sprinted for the elevator tiles.

She rose up, into the foyer, looking around for someone she recognised. There were City Guard officers and Cleavers everywhere. Sanctuary staff rushed to and fro. The air had a nervous energy to it.

Cerise, holding a clipboard, saw her immediately, despite the chaos, and swept over to her, taking her gently by the arm. “You are required outside,” she said, the calm at the centre of this storm. “The High Superior is approaching Shudder’s Gate.”

“I’m so sorry I’m late,” Valkyrie said. “I didn’t expect the traffic. There are a lot of people out there.”

“Yes,” said Cerise. “There are.”

The doors opened and a blast of noise hit them. It looked like the entire Circle zone was filled with people, divided by a thin line of Cleavers. More people joined either side. They waved placards. They shouted.

Cerise left her at the top of the steps and Valkyrie crossed an actual red carpet to hurry over to Skulduggery. He was in a dark blue three-piece with a crisp white shirt and a blue tie. His hat was perfectly placed.

“Just in time,” he said.

“This is a bigger deal than I’d thought,” she responded, actually having to raise her voice to be heard over the restless crowd.

“People have come from all over the world for this. Serafina Dey hasn’t been spotted in public for decades.”

“She has a lot of fans.”

He shook his head. “Only half of them are here supporting her. The others are protesting.”

Valkyrie took another look, and realised one half of the crowd was arguing with the other. She turned back to Skulduggery. “Cerise called Serafina the High Superior.”

Skulduggery said something that Valkyrie didn’t hear.

“What?” she said.

He stepped closer and extended his hands to either side, and the air around them rippled. Her ears popped slightly as the sound of the crowd was muted. “Is that better?” he asked, keeping his hands where they were.

“Much,” she said, speaking at normal volume again.

“Serafina is the head of a different branch of Faceless Ones disciples,” he told her. “The Legion of Judgement.”

Valkyrie nodded. “Now that sounds like a fun and accepting place of worship.”

“The Legion views Mevolent as their messiah, and reckons that his interpretation of their teachings – and I would use air quotes here if my hands were free and if I were the sort of person to use air quotes – is the true way. Creed, on the other hand, has a supposedly gentler approach.”

“But Creed denounced Mevolent during the war for being too soft.”

“And yet now the Church is all about fluffiness and acceptance. Makes you wonder if Arch-Canon Creed is being entirely honest, doesn’t it?”

“He must love the fact that Serafina’s visiting.”

“The visit has, I’ve heard, caused something of a split within his congregation, but I’m sure there’s a part of him, tucked away somewhere, that will be happy to see his little sister after all these years.”

Valkyrie’s eyes widened. “They’re brother and sister? Did everyone know this except me?”

“Probably.”

She glared. “You did this before.”

“Did I?”

“With China and Mr Bliss. You didn’t tell me they were brother and sister until, like … Well, I don’t think you did tell me. I think someone else did.”

“Magical society is a small world,” Skulduggery said. “People have brothers and sisters all over the place, right where you least expect them. Parents, too. Cousins, aunts and uncles.”

“And everyone looks the same age,” Valkyrie said. “I’ll never get used to that part of it. So which is bigger – the Legion of Judgement or the Church of the Faceless?”

“The Church has more physical places of worship, but most worshippers keep their membership secret, so it’s very hard to say which is bigger – and more and more mages are turning to the Faceless Ones with every week that passes.”

Valkyrie made a face. “Why?”

“People need something to believe in. Even sorcerers. The more they learn, the more they uncover about life and magic and alternate universes, the more they search for a greater meaning.”

“But the Faceless Ones don’t care about any of them.”

“People are strange,” Skulduggery said, and brought his hands back together, and the noise closed in on them once more.

The three Elders arrived, nodded to Skulduggery and Valkyrie, and took up their positions in front of them. Then China came out, looking amazing. She winked at Valkyrie and took her place at the very top of the stairs.

The crowd went quiet as Serafina’s convoy came into view – black cars and SUVs, reinforced with armour and with protective sigils engraved into their doors. The Cleavers directed them round and then through the Circle, making sure they stayed clear of the grasping, clutching hands of the people. As they neared, colour washed across the air, and Valkyrie realised that the High Sanctuary’s force field had been extended. A section opened so that the convoy could pass through.

It stopped at the base of the steps. One of Serafina’s security people, a woman in black, opened the door to the middle car, and Serafina Dey stepped out.

She was … glorious.

Tall and solid and strong, Serafina wore a red dress, stained black at the edges. The skirt wrapped tightly around her waist and flared out at the ends. The bodice had a ribcage – made of actual ribs – and it opened at the chest to reveal a necklace of finger bones. Bracelets, also made of bone, rattled on her left wrist. Her long chestnut hair was held back by a headpiece formed from what looked like a human skull.

“Jeepers,” Valkyrie whispered.

Half the crowd cheered with bottomless adoration. The other half hurled insults and obscenities. It would have been amusing if the wide-eyed fanaticism wasn’t so scary.

Serafina ascended the stairs alone. Once at the top, she embraced China.

“My magnificent girl,” Serafina said. “It’s so good to see you again after all these years.”

“You look radiant,” China responded.

Serafina kissed both China’s cheeks. “As do you. Belated congratulations on your new position. You thoroughly deserve it. If anyone can whip the Sanctuaries into shape, it’s you.”

China smiled. “You’re far too kind. Allow me to introduce you to my Council of Advisors. This is Grand Mage Aloysius Vespers of the English Sanctuary.”

Vespers shuffled forward and struggled to bow. “Welcome to Roarhaven, High Superior! The tales of your legendary beauty are all true, I see, even to old eyes such as mine.”

Serafina bowed slightly. “Have we not met before, Grand Mage? You seem familiar to me. Perhaps without the beard …”

Vespers chuckled. “I am afraid not, High Superior. I would remember meeting someone as striking as you.”

He shuffled back and Praetor stepped forward.

“This is Grand Mage Gavin Praetor,” said China, “of the American Sanctuary.”

Praetor bowed deeply, but kept his eyes locked on Serafina’s. “It is an honour, High Superior, to be in the presence of someone so bewitching.”

“Surely, Grand Mage, you are used to it by now,” Serafina responded. “Is the Supreme Mage not more bewitching than I? Is she not the most beautiful woman you’ve ever laid eyes upon?”

Praetor smiled. “I would certainly not like to choose between you, High Superior.”

“How thoroughly gracious,” Serafina said.

“And this is Grand Mage Sturmun Drang, of the German Sanctuary,” said China. “I believe you know each other.”

Drang gave a curt bow. “High Superior.”

Serafina smiled. “No exaltations about my timeless beauty, Sturmun? I can call you that, can’t I? I believe once you make an attempt on someone’s life you grant that person permission to use your first name.”

Drang remained impassive. “That was a long time ago.”

Serafina’s smile grew smaller, but somehow even more glorious. “Was it?”

China seized this moment to step between them, and steered Serafina towards Skulduggery. “And you remember Skulduggery Pleasant, of course.”

“How could I forget a man such as this?” Serafina said, and tapped her finger-bone necklace. “I believe one of these is yours.”

“I believe you may be right,” Skulduggery said. Coolly.

“And this,” said Serafina, “must be the infamous Valkyrie Cain, the girl who very nearly destroyed us all.”

“I suppose I am,” Valkyrie responded. “How do you do?”

“Very well, thank you,” Serafina answered, and swept her arm back. Her security person, the woman dressed in black, came up the steps. “Allow me to introduce my sister, Rune.”

Rune was as tall as Skulduggery, and she had broad shoulders, an impressively square jaw and flat, expressionless eyes. Her dark hair was tied back in a functional bun, and she managed to make the suit she wore seem like a military uniform.

“We’ve met before,” Skulduggery said.

“I’m aware,” said Rune.

A silence followed.

“How was the journey?” China asked.

“Long,” said Serafina. “How I miss the days when everyone had a Teleporter at their disposal.”

“You miss them when they’re gone, don’t you? But don’t worry. Corrival Academy is training up the next generation of Teleporters and I’m sure they’ll be available to hire in a few short years.”

“Quite,” said Serafina, and her smile dimmed a fraction before returning, as brilliant as ever.

“Please come inside,” China said. “It’s far too cold to be standing out here like this.”

Serafina gave a gentle nod, turned to the crowd and waved. This drove her supporters into a frenzy. It didn’t go down well with the protestors.

One of them threw a bottle of water. It bounced harmlessly off the force field. Serafina blew a kiss.

Valkyrie stood with Skulduggery, watching the procession as it threaded its way into the High Sanctuary. “Are we done now?” she asked once they were alone.

“We are,” he said.

The crowd started chanting competing slogans at each other as the Cleavers moved to break them up.

“I talked to Caisson,” Valkyrie blurted.

Skulduggery tilted his head at her.

“I didn’t know how else to say it,” she said. “I thought blurting might be the best option.” She looked at the crowd. It was showing no signs of dispersing.

“You must be talking about some other Caisson …” Skulduggery said slowly.

“Nope,” she replied. “It’s the one you’re thinking of. You know, your son Caisson. He wanted to meet me and we met.”

“First of all,” Skulduggery said, “he’s not my son.”

“You don’t know that. You told me yourself, there are all kinds of magical ways to make a baby that don’t require the usual process.”

“I’m going to say it again: he’s not my son. Second of all … why didn’t you tell me?”

“I am telling you.”

“Why didn’t you tell me before you met him? It could have been a trap.”

“That’s why I didn’t tell you. It was a risk, but it was a risk I was ready to take. He had a proposal that he wanted to talk to me about. It was all very fine and undramatic. I mean, he’s obviously a very traumatised person, but he didn’t try to kill me or anything.”

“Well … that’s a good start, I suppose.”

“He did say he wanted to kill you, though.”

“That hardly seems fair. The only bad thing I ever did to him was kill his mother, and she came back.”

“That’s what I told him,” Valkyrie said. “I think he’s conflicted about the whole thing, but he still wants to kill you. So, this proposal of his. He claims to know how to find Doctor Nye, and he says he’ll tell me if I tell him where Greymire Asylum is.”

Skulduggery tilted his head to the other side. “Greymire, eh?”

“He says there’s a cure there – I think it’s called K-49 – that’ll help soothe his mind. So do you know where Greymire is?”

“Not exactly.”

“Can you find it?”

“I don’t know.”

Valkyrie frowned. “Is that doubt in your voice?”

“Greymire Asylum doesn’t exist,” Skulduggery said. “Not officially anyway. It has no staff and it has no patients. No one knows anyone who’s ever worked there.”

“OK, so it’s a secret psychiatric hospital.”

“No,” Skulduggery said. “It’s not a psychiatric hospital at all. It’s what was once called a lunatic asylum, as barbaric as that sounds. Sorcerers driven mad by magic were sent there. Only the most dangerous. Only the worst cases. They were locked away so that the rest of us could forget about them.”

“China would know where it is, wouldn’t she?”

“She won’t tell us. I wouldn’t tell us, either. Greymire is best left forgotten.”

“Well,” said Valkyrie, “that’s not really going to work for me.”

“We’ll grab Caisson,” Skulduggery said. “The next time he comes to visit, we’ll grab him and send someone into his head. We’ll find out what he knows.”

“No.”

“Valkyrie—”

“We’ve been looking for Nye for months and we haven’t come close to it. Caisson is our only lead, and I’m not going to risk that by trying something sneaky. Besides, his head is so messed up that I doubt a Sensitive would be able to learn anything useful, even if we did grab him. Caisson came to me with a proposal and I’ve accepted.”

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