Skulduggery led the way out into the mall. The shops themselves were dark and shuttered, but the main strip of the mall was still lit. It was odd, being in a space designed for crowds and seeing it empty. It didn’t fit. It wasn’t right. It was, all of a sudden, incredibly lonely.

They walked down the deactivated travelator, no one talking. They reached the ground floor and Ryan wandered around, his hand held open in front of him. Skulduggery had insisted that once he got close to the Machine, he’d start to feel something. A buzzing, maybe. A tingle. Ryan had asked if it would be sore. Skulduggery couldn’t promise anything.

Valkyrie walked behind him. She pitied him. He knew she did. Of course she did. Who wouldn’t? He was a pitiful person who wasn’t even a person. He didn’t even know what he looked like, not really. He knew he wasn’t fifteen. He knew he was older. He wondered what colour hair he had. He wondered what his face was like. How his voice sounded. He wondered what his thoughts were like. The only thing he knew was that he wasn’t a very nice person – not really. Not truly. A nice person wouldn’t do something like this.

His hand tingled. Slight pins and needles. “I think we’re close,” he said. His words sounded weird in this place.

“It’s below us,” said Skulduggery, “built into the foundations. There’s an activation panel somewhere around here. Follow the buzzing.”

Ryan did as he was told, and led them to a section of the wall. Skulduggery tapped it with his knuckle. It sounded normal to Ryan, but Skulduggery obviously heard something that he didn’t. It must have been great to be Skulduggery – to always know what to do, to always know what needed to be done. Even in the false life Deacon Maybury had given him, Ryan had never known that kind of certainty.

“Why didn’t he make me better?” he asked as Skulduggery continued to tap.

Valkyrie looked at him. “What do you mean?”

Ryan’s laugh came out of nowhere and didn’t last long. “I mean, look at me. Why didn’t he make me cooler, or smarter, or better-looking? He was creating a whole new person, right? So why did he make him as rubbish as me?”

“You’re… you’re not rubbish, Ryan.”

“Yes, I am. I’m fat and ugly and useless.”

“Skulduggery,” Valkyrie said, “tell him.”

Skulduggery stopped tapping the wall, and looked at Ryan. “Deacon made someone who would blend in with the background, someone too unexceptional to notice.”

Valkyrie shook her head. “You’re meant to make him feel better.”