to be swept into a dustpan, you’ll shackle yourself.” She kicked the shackles across the floor at him. They hit his feet, but he didn’t move.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “You’re thinking, ‘Can I kill this girl before she fires?’ Well, seeing as how this is the Sceptre of the Ancients, the most powerful God-Killer in the world, and it can turn you to dust with a single thought, you’ve got to ask yourself—”
Skulduggery swung the butt of his gun into Rhadaman’s jaw and Rhadaman spun in a semicircle and collapsed.
Stephanie stared. “Seriously?”
Skulduggery nudged Rhadaman with his foot, making sure he was unconscious.
“I was in the middle of something,” Stephanie said. “I had him, and I was in the middle of something. I was doing a bit. You don’t interrupt someone when they’re doing a bit.”
“Cuff him,” Skulduggery said. He holstered the gun and picked up his arm, started to thread it through his sleeve.
“I’d almost got to the best line and you … fine.” Stephanie shoved the Sceptre into the bag on her back, walked over and cuffed Rhadaman’s hands tight. She stood as Skulduggery’s arm clicked back into its socket.
“Ouch,” he muttered, then looked at her. “Sorry? You were saying something?”
“I was being cool,” she said.
“I doubt that.”
“I was being really cool and I was quoting from a really cool movie and you totally ruined it for me.”
“Oh,” he said. “Sorry.”
“No you’re not. You just can’t stand it when other people get to say cool stuff while you’re too busy screaming, can you?”
“He did pull my arm off.”
“Your arms get pulled off all the time. I rarely get to say anything cool, and usually there’s no one else around to hear it anyway.”
“I apologise,” Skulduggery said. “Please, continue.”
“Well, I’m not going to say it now.”
“Why not? It obviously means a lot to you.”
“No. There’s no point. He’s already in shackles. Also, he’s unconscious.”
“It might make you feel better.”
“I’d feel stupid,” said Stephanie. “I can’t say cool things to an unconscious person.”
“This isn’t about him. It’s about you.”
“No. Forget it. You’d just laugh at me.”
“I promise I won’t.”
“Forget it, I said.”
He shrugged. “OK. If you don’t want to finish it, you don’t have to. But it might make you feel better.”
“No.”
“OK then.”
He stood there, looking at her. She glared back, opened her mouth to continue the conversation, but he suddenly turned, walked away, like he’d just remembered that she may look and sound and talk like Valkyrie Cain, but she wasn’t Valkyrie Cain.
And she never would be.
This was to have been the first magical city of the New World Order. Others would follow, as per Ravel’s plan. When the Warlocks started killing mortals and the mortals needed saviours, the sorcerers would swoop in, beat back the horde and be hailed as heroes. They would prove themselves invaluable allies against the newly-discovered forces of darkness. Sorcerer and mortal would stand united. And then, slowly and subtly, the sorcerers would nudge the mortals to one side, and the world would be theirs. But what was that quote Valkyrie Cain had heard once, that Stephanie now remembered?
No plan survives first contact with the enemy.
The Warlocks had come in numbers far greater than expected. They took down the shield, smashed the wall and breached the gate. To even the odds, Erskine Ravel sent Accelerator-boosted sorcerers to fight them – but these supercharged operatives proved to be as much a threat to their own side as to the enemy. And then Darquesse appeared.
In the chaos that followed, many more people died. The Warlocks, having seen their leader killed, scattered and withdrew, nineteen supercharged sorcerers fled, and Darquesse inflicted the punishment of all punishments upon Erskine Ravel.
Roarhaven survived, but the dream had been broken.
Now, sixteen days after the battle had ended, only a fraction of its lavish buildings were occupied. Its streets were quiet and its people humbled and scared and ashamed. They had been promised glory and dominion; they were told they were going to claim their birthright as conquering heroes of the world. What a shock it must have been to discover that they were the villains of this little story.
Stephanie had no sympathy for them, however. They may have seen themselves as lions, but they flocked like lambs.
She hadn’t made up her mind about the city, though. Yes, it was impressive and in places beautiful, and the emptiness of it all added a certain eerie quality she found she liked, but it took the Bentley eight minutes to get from the city gates to the Sanctuary. And that wasn’t because of traffic – there was barely any to speak of – but because of the ridiculous grid system they’d used to arrange the streets. It would have been fine if those eight minutes were filled with conversation, but this morning Skulduggery was in one of his quiet moods, so Stephanie sat in silence.
They got to the Sanctuary – or to the palace that the Sanctuary had become – and took the ramp down below street level, where they parked and rode the elevator up to the lobby. No expense had been spared to remind visitors that this was where the power lay. The lobby was a vision of statues and paintings, white marble and deepest obsidian. Grey-suited Cleavers stood guard, their scythes gleaming wickedly.
The Administrator walked to meet them. “Detective Pleasant,” Tipstaff
