LITMIR.BIZ

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OK, you don’t have to.” She patted his arm. “It just means that, right now, I’m the funniest person in the world.”

      They walked back to the stairs, Valkyrie taking the lead this time. The whole building creaked around them. She got a hand on the banister, about to take the first step down, when she heard the man gasp behind her.

      A Redhood was standing at the foot of the stairs.

      alkyrie cursed, shoved the man back into the room as a second Redhood came crashing through the window. Valkyrie pushed at the air but he moved through the ripples, his scythe flashing. The blade cut through the balding man’s neck, severing his head. Valkyrie pushed at the air again, catching his body as it crumpled and slamming it into the Redhood, taking him off his feet. She felt the air shift behind her and she ducked, barely dodging the other Redhood’s scythe. She threw herself forward, rolled and sprang for the broken window. She leaped through, falling to the street, hands out to slow her descent. But her thoughts flashed with pain and she tumbled through space and hit the ground hard.

      The three Sense-Wardens stood before her, attacking her mind, driving needles into her brain. Her vision blurred. Figures in red approached from her left. She tried to get up but couldn’t.

      Get out of my mind, said the voice in her head.

      The pain doubled and she cried out. The pain, the agony, wasn’t just in her brain any more, it was all over. It was in her self. It was in her being. She could feel them, with their psychic needles, poking and prodding and gouging. They were attacking who she was. So who she was attacked them.

      GET OUT OF MY MIND.

      The Sense-Wardens staggered and the pain went away, and Valkyrie fought to keep Darquesse trapped within her. She brought her hands in, the wind snatching her from the street just as the Redhoods reached her. She rose into the sky, dropped to a rooftop and immediately started running.

      As she used the air to leap from rooftop to rooftop, she tried making sense of where she was. This was still Dublin, although a different Dublin to the one she knew. Somewhere along the timeline of this reality, something significant had happened that hadn’t occurred in her own dimension. But there should still be landmarks she recognised, some clue to help her get her bearings.

      She swooped up to a higher roof, and almost stumbled in astonishment. The River Liffey coiled before her, but on its far banks lay a wall like she had never seen. It coiled with the river, looming over the water forty storeys or more. O’Connell Bridge seemed to be the only entry point, leading to a pair of massive gates. And beyond all that the towers and steeples of what looked like a cathedral or a palace rose above even the wall.

      “And who might you be?”

      Valkyrie whirled. A man stood on the rooftop, smiling. He was good-looking, with a thin moustache that actually twirled. His clothes were beautiful, his shoes polished to a gleam. He looked like he had never done a day’s work in his life.

      “I’m Valkyrie,” she said at last. “And you are?”

      “Alexander Remit, at your service.” He even bowed. “May I enquire as to the nature of your visit to this neck of the proverbial woods?”

      “I took a wrong turn.”

      “Oh, I see. This is all a big mistake, then?”

      “Something like that.”

      “Then I should just leave you to go about your business?”

      “If you wouldn’t mind.”

      She started walking across the rooftop. He followed on a parallel course.

      “And you have absolutely nothing to do with the Resistance,” he said, “or the sorcerer who leads it?”

      “Nothing at all.”

      “Valkyrie, and that is a lovely name, I’m finding it hard to believe you, I’m afraid to say. I think you might be fibbing. I think you might be here as an agent of the Resistance to spy on us, or possibly even attempt an assassination.”

      “Not me.”

      “In that case, you would have no objection to accompanying me to the Palace, as my guest?”

      “I actually would have an objection.”

      “Such a pity. Here I am, extending an olive branch, and you refuse to take it. I don’t have to be so polite, you know. You attacked Sense-Wardens and Redhoods. Such criminal acts are punishable by death.”

      “I’m just trying to get home, Alexander.”

      “Where is home, Valkyrie?”

      She shrugged. “Not here.”

      They each stopped walking, and he took a pair of shackles from his jacket. “You look like an intelligent girl. Do the smart thing, and put these on.”

      “That’s not going to happen.”

      “That makes me sad.”

      “You’re about to get a lot sadder.”

      Remit vanished. Teleporter. 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

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