LITMIR.BIZ

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with the mortals that Cadaverous Gant and these anti-Sanctuary nutjobs so desperately want. So … y’know. Rock and a hard place.”

      “You think cheery thoughts, don’t you?”

      “Can’t help it. I’m a naturally optimistic person.”

      They reached the Bentley and it unlocked with a beep.

      “How’s the headache?” Skulduggery asked.

      “Fading,” Valkyrie said. “Are we not sticking around? I thought we had to find The Mage’s Lament.”

      “I’ve decided that I don’t like long shots. They’re annoying, and rarely work out. Besides, it’s the middle of the day – I doubt there’s anyone interesting there right now. A better use of our time might be to take a drive up to Cassandra Pharos’s cottage.”

      Xena jumped in the car and Valkyrie got in after her. “You really want to take a detour?”

      “You never got a chance to say goodbye when you left for America,” Skulduggery said, shutting the door and starting the engine. “Maybe some of your reluctance about committing to coming back stems from a lack of closure.”

      “Wow.”

      “What?”

      “Closure. Wow.”

      They pulled out on to the road and started driving. “Closure is important,” he said. “You moved to Colorado and assumed that people like Cassandra and Finbar would be here when you got back. You never said goodbye.”

      “You think I feel guilt about that?”

      “You don’t?”

      “No,” Valkyrie said, giving him back his hat. “And the only people who should are the people who killed them.”

      The morning after the Night of Knives, Skulduggery had called Valkyrie in Colorado to let her know what had happened. She’d spoken to him while wrapped in a towel. The house was quiet apart from the faint splashes coming from the shower. By the time she’d hung up, the water had been turned off and the shower door was opening. She sat on the edge of her bed, tears in her eyes. She didn’t go to the funerals.

      They rolled up to Cassandra’s cottage a little after 2 pm. Valkyrie had mixed feelings about the place. On the one hand, Cassandra had always reminded her of the grandmothers she’d lost when she was a kid. She’d been warm, and funny, and fascinating. She’d had stories to tell about each and every facet of her life. Just to be in her company had brought a glorious feeling of being welcome. Of coming home.

      But the cottage had a cellar, and in that cellar there was a floor that was a metal grille over a bed of coals. And when the steam swirled and Cassandra played her visions out in 3D, like holograms, the warmth vanished, despite the rising heat, replaced by the cold dread of the horrors to come. It was in those steam clouds that Valkyrie had first seen the rubble of Roarhaven during Devastation Day, and her own face, mere moments before she went on to kill her baby sister.

      Valkyrie let Xena roam, and eyed the cottage. “Why are we really here?” she asked.

      “I have a theory that needs to be tested,” said Skulduggery. “No more questions. I don’t want to spoil the surprise.”

      He found the key beneath an old pot and opened the front door, and Valkyrie took a dry leaf from the battered packet she kept in her jeans, popping it into her mouth as she stepped through. The cottage was just as she remembered – the comfy sofa, the faded rug, the guitar on a stand in the corner – but the dream whisperers which had hung from the rafters were gone. Valkyrie was glad. They were creepy little things.

      “Are you OK?” Skulduggery asked.

      The leaf had started to dissolve on her tongue, but she chewed the rest to get rid of it faster. They were great for numbing pain, be it from a broken leg, a gunshot wound, or a mere headache, but no one had yet bothered to make the damn things taste better. “Another headache,” she said as she wandered over to the guitar. “Nothing to worry about.” She picked it up.

      Skulduggery’s head tilted. “Perhaps.”

      She strummed. Badly. “Perhaps what? It’s a headache. People get headaches all the time. Especially after they’ve been punched in the face.”

      Skulduggery took a small bag of rainbow dust from his pocket, held out his hand and let it sprinkle through his gloved fingers. It fell as golden particles. “Do you remember what gold means?”

      “Gold means psychic. Which is to be expected, right? Even though Cassandra’s been dead for two years?” She played the first few bars of ‘Stairway to Heaven’, got it wrong and tried again.

      “You are quite correct,” he responded, sealing the bag and putting it away. “This cottage contains an abundance of residual psychic energy, enough so that anyone with Sensitive tendencies would be vulnerable to their influence.”

      “OK. So?”

      “We were nearing Testament Road when you got the headache earlier,” he said. “The part of town where Sensitives can’t go.”

      Valkyrie laughed. “Oh, wow. This is your theory? You think I’m a Sensitive?”

      “I think it’s a possibility. The full range of your abilities has yet to be explored. Most sorcerers are restricted to one discipline – I’m one of the rare exceptions, being both an Elemental and a Necromancer. But you? You might be something else entirely.”

      “I think I’d know if I was a psychic, though.”

      “Would you?” Skulduggery asked, and took the guitar from her hands. He walked away from her, playing ‘Heroes’ by Bowie. “Tell me something – have you experienced anything unusual recently?”

      “You mean apart from you? Listen, I don’t have clairvoyance. I can’t read people’s minds or see into the future.” She faltered on the last word, then shook her head. “This is silly. I’m not a Sensitive.”

      “You don’t know what you are,” he said, turning and starting to sing.

      Xena wandered in and he sang to her while she sat, head cocked to one side, and when he was done he twirled the guitar and thrust it away from him, and it floated back to the corner to settle into its stand. The show over, Xena got up, wandered back outside.

      “I didn’t know you played,” Valkyrie said.

      “Cassandra taught me,” he responded, and looked around like he’d just realised she wasn’t here any more.

      Valkyrie let the silence continue for a bit, then broke it. “So we’re here,” she said. “Remembering Cassandra. Singing. She really would have liked that. What’s next? We head back to Dublin and get matching tattoos in honour of Finbar?”

      “If you like,” he said. “But, since we’re here, we may as well go downstairs.”

      “Why would we want to do that?”

      But he was already opening the narrow door beside the cupboard. “Come on,” he said, and went down.

      Valkyrie hesitated a long moment before following.

      It was dark down there. Cold. Old pipes ran up the bare walls. A straight-backed chair stood in the middle of the metal floor.

      “I’m not sure what you’re hoping to achieve with all this,” she said.

      He clicked his fingers, summoning flame into his hand. “Your, what do you call it, your ‘aura-vision’ is a psychic ability. How do you know that it doesn’t go deeper? Indulge me this once.”

      “I’m always indulging you.”

      “Then indulge me once more.” He dropped the ball of fire to the floor. The flames lit the coals beneath and heat immediately started to rise.

      “What do you think is going to happen

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