Argeddion got to Nadir in his dreams, talked to his subconscious, and told him to shunt the both of us over here? But how would Argeddion know we’d even want to talk to Nadir in the first place?” She frowned. “Wait. Of course he knew. Greta fed us enough information to lead us to Nadir, and from Nadir we found Argeddion. He’s been controlling Greta, too.”
“Maybe,” Skulduggery said, “or maybe she just shares his optimism about the human race. Either way, he wanted us to come here. This has been his plan all along.”
“But why? So we can get the Sceptre? He wants us to kill him?”
Skulduggery shook his head. “He may not have known about the Sceptre. He probably never even considered it. No, he sent us here for the one thing he didn’t have over there.”
“Which is...?”
“Walden. He wanted us to find Walden.”
“He wanted us to find himself? And do what?”
“He told us, even with the Accelerator he’s still not powerful enough to spread magic to every single mortal on the planet. But with two Argeddions, working together...”
Her eyes widened. “Walden is his surprise guest?”
“And we’ve found him for him. He couldn’t send one of his drones – the further away they are from him, the weaker his control becomes. He needed independent people to come over here with their own agenda.”
“So... so what do we do?”
“What do you think we should do?”
Valkyrie looked back. “The most logical thing would be to... to kill Walden.”
“Agreed.”
“But we can’t.”
“It’s not that we can’t...”
“We won’t, then. We can hide him. You can hide him, and not tell me, so Argeddion wouldn’t be able to find out where he is.”
“That’d only slow him down,” Skulduggery said. He nodded. “OK. Now that we know what Argeddion wants, we can work to make sure it doesn’t happen. The best way to do that is to take advantage of his oversight.”
“We get the Sceptre.”
“We get the Sceptre and we use it on him before he gets his hands on Walden.”
“Easy as that,” said Valkyrie.
“Indeed. So we’re back to our main objective.”
“What about Serpine?” Valkyrie whispered. “Can we trust him?”
“Of course not,” said Skulduggery. “But we don’t know the City, and we need him to help us get into the Palace. And anyway we’ve got the regulator.”
Serpine stopped walking and turned, waiting for them to catch up. “If you’ve quite finished plotting and planning, we have a Palace to break into, don’t we?”
Valkyrie frowned at him. “We’re miles away.”
“You don’t break into a palace through the back door, Valkyrie, especially not one like this. It is unlike any palace or castle ever built.”
“So how do we get in?”
“We exploit a strength,” he said, “and make it a weakness.” He led them over a wall between two buildings, and they hurried to a narrow door. Skulduggery snapped his palm against the air and the door flew open. Serpine went first, and Valkyrie heard a scream and a crash. By the time she ran in, Serpine had his hand over the mouth of Eliza Scorn and he was dragging her down to the cellar.
“Baron Vengeous,” Serpine said, “is a man who likes things done a certain way. He likes his meals served on time, he likes his uniforms pressed just so, and he likes his houses built with secret passageways. Isn’t that right, Eliza?”
Scorn sat in a straight-backed chair in the middle of the cellar and glared at him. “May the crows peck out your eyes,” she said.
“Charming.”
Were this cellar in any other part of the country, it would be dark and cold and lit with candles. But here, in the City, it was bright and warm and clean. It was also empty.
“Is that why we’re here?” Skulduggery asked. “We’re going to sneak in through a secret tunnel? Then why aren’t we sneaking, Nefarian?”
“Because I don’t know where the tunnel is, Skulduggery. And judging by the shackles around her wrists and ankles, I doubt Eliza will tell us, no matter how much pain we visit upon her. Martyrs are the most annoying of captives. Ah, how different things might be if I had this glove off...”
Skulduggery threw the pain regulator’s black slate to Valkyrie. “Here. Use this if he takes longer than five seconds to answer a question.”
Serpine held up his hands. “Ah-ah, don’t be so hasty! We’re waiting for Vengeous to get back. He never takes the surface route – it’s much too long. He always comes via his little secret passageway, which opens up somewhere in this cellar.”
“We don’t have time to waste,” Skulduggery said. “We could shunt back at any moment. Where I’m from, we have a device we use for detecting tunnels.” He took out his phone, activated the screen, and started taking slow steps around the cellar with the screen held towards the floor. Valkyrie didn’t have a clue what he was doing, but she stayed quiet.
Scorn glared at Skulduggery, then at Serpine. “The Faceless Ones will burn your soul for this.”
Serpine gave a shrug. “Better a burnt soul than a fried mind.”
“How dare you!” she screeched. “The Dark Gods opened my mind! They gifted me with enlightenment!”
Valkyrie put a hand on Scorn’s shoulder, keeping her in her chair. “Keep calm, please. Serpine, don’t annoy her.”
“I’m just talking,” Serpine said, his green eyes innocent. “It was one of Mevolent’s grand plans, opening a door for the Faceless Ones. A half-baked ritual he found in some obscure book of old magic. But the thing is, it worked. The door opened. The problem was that it didn’t stay open for more than a few seconds. It worked once, and never worked again. But in those few seconds, Eliza caught sight of something... and something caught sight of her.”
“I looked into the face of a god,” she whispered, her eyes following Skulduggery.
“And we all know what that does to you,” said Serpine. “When she stopped screaming, a few years later, she cut all her hair off and started walking around in chains. And by complete coincidence, that was exactly what Baron Vengeous was looking for in a woman.”
“Be silent,” said Scorn.
“The old ball and chain became the old bald-in-chains, and he’s never been happier.”
Scorn flew at Serpine and he jumped back, laughing as she tripped over
