They sat in the diner, Valkyrie doing her best to eat a burger that kept slipping from its bun. Skulduggery had activated one of his false faces, one which gave him a slightly bewildered look. He had placed the pen in a wooden box and was peering at it. Scrutinous sat in the booth and did his best not to worry. He had a glass of water in front of him that he didn’t touch.

“This store,” Skulduggery said, “where Mister Cassidy worked – where is it?”

“Donnybrook,” said Scrutinous.

“Donnybrook,” Skulduggery repeated. “Interesting. Do you know of any sorcerers living in Donnybrook? I don’t. Thoroughly nice area, but no sorcerers.”

“This burger is hard to eat,” Valkyrie muttered.

“You’re doing a fantastic job,” Skulduggery said happily. He closed the box and put it in his pocket. “Now then, Donnybrook. No sorcerers in Donnybrook. No sorcerers around where Cassidy lived. So how did he meet the sorcerer who killed him?”

Scrutinous found it hard to know when Skulduggery was addressing him or merely thinking out loud. The eyes on his false face were slowly swivelling in every direction.

“Unless,” Skulduggery said, “he never did.”

Valkyrie asked a question with her mouth full.

Skulduggery’s head tilted. “What I mean is, this is a curse that passes from one person to the next, yes? The pen keeps moving around. Brendan Cassidy may not have been the first victim, which means it’s possible he had no contact at all with the sorcerer who started it. Which means that there should be more unexplained deaths that we haven’t heard about. Excuse me for a moment.”

Skulduggery took his phone from his pocket, then slipped out of the booth. He went away to make a phone call. Scrutinous looked back at Valkyrie. She had managed to shove half of the burger into her mouth but now froze, her eyes on his.

She mumbled something that sounded like, “Sorry.”

He looked away, and she munched on.

A few minutes later Skulduggery slid back into the booth. “Excellent news,” he said. “There have been four unexplained deaths in the past two weeks. The first three were all sorcerers, and the fourth was a mortal woman who knew the last sorcerer killed and who lived in Donnybrook. Before she died, she could have left that pen in the store in which Brendan Cassidy worked. He picked it up, took it home, and got hit by a train.”

“Who was the first sorcerer killed?” Valkyrie asked.

“His name was Elwood Satchel. Low-level Elemental. If the curse did start with him, then the killer must has some connection. We find that connection, we find the killer, we save Geoffrey.”

“Then let’s do it,” Scrutinous said. He paused. “How do we do it?”

“We talk to someone who knew Satchel well. He has a brother who’s out of the country right now, and a friend who lives close by.”