Tanith raised them for Valkyrie to see. They were heavily bandaged and wrapped in plastic so that the mud wouldn’t get in. “The Professor says they’ll be fine in a few days. The doctors in the Sanctuary soaked the bandages in something I never heard of to heal the wounds. The Professor inspected them the moment I was transferred here. He said they’d do the job. All this mud is for the swelling and the, you know, the trauma. I’ll be fine, he says. He’s doing everything he can to make up for it.”

“He blames himself,” Valkyrie said. “Even though he couldn’t do anything to stop the Remnant, and even though he can’t remember one thing about it, he still blames himself.”

“I’m not surprised,” Tanith said. “I mean, I know it wasn’t him that did this to me. But it used his face and it had his voice, and I don’t know…I think there’s a part of me that hates him for it.”

“But you’re here,” frowned Valkyrie. “If a part of you hates him, wouldn’t you have wanted to stay in the Sanctuary, away from him?”

“I’m a practical girl, Val, and the practical side of my brain pretty much tells the stupid side what to do. So I’m cool here.”

She shrugged and winced and Valkyrie noticed the bandages on her shoulders.

“How are you?” she asked.

“I just told you.”

“No, you told me how your injuries are.”

“All right then, I’m doing OK actually. The pain wasn’t really any worse than the White Cleaver stabbing me in the back, but the White Cleaver didn’t talk, you know? That Remnant thing in the Professor just would not shut up.”

“Tanith, you were tortured.”

“Everyone gets tortured these days. Skulduggery was tortured by Serpine, who then turned around and did that red right-hand thing at you. Then Skulduggery was tortured again by the Faceless Ones. I figured it was my turn, you know? You’re not part of the team if you haven’t been tortured – that’s what I always say. Well, I’ll be saying that from now on anyway.”

Valkyrie stood there, feeling stupid and awkward. Tanith had been put through hell and Valkyrie didn’t have the first idea how to talk to her about it. The pain was evident in her friend’s eyes, no matter how hard she tried to hide it. Valkyrie searched clumsily for the words she needed, but they weren’t coming to her.

“What are they going to do with the Remnant?” Tanith asked, breaking the silence.

“We’ve handed it over to Wreath,” Valkyrie told her and Tanith’s face soured.

“Why does he want it?”