“It’s pathetic,” Fletcher said. “I went from thinking I was top geezer, the last Teleporter in the world, to someone who followed her around like a puppy. All she had to do was call, and I’d be there. The last two years of my life, of my life, have revolved round her. That’s two years of me living for someone else. How sad is that? Nothing was more important than her. I offered her everything because I could give her everything. I could take her anywhere. There was nothing I wouldn’t do for her and she knew that. She accepted it. I’d become, like, a part of her life, but not in a good way. Not in a healthy, happy, boyfriend kind of way. She knew she had me, faithful old Fletcher, and she knew that all she had to do was click her fingers and she’d get whatever it was she needed. I made her life easier.

“And whenever she or Skulduggery, or even Tanith, was in danger of taking something too seriously, they turned to the easy target. They turned to me and made a joke. I was OK with it, actually. It meant something, at the time. It meant I was part of the group, I was one of the gang.”

“And it meant you could spend more time around her,” Ghastly said, sitting on the edge of his desk, “which is all you really wanted.”

“Yeah,” Fletcher murmured. He looked at the mug of tea in his hand, but didn’t drink from it. “But all that’s gone now. She’s with Caelan. Did you know that? She was seeing him behind my back.”

Ghastly hid his surprise. “That… doesn’t sound like Valkyrie.”

“Well, there you go. She cheated on me with a bloody vampire. A vampire. Are… are you smiling?”

“Yes,” Ghastly said sadly. “I am. I never thought we’d have so much in common, to be honest. The girl you love is in the arms of another, and that other happens to be a murderous monster. And the woman I love is in the arms of a psychopathic hitman. What a pair we make.”

“I can’t help it,” said Fletcher. “Images of Valkyrie and that… thing, of the two of them together, keep coming into my head.”

“I’ve been living with something like that for the past few months. It makes your insides go cold, doesn’t it? It makes you want to kill someone.”

“I want to kill the vampire,” Fletcher said softly.

“The feeling is natural. I don’t blame you for that at all. And while I know you’re a good kid, and you’re not a killer, I am going to say this – that’s a road you don’t want to go down.”