into the next. Nobody was paying attention to the sleek, gleaming art gallery and its tastefully minimalist garden protected by a high wrought-iron fence. The fence was new.
“I probably shouldn’t have got an ice cream,” Stephanie said after a moment. “Technically, it’s still winter. Why is this place even selling ice-cream cones in winter?”
“Because there are people like you who will buy them presumably.”
The café was warm and quiet. A bored girl sat behind the till, reading a magazine. It was nearly closing time. Stephanie got up, dumped the ice cream in the bin, and used a napkin to dab her T-shirt. She’d also got some on her jacket, but she didn’t mind that. One wipe and it came right off.
She headed back to the table, but stopped, looking out through the glass partition in the door. “You’re about to get a ticket,” she said.
Immediately, Skulduggery was on his feet, putting his hat on and stalking outside. Grinning, Stephanie followed him over to the man standing by the Bentley.
The traffic warden looked up. “This your car?”
“It is,” said Skulduggery.
The traffic warden nodded. “Very nice, very nice. But you can’t park here, day or night.”
“I wasn’t aware of that.”
“There’s a sign right over there.”
“I didn’t think it applied to me.”
“Why wouldn’t it have applied to you?”
Skulduggery tilted his head. “Because I’m special.”
“Don’t care how special you think you are, you’re parked in a no parking area and as such you’re—”
“We’re here on official police business.”
The traffic warden narrowed his eyes. “You’re Garda? I’m going to need to see some identification.”
“We’re undercover,” said Skulduggery. “This is a very important undercover operation which you are endangering just by talking to us.” He opened his jacket. “Look, I have a gun. I am Detective Inspector Me. This is my partner, Detective Her.”
The traffic warden frowned. “Her?”
“Me,” said Stephanie.
“Him?”
“Not me,” said Skulduggery. “Her.”
“Me,” said Stephanie.
“You?” said the traffic warden.
“Yes,” said Stephanie.
“I’m sorry, who are you?”
Stephanie looked at him. “I’m Her, he’s Me. Got it? Good. You better get out of here before you blow our cover. They’ve got snipers.”
The traffic warden swung round, scanning rooftops. “Snipers?”
“Don’t look!” Stephanie whispered. “You want to get us killed? Get out of here! Run, but don’t make it look like you’re running!”
Eyes bulging, the traffic warden hurried away, alternating between speed-walking and panicked jogging.
“Nicely done,” said Skulduggery.
“Thank you,” said Stephanie. “So can we break in yet?”
Skulduggery checked the time on his pocket watch. “Since you’re so eager … I don’t see why not. Come along.”
They walked to the iron fence and looked around, made sure no one was looking.
“Keep watch,” Skulduggery said, and lifted off the ground.
Stephanie stuffed her hands in her pockets, tried her best to look casual. She had the reassuring weight of the Sceptre in her backpack to ease her anxiety about what they were about to do. It helped. A lot.
A minute later, a gust of wind took her off her feet. She passed over the fence, landed on the grass beside Skulduggery.
“I’ve disabled the cameras and the external motion sensors,” Skulduggery said as she followed him across the garden area to the gallery wall, where the shadows merged.
“So how are we getting in?” Stephanie asked. Last time it had been through a skylight.
“We’re taking a leaf out of Billy-Ray Sanguine’s book,” Skulduggery said as he placed both hands flat against the wall.
Stephanie frowned. “Seriously? You’re going to try to—”
The wall cracked, a thousand little fissures opening up and spreading downwards.
“Now then,” Skulduggery muttered, “this is either going to be very cool or very stupid …” He pushed one hand into the wall, and kept going until he was in up to his elbow.
“Well?” Stephanie asked.
He looked back at her. “I’m still in one piece. Grab on.”
Stephanie’s left eyebrow arched all on its own. “Uh, no, I don’t think so.”
“We don’t have time to argue.”
“Who’s arguing? I’m asking relevant questions. Is this your first time doing this?”
“I’ve actually been developing this aspect of the Elemental discipline for a while now. Sanguine’s ability is merely a focus on earth magic, after all, so I thought to myself, why couldn’t I achieve the same results with a little bit of work?”
“Yeah, that’s all very interesting, but is this the first time you’ve tried to move through a wall?”
He hesitated. “No, actually.”
“You’ve tried it before?”
“Yes.”
“Did you succeed?”
“Strictly speaking?” Another hesitation. “No. I kind of got stuck.”
“You got stuck in a wall?” she said. “For how long?”
“A few minutes. Half an hour. An hour at the most. Maybe two. Or a day. Remember that day I called Valkyrie and told her to take the afternoon off? Yeah, I was stuck in a wall. But I got out of it, and I’ve been working on it ever since. So grab on, Stephanie.”
“I’ll wait out here, thank you very much.”
“He who dares wins.”
“Fools rush in.”
“Valkyrie would trust me.”
