Marr hurried over, shackles in his hand. She cuffed Kenspeckle’s wrists behind him, sealing the Remnant back inside. Valkyrie looked around, realising there were Cleavers over by Tanith, freeing her from the seat.

“This won’t hold me for long,” Kenspeckle said, spitting blood as Marr hauled him up. “I’ll get out. I’ll come for you. Every last one of you.”

“Cleavers” Marr said, “take him away.”

Fletcher came in as Kenspeckle was led out.

“Fletcher,” Skulduggery said, stifling a groan as he fixed his arm into place, “take Tanith to the Sanctuary. She needs urgent medical attention.”

“You got it,” Fletcher said, gently placing his hand on Tanith’s arm. They vanished.

“Did you catch Scarab?” Ghastly asked Marr when he’d picked himself up off the floor.

Marr shook her head. “All the major players are gone. All we’ve come across so far are Hollow Men.”

“Look what I found,” Detective Pennant said as he walked in. He was smiling triumphantly, a strange stone hourglass in his hand. Green liquid sloshed inside the twin vials. “Looks like they left without their toy.”

Valkyrie stared. “That’s the Desolation Engine?”

“I found a bunch of other stuff,” Pennant continued. “Bits and pieces, junk really. One of the Cleavers is taking it to the boffins to make them happy. But this – this is the big one.”

“That bomb is live,” Skulduggery said quietly.

Pennant laughed. “It can’t be live. The old man didn’t have time to fix it. You’re talking days of work and he had, what, a few hours?”

“There are three steps to setting that thing off. Do you see the way the liquid is slightly luminous? That tells us it’s live. That’s the first step. The second step is arming it. We’ll know that happens when the liquid turns red and starts to bubble. The third and final step is when it’s triggered. Detective Pennant, you are two steps away from obliterating us all. Maybe you should hand that over to me.”

Skulduggery stepped forward, but Marr took it from Pennant before Skulduggery got near. “You may have been granted temporary authority, Mr Pleasant, but I am still Prime Detective and, as such, this is my responsibility. Once it has been declared safe by Sanctuary experts, maybe then I will allow you to examine it. But right now, this is ours.”

Pennant strained to look professional, even as he backed away from the bomb.

Fletcher appeared beside Valkyrie and she jumped.

“Sorry,” he said. “The doctors are looking at Tanith now.” He saw Pennant and waved. “Hi. Didn’t I beat you up once?” Pennant glared, but said nothing.

“You should all return with us to the Sanctuary for a debriefing,” said Marr. She hadn’t even glanced at the Engine. “Standard operating procedure.”