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
