She looked up. “Eally?”

“Really. You just have to find him.”

Peg nodded, then nodded again, with renewed determination. Skulduggery stepped back as she stood up and brushed some of the dust off her wedding dress.

“Stay away from your brothers, OK? They’re not a very good influence on you.”

She nodded, and marched for the church door. Before she stepped out, she stopped, and looked back tearfully. “I awah ink awoo, Skuluggy.”

“And I’ll always think of you, too,” Skulduggery replied.

And then Peg was gone.

Valkyrie stood beside Skulduggery. “Anything you want to tell me?”

“No,” he said. “Not really. Are all the babies safe?”

“Safe and unharmed. Their folks will be glad to have them back. Are you sure there’s nothing you want to tell me? To share?”

“Relatively positive, yes.”

“She seems nice. Peg, I mean.”

He looked at her. “It’s going to take you a while to stop teasing me about this, isn’t it?”

She grinned. “Oh, yes.”

He sighed. “Then you may as well get started.”

The Slightly Ignominious End to the Legend of Black Annis

lack Annis didn’t like living in a ditch, but times were changing, and the England she had known as a child was long gone. She narrowed her eyes – left eye blue, right eye green – and tried to remember what she had been like as a child. It had been so long ago she had quite forgotten.

Had she laughed and played, like other girls? Had she giggled and joked, and run through the meadows and the fields of Leicester, letting the sunshine warm her skin? Highly unlikely. The more she thought about it, the more she remembered. She couldn’t recall any friends, nor could she recall any giggling or joking. She seemed to remember a lot of screaming, though. Oh, yes, a whole lot of screaming.

Annis walked to the cave mouth, her feet crunching on bones and human remains. It was almost morning. She hated mornings. She hated the morning, the noon, the early afternoon, the late afternoon, and bright evenings. She hated a lot of things.

What had she been thinking about? Oh, yes, her childhood. Now that was a time of her life that had outstayed its welcome. Her parents had been terrified of her. Her father had thought she was the spawn of the devil, but she’d always taken that as a compliment. Whenever she got angry her fingernails would grow long and pointed, and her teeth became jagged and her skin turned blue. She’d never really understood why her skin turned blue, or what purpose it served, but her parents used it as an early-warning system. Annis’s temper was not a pretty sight.