Tanith, Ghastly and Fletcher looked at her and nodded.

“However,” she continued, “he’ll also be assuming that we do know, so he’ll be waiting for us to make a move. Fletcher won’t be with us, which will make Guild suspect that he’s already teleported in.”

“And where will I be?” Fletcher asked excitedly.

“I don’t know, fixing your hair or something. The point is his attention will be in two places – where we are and where the skull is.”

“And how do we find out where the skull is?” Tanith asked.

“The reasonable place to put it would be the Repository,” Ghastly said. “Put it with all the other artefacts and magical objects and keep it there. But he’s not going to do that.”

“It’s too obvious,” agreed Valkyrie. “That’s the first place we’d look. It’s also the first place we’re going to look.”

Fletcher frowned. “But it’s not going to be there.”

“No, but the cloaking sphere is.”

“The invisibility ball?” said Fletcher.

“Cloaking sphere,” insisted Valkyrie.

“Invisibility ball sounds better.”

“Invisibility ball sounds stupid.” She turned to the others. “Once we get it, we call Fletcher. He arrives, we let them close in on us and then we use the sphere.”

“And they think we’ve teleported out,” Tanith finished, smiling.

Valkyrie nodded. “And then, hopefully, Guild sends someone to check on the skull. We follow, grab it and then we teleport out. If it doesn’t pan out like that, we can at least search for it without being seen.”

“China will have to be ready,” said Ghastly. “Once they realise what’s happened, Davina Marr and the Cleavers will come after all of us.”

“Can I just point something out?” Fletcher asked. “That is an awful plan. On a scale of one to ten – the Trojan Horse being a ten and General Custer versus all those Indians being a one – your plan is a zero. I don’t think it’s a plan at all. I think it’s just a series of happenings that are, to be honest, unlikely to follow on from each other in the way in which everyone’s probably hoping.”

“Do you have a better plan?” Valkyrie asked.

“Of course not. I’m a man of action, not thought.”

Valkyrie nodded. “You’re definitely not a man of thought.”

“Why are you in charge anyway? What do you know about organising something like this?”

“I have faith,” Tanith said.

“As do I,” said Ghastly.

Valkyrie smiled at them gratefully. “So you think the plan will work?”

“God, no,” said Ghastly.

“Sorry, Val,” said Tanith.