Sanguine turned sideways in his chair, resting one elbow on the table. “Is there a rule against threats?” he asked.

“No,” said Shudder.

“There a rule against the promise of a violent death?”

“There is not.”

“Well, OK then.” Sanguine’s eyeless gaze fell upon Valkyrie. “I’m goin’ to kill you. You cut me right across the belly with that damned sword, an’ I couldn’t go to no big-shot professor to get stitched up. I had to go to some back-alley moron who talked the talk, but when it came to walkin’ the walk, he barely got faster than a shuffle. I’m fairly certain he made things worse. He said give it a few weeks to heal and I gave it a month, but when I went burrowin’, it was like my guts were on fire and the smoke was collectin’ in my lungs. Now, I can’t go back and demand he fix me up on account of the fact that he’s already dead, an’ so the only person I have left to blame is the little brat who cut me in the first place.”

“It was self-defence,” Valkyrie said.

“That ain’t no excuse. Fact is that makes it worse. If you’d just let me kill you when I wanted to kill you, we wouldn’t be in this situation. This whole thing is your fault.”

“Your logic is impeccable,” Skulduggery said. “Then what about Springheeled Jack? What is his motivation for revenge?”

Sanguine gave a shrug. “Jack is doin’ what Jack does – causin’ mischief. He just wants to cause more of it, on a wider scale, and he wants to get rid of anyone who’d try an’ stop him.”

“But why the Engine? Why go to the trouble of working to repair a bomb of that magnitude if all you want is revenge on a few select individuals?”

“Now that,” Sanguine said, his smile returning, “is the secret part of our secret plan.”

“Why are you here, Mr Sanguine?” interrupted Shudder. “I make it a point not to pry into my guest’s private lives, but Skulduggery has indicated that you’re here for a Remnant. If that’s true, we may have a problem.”

“Well,” Sanguine said, “it is true, so what kind of a problem do we have?”

Shudder sighed. “I have twenty-three rooms in this hotel that people are free to use. The twenty-fourth room, however, is off-limits to everybody.”

“I had heard this, yeah.”

“Even if you were able to use your powers,” Shudder continued, “you wouldn’t be able to enter. The twenty-fourth room is more secure than any prison cell. It’s why I was asked to keep the Remnants here in the first place.”

“I’m sure that is true,” Sanguine nodded.

“There is no window and only one door into the twenty-fourth room and there is only one key for that door.”

“I get it, yeah.”