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hear things.”

      “Do I?”

      “People talk to you.”

      “I am very approachable.”

      “I was wondering if you’d heard anything: rumours, whispers, anything.”

      “Nothing that would help you.”

      “But you have heard something?”

      “I’ve heard nonsense. I’ve heard something that doesn’t even deserve to be called a rumour. Apparently Serpine has been making inquiries about the Sceptre of the Ancients.”

      “What about it?”

      “He’s looking for it.”

      “What do you mean? The Sceptre’s a fairy tale.”

      “Like I said, it’s nonsense.”

      Skulduggery fell silent for a moment, as if he was storing that piece of information away for further study. When he spoke again, it was with a new line of questioning. “So what would Gordon have that he – or anyone else – might want?”

      “Probably quite a lot,” China answered. “Dear Gordon was like me: he was a collector. But I don’t think that’s the question you should be asking.”

      Skulduggery thought for a moment. “Ah.”

      Stephanie looked at the two of them. “What? What?”

      “The question,” Skulduggery said, “is not what did Gordon have that someone might want to steal, but rather what did Gordon have that someone had to wait until he was dead in order to steal it?”

      Stephanie looked at him. “There’s a difference?”

      China answered her. “There are items that cannot be taken, possessions that cannot be stolen. In such a case, the owner must be dead before anyone else can take advantage of its powers.”

      “If you hear anything that might be of use,” Skulduggery said, “will you let me know?”

      “And what do I get in return?” China responded, that smile playing on her lips again.

      “My appreciation?”

      “Tempting. That is tempting.”

      “Then how about this?” Skulduggery said. “Do it as a favour, for a friend.”

      “A friend?” China said. “After all these years, after everything that’s happened, are you saying that you’re my friend again?”

      “I was talking about Gordon.”

      China laughed and Stephanie followed Skulduggery as he walked back through the stacks. They left the library and travelled back the way they’d come.

      When they were out on the street, Stephanie spoke up at last.

      “So that was China Sorrows,” she said.

      “Yes, that was,” Skulduggery responded. “A woman not to be trusted.”

      “Beautiful name, though.”

      “Like I said, names are power. There are three names for everyone. The name you’re born with, the name you’re given and the name you take. Everyone, no matter who they are, is born with a name. You were born with a name. Do you know what it is?”

      “Is this a trick question?”

      “Do you know what your name is?”

      “Yes. Stephanie Edgley.”

      “No.”

      “No?”

      “That’s your given name. That’s the name other people handed you. If a mage with any kind of knowledge wanted to, he could use that name to influence you, to attain some small degree of control – to make you stand, sit, speak, things like that.”

      “Like a dog.”

      “I suppose so.”

      “You’re likening me to a dog?”

      “No,” he said, and then paused. “Well, yes.”

      “Oh, cheers.”

      “But you have another name, a real name, a true name. A name unique to you and you alone.”

      “What is it?”

      “I don’t know. You don’t know it either, at least not consciously. This name gives you power, but it would also give other people absolute power over you. If someone knew it, they could command your loyalty, your love, everything about you. Your free will could be totally eradicated. Which is why we keep our true names hidden.”

      “So what’s the third name?”

      “The name you take. It can’t be used against you, it can’t be used to influence you and it’s your first defence against a sorcerer’s attack. Your taken name seals your given name, protects it, and that’s why it’s so important to get it right.”

      “So Skulduggery is the name you took?”

      “It is.”

      “What about me? Should I have a third name?”

      He hesitated for only a moment. “If you’re going to be accompanying me on this, then yes, you probably should.”

      “And am I going to be accompanying you?”

      “That depends. Do you need your parents’ permission?”

      Stephanie’s parents wanted her to find her own way in life. That’s what they’d said countless times in the past. Of course, they’d been referring to school subjects and college applications and job prospects. Presumably, at no stage did they factor living skeletons and magic underworlds into their considerations. If they had, their advice would probably have been very different.

      Stephanie shrugged. “No, not really.”

      “Well, that’s good enough for me.”

      They reached the car and got in, and as they pulled out on to the road, she looked at him.

      “So who’s this Serpine you were talking about?”

      “Nefarian Serpine is one of the bad guys. I suppose, now that Mevolent is gone, he’d be considered the bad guy.”

      “What’s so bad about him?”

      The purr of the engine was all that filled the car for a few moments. “Serpine is an Adept,” Skulduggery said at last. “He was Mevolent’s most trusted lieutenant. You heard what China was saying, about how she is a collector, how Gordon was a collector? Serpine is a collector too. He collects magic. He has tortured, maimed and killed in order to learn other people’s secrets. He has committed untold atrocities in order to uncover obscure rituals, searching for the one ritual that he, and religious fanatics like him, have been seeking for generations. Back when the war broke out, he had this… weapon. These days he’s full of surprises, but he still uses it because, quite frankly, there is no defence against it.”

      “What’s the weapon?”

      “To put it simply, agonising death.”

      “Agonising death… on its own? Not, like, fired from a gun or anything?”

      “He just has to point his red right hand at you and… well, like I said, agonising death. It’s a necromancy technique.”

      “Necromancy?”

      “Death magic, a particularly dangerous Adept discipline. I don’t know how he learned it, but learn it he did.”

      “And what does the Sceptre thing have to do with all this?”

      “Nothing.

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