The instant that word registered in Valkyrie’s mind she was twisting, swinging her fist. She’d spent enough time with Fletcher to know that his first move was always to teleport behind his enemy. She swung blindly and was almost surprised when her arm struck Remit’s jaw. He spun, eyes rolling in his head, his legs collapsing beneath him. He crumpled to the rooftop.
Valkyrie cuffed his arms behind his back with his own shackles, and waited for him to wake up. Her arm, the arm where Nadir had grabbed her, started to throb again.
“You’re under arrest,” Remit said weakly.
“Hush now, or I’ll tell people that I cuffed you with your own shackles.”
The throbbing got worse, just like it did before she shunted over here in the first place.
“Your head’ll be on the block soon enough,” he said, trying to get to his knees. “No one dares assault a—”
His voice dimmed for a moment. He dimmed for a moment. In fact, everything dimmed. Valkyrie stepped back, suddenly dizzy. The world flickered. Remit was too busy sitting up to notice.
“You’ll be tortured first,” he was saying. “We’ll prise every little secret out of your pretty little brain.”
He got to his feet, a little awkwardly, and she didn’t stop him. “You’ll beg for mercy. Every sorcerer we capture renounces the Resistance, and they all beg. You’ll be no different. I’d say you wouldn’t last more than a few hours, in fact.” He stumbled, still groggy. “I bet everything I own that the day you’re captured, you’ll be swearing your loyalty to Mevolent before the sun goes down.”
Valkyrie looked up, eyes wide, and then the world flickered again and it was gone, and she was in a room and falling, crashing to the ground and smacking her head.
A mop and bucket. Cleaning supplies. A storeroom.
She got up, rubbed her head. Moving quietly, she opened the door and stepped out into a hotel corridor. It was bright, and clean, and normal. She hurried to the nearest window and looked out across Dublin City. Her Dublin City. She took out her phone. Four missed calls, all from Skulduggery. She pressed RETURN CALL and waited for him to answer.
“Hi,” she said. “I’m back.”
* * *
As if the Elders didn’t have enough to deal with, now they had Valkyrie’s adventures in Bizarro Land. She felt strangely guilty as they convened, like she was pulling them away from other, more important matters. Ghastly rushed over immediately, asking how she was, if she was hurt. Ravel looked like he wanted to do the same, but he forced himself to sit in the Grand Mage’s chair and act like a professional. Only Madame Mist didn’t seem like she cared.
Valkyrie told them what had happened, the exact same story she had told Skulduggery, minus a few swear words and sidebars. She had almost reached the point where Remit had mentioned Mevolent’s name when Tipstaff entered, apologised unreservedly, and hurried over to whisper in Ravel’s ear. Ravel listened, sighed, and thanked him.
“I have to go,” he said. “Pressing matters, all that stuff. Valkyrie, I’m glad you’re OK, I really am, and I need to hear the rest of the story, but for the moment, business calls. Ghastly tells me you have a plane waiting to take you over the Alps.”
Skulduggery tilted his head. “We’re not going.”
Ravel frowned. “You’re not?”
Valkyrie frowned. “We’re not?”
“We can’t,” Skulduggery said. “We need to get Nadir to reverse whatever he did.”
“The search for Argeddion takes precedence,” said Ravel. “We have to stop whatever he’s doing, before any more mortals acquire magical powers. You said yourself that Xebec was probably killed by one of them. This is the priority.”
“For you, maybe. But Valkyrie could be pulled back into that other reality at any time, and we need Nadir to stop that from happening.”
Ravel shook his head. “Don’t make me pull rank on you, Skulduggery. Behind all the jokes and amusement I am still the Grand Mage. You persuaded us to take this job, remember? It’s because of you that I’m here, and it’s because of you that I’m forced to order you to keep Argeddion as your priority. If Valkyrie gets pulled back in, she can take care of herself. She came back here once, right? She’ll do it again. Valkyrie, all you have to do is stay out of trouble.”
“There’s something we haven’t told you yet,” Skulduggery said, “about where she went.”
“Over there,” Valkyrie said, “Mevolent is still alive.”
Ravel’s eyes widened.
“Their timeline could have been identical to ours,” Skulduggery said, “right up to the point where Mevolent died. Obviously, over there, he survived. And now he’s in charge.”
“You should have seen it,” Valkyrie said. “Sorcerers control everything over there. The mortals are terrified. People disappear and are never seen again. There’s torture and executions and Sensitives patrol the streets, listening out for guilty thoughts.”
“What if Valkyrie is pulled back over there,” said Skulduggery, “and she’s captured? What if Mevolent questions her? And when she returns, if she returns, what if he’s touching her, and she brings him back with her? Do we want Mevolent walking the streets of our reality? We got rid of him once, but now he’s had another hundred years to grow even more powerful.”
Ghastly sat back. “He could invade,” he said, his voice quiet. “He could set up an Isthmus Anchor between dimensions. He could open and close a portal any time he wanted.”
“And he already has a Teleporter,” said Valkyrie.
“He wouldn’t need one,” said Mist. “The Diablerie required Fletcher Renn to open their portal because their Anchor stretched between this world, in this dimension, and another world, in another dimension. But Mevolent’s Anchor would only need to serve as a link between alternate versions of the same world.”
“Which means,” Ghastly said, “it would be easier. Which means he could transport whole armies at a time.”
Ravel hesitated, then shook his head. “We’re talking about possibilities,” he said, “but Argeddion is a certainty. We only have a few days before the Summer of Light begins, whatever that is, and even less time to prove to the Supreme Council that we can handle things without their ‘help’. I’ll arrange to have Nadir transported here so you can talk to him when you get back, but Argeddion is our most immediate threat, and he must be dealt with using everything and everyone we have. Skulduggery, Valkyrie, I’m sorry, but we can’t do this without you.”
Skulduggery started to speak, but Valkyrie put her hand on his arm. Finding Argeddion meant finding his prison, and finding his prison meant Valkyrie’s family had a chance of survival.
“We understand,” she said. “We’ll take care of Argeddion first.”
Skulduggery looked at her, and didn’t say anything.
