he’d try to betray you like he betrayed them.”
“He betrayed them?” said Valkyrie. Then, “Wait, he was on their side?”
“One of Mevolent’s top men, so he was. One of his Three Generals.” Harmony slammed her fist against the door and pushed it open without waiting for a reply. Inside, Nefarian Serpine lay on a bunk, naked but for a towel covering his privates. He scratched his beard as he looked up at them with glittering emerald eyes.
“Yeah?” he said. “What the hell do you want?”
Serpine sat up. His black hair was long and his beard was straggly. He wore a clunky metal glove on his right hand, and his ribs showed. “Are you at least going to give me a fighting chance?” he asked, easing himself off the bed. “This fancy glove they make me wear binds my magic, so it’ll have to be fisticuffs. You prepared for that, skeleton? Ready to finish this once and for all?”
“He isn’t here to kill you,” said Harmony. “We’re loaning you to him.”
“That doesn’t sound very sporting.”
“You know a secret way into the City,” Skulduggery said. “You’re going to take us in, as far as the Palace. Tonight. If you try anything sneaky, I’ll take great pleasure in killing you.”
Serpine smiled. “If I’m seen inside the City, there are many people who will take great pleasure in killing me. I think I’ll stay here, thank you very much.”
“This isn’t a request,” Harmony said. “Miss Sorrows has made her decision.”
“Well, she can unmake it,” Serpine replied, sneering slightly. “I’m not setting foot inside that wall, and if you had any sense, skeleton, you wouldn’t, either.”
Skulduggery looked at Harmony. “Could you excuse me for a moment? We’d like to talk with Nefarian alone.”
Harmony shrugged. “I’ll be outside,” she said, and closed the door behind her.
Skulduggery and Valkyrie looked at him, standing there.
“What do you think?” Skulduggery asked.
“He’s not very impressive,” Valkyrie said. “I don’t like the beard. And the towel doesn’t exactly cover a whole lot.”
“He’s fallen on hard times,” Skulduggery said. “He needs goals in his life. He needs a future to look forward to. Nefarian, we are here to offer you both of these things.” He took the pain regulator from his pocket. The air shifted and the disc shot from Skulduggery’s hand into Serpine’s belly. He grunted, frowned, tried to peel it away from his skin.
“Don’t bother,” Skulduggery said. “Only we can remove it, and we have no plans to do that until we get what we want.” He held the black slate in one hand. His thumb tapped it lightly and Serpine’s eyes bulged and he fell to his knees. His body shook. His muscles stood out, straining, like they wanted to burst free from his body. Valkyrie could tell that he wanted to scream but couldn’t.
Skulduggery deactivated the disc, and Serpine fell forward, gasping.
“The goal in your life that we are offering you,” Skulduggery said, “is the chance to rid yourself of that little device. The future you can look forward to is a future where you don’t have to suffer white-hot agony whenever we get bored. Two rather healthy aspirations, are they not?”
Serpine snapped his head up, glared at them. “I go free,” he said. “After I lead you in, after you take this thing off me, I go free.”
“You aren’t free now?”
“They say I am, but everywhere I go I have an armed escort. I’ve proved myself to Sorrows, I supplied her with names and locations and some of Mevolent’s best-kept secrets, and what do I get in return? A small bed in a cold room and my powers bound. If you get her to agree to set me free, I’ll take you.”
“She’ll never agree to that,” Skulduggery said. “She’s not going to just loan you to us and then let you run off. What does she gain from that deal?”
“Then we don’t tell her. We agree, the three of us, here and now, that you let me go when we’re done. I’ll take my chances on my own.”
“If we’re going to set you free, we need more than just a guide into the City. You have to take us into the Palace itself, to the Sceptre.”
“You’re insane.”
“That’s the deal.”
Serpine hesitated. “Very well. I take you to the Sceptre, you take this disc off me and unlock this glove and let me go.”
“Agreed. How long will it take to get into the City?”
“What time is it now?”
“Around three.”
“Afternoon or morning, skeleton? You lose track when you don’t have windows.”
“Afternoon.”
Serpine nodded. “The best time to sneak in will be at the end of the working day. We need to be outside the wall at six. Before then I’ll need clothes. My own clothes. And tell them to send a barber. If I go in looking like this, we’ll be arrested on the spot. I assume you have some sort of disguise, skeleton? I’d wear it if I were you. The people of the City are cultured and elegant, not like the grim and shabby specimens who trudge around this place. You, girl,” he said to Valkyrie, and threw her the towel from around his waist. “Run me a bath.”
Using her thumb and forefinger, Valkyrie pulled the towel from her head and dropped it on the floor. “Gross,” she whimpered.
They spoke to Harmony and she arranged the barber and the bath, then they found his clothes. Valkyrie was outside with Skulduggery, sitting on the horse they’d given her, when a Cleaver escorted Serpine out into the sunlight.
The beard was gone and the hair was short. His clothes were old and worn, but still elegant. He blinked against the light, shielding his eyes with the iron glove. She saw for the first time how pale he was.
He saw them and smiled as he came over.
“There,” he said. “So much better. If one is rushing into certain death, one had better look one’s best, don’t you think? I almost feel like my old self again.” He looked at Skulduggery. “You know, the old self who killed your family.”
“Oh, yes,” Skulduggery said, “him.”
Serpine swung his leg up on
