Skulduggery didn’t know why Marr had done what she did, but he knew how. The Desolation Engine that had been recovered at the castle had never been handed over to be deactivated. Marr had kept it and then given it to Myron Stray. She had made sure his name was on the list so that he could enter the Sanctuary without incident, and she had done her best to make sure that Skulduggery and Valkyrie were there also. Using Stray’s true name, she had commanded him to burst his own eardrums so that he couldn’t hear orders that would conflict with hers. Skulduggery theorised that she would have instructed him to keep his mouth shut and warn nobody of what he was about to do. She ordered him to do everything but be unafraid, and so Myron Stray had walked into the Sanctuary fully aware of what he was about to do, but completely unable to prevent it.

As far as the rest of the country knew, the old Waxworks Museum had collapsed all by itself, and it was a miracle that nobody was hurt. The truth had no place in the newspapers. The dead were mourned privately and quietly, the rubble was cleared and the giant hole was filled in. In a few more days, Skulduggery had told her, there would be no sign that the Sanctuary had ever existed there.

Valkyrie went upstairs, pulled on shorts and a vest and went to bed early with the rain gently tapping the window. Within five minutes she was asleep.

51 WHISPERS

51
WHISPERS

The nightmare woke her.

She sat up and slowly swung her legs out of bed. It was cold and her room was dark. The house was quiet. It was the middle of the night. Her nightmare clung to her with its smoky tendrils, clouding her mind, and she became aware of a low whispering in the room.

The dream whisperer Cassandra had given her lay on the shelf where she’d left it, and it was talking to Valkyrie in hushed tones that seemed to reach right inside her mind, bringing the nightmare back to her as a headache began to pound against her temples.

And now, finally, she could see it. At last, she could remember what had been plaguing her ever since she heard the name two days ago.

The whisperer kept whispering and Valkyrie saw her nightmare again in her mind. She saw Serpine and his glittering emerald eyes. She saw the fight in the Repository three years earlier, when he’d gone up against Skulduggery. The Book of Names had fallen and she’d glanced at it. She’d seen her own given name of Stephanie Edgley and her taken name of Valkyrie Cain. And, in the last column, the final thing she’d glimpsed that she was only now remembering…