one else can see me, can they? They can’t hear me or touch me. So I’m either a ghost or a hallucination. I think it’d be better for you if I were a ghost.”
Valkyrie turned to her, glaring into the smirk. “You’re not a ghost and you’re not a hallucination. I know exactly what you are.”
“Oh, really?” Darquesse said. “Well then, what am I?”
“You’re a bit of her,” Valkyrie said. “You’re a splinter of the real Darquesse. What, you really think I wouldn’t have worked it out? You’ve been hanging around me for five years.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re a stray thought she left behind,” said Valkyrie. “She abandoned you, and you don’t have the power to go after her. You barely have the power to exist.”
“That’s a cosy explanation,” Darquesse said. “I bet it’s more comforting than the idea that you’re going insane.”
“Maybe I can see you because we’re connected, or maybe it’s because I can see across the magic spectrum. I don’t know. But what I do know is that you’re flesh and blood. You’re not a figment of my imagination and you’re not a symptom of my insanity. You want to know how I know?”
“Dearly.”
Valkyrie punched her, snapping her head back, buckling her legs from under her.
“See?” Valkyrie said, looking down at her. “Real.”
Valkyrie left her there.
Around the corner and halfway down the next corridor, she pushed open a door and stepped in.
Fletcher lay sleeping, hooked up to an IV and a monitor. He was pale. His hair, distressingly, was sensibly brushed back from his forehead. He looked almost respectable, like someone who hadn’t known him had prepared him for his coffin.
Valkyrie realised her hands were shaking. She clenched her fists to stop it.
For five years, she hadn’t had to visit anyone in hospital. For five years, she’d been away from beatings and stabbings, from murders and plots. She hadn’t missed any of it, and yet she’d come back. She’d walked back into this world of violence and pain and death and suffering, and she’d done so fully aware of what could happen. She couldn’t explain why.
“Hey,” Fletcher said. He was smiling.
She walked closer. “How’re you doing?”
“Good.” His voice was weak. “But the knife did a lot of damage, so I have to stay very still for everything to settle back into place. I am so incredibly bored.”
“I’d say so.”
“How are you? I heard what happened to Skulduggery.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I’m OK. I’ll get him back.”
“I don’t doubt it. Who was it stabbed me?”
Valkyrie sat on the chair beside his bed. “His name is Nero. A Teleporter. I don’t know how he did it, how he followed you. I’ve never even heard of that before.”
“Me either,” Fletcher said, “and I’ve read practically every book written about Teleporters. Not that there are many. There are, like, four.”
“You’ve read four books?”
“I’ve changed,” he said, and smiled again.
“Thanks, by the way,” she said. “For coming to get us like you did. You saved our lives.”
“I’d blush, but I doubt I have enough blood for it. Besides, I didn’t have a choice. The call came in that Skulduggery Pleasant and Valkyrie Cain were in trouble and what was I going to do, ignore it? You were my first love. I had to go charging to the rescue.”
“My hero.”
“Yeah, I’m awesome. Hey, hope you don’t mind me saying this, but you look … sad.”
“I’ll be fine. Skulduggery being gone … it’s temporary. That’s all.”
“He’ll come back to you,” said Fletcher. “If anyone can snap him out of whatever it is that’s affecting him, it’ll be you.”
“Yeah.”
“How you doing, Val? Really?”
She looked away, then back. “Not good,” she said.
She said her goodbyes to Fletcher and walked towards the exit. She was almost there when the doors opened ahead of her and Temper Fray and Omen Darkly hurried in from the street. She stared.
“I heard what happened,” Temper said, his face still puffy from a recent beating. “What’s the plan?”
Valkyrie blinked at him. “What?”
“The plan,” he repeated, like he was talking to a four-year-old. “To stop them from resurrecting Abyssinia. What is it?”
“I don’t … I don’t know what … Temper, how are you still alive?”
“Omen rescued me,” Temper said.
“Omen’s supposed to be in school.”
“I’d never have thought Skulduggery would shoot you,” Temper said. “I mean, not actually shoot you. Not you.”
Valkyrie shook her head. “Wait, stop, we’re not finished talking about this. I’m glad you’re alive and everything, but Omen, Skulduggery told you to stay out of it from now on, didn’t he?”
Omen nodded, like the guilty schoolboy he was.
“Again, I’m glad Temper isn’t dead, but this isn’t a game we’re playing.”
“I know,” Omen murmured.
“I don’t think you do. Look at me. Look at the fear in my eyes. You think any of this is fun?”
“No.”
“This isn’t your fight. It isn’t your job to deal with these psychos and it isn’t your job to rescue people, as pleased as I am that Temper is alive.”
“You keep saying that,” Temper said. “I don’t think I believe you any more.”
“I’m sorry I disobeyed Skulduggery,” said Omen, “but I really want to be a part of this. It’s my one chance to be someone.”
“You’re fourteen,” Valkyrie said. “You have plenty of time to be
