Skulduggery wrapped an arm around Valkyrie’s waist – with his other he gripped Guild – and they rose off the ground and flew. They flew through the corridor, whipping by startled sorcerers who saw what was coming, but were powerless to escape. Valkyrie watched the walls crumble and the people die, and still the ball of energy grew and chased them, faster than they could possibly move.

When the walls crumbled, the ceiling caved in and Skulduggery took them upwards. They veered to avoid falling masonry and the ball of energy found Guild and he screamed as his trailing leg disintegrated. They rose through darkness with his screams, then they burst into brightness and rain, and still they rose, and the ball of energy reached its peak and retracted.

They landed on a rooftop. Guild had passed out, the stump of his leg cauterised by the very energy that had wounded him. Skulduggery laid him down and joined Valkyrie at the edge. The Waxworks Museum cracked and tumbled into the chasm of dust. They watched the Bentley topple and crunch down below street level, the ground opening up to swallow it. The building they were standing on shook, but stayed solid. And then the rumbling was over, and there were only the clouds of dust and car alarms.

50 BACK TO HAGGARD

50
BACK TO HAGGARD

A little over thirty-two hours later, Valkyrie climbed through her bedroom window. The reflection stepped into the mirror and she absorbed its memories. She got dressed in the clothes it had been wearing and went downstairs. She made her mother a cup of tea and sat at the kitchen table and watched her father demonstrate the new baby seat he’d bought for the car. She did her best to smile at his antics.

The Sanctuary was gone. Destroyed. Twenty-nine sorcerers and twenty-one Cleavers had been killed. Davina Marr was missing and every surviving agent was hunting for her.

They’d questioned Scarab in his prison cell and he denied all knowledge. He claimed he had never been in contact with Marr. She was not part of his plan. He enjoyed the fact that such destruction was brought down by one of the Sanctuary’s own agents.