“She’s not here,” Valkyrie said, running her eyes over the upturned faces. “Neither is Craven. If she shadow-walked, she could be anywhere up to two kilometres in any direction.”

Skulduggery picked a stone up off the floor. He was quiet for a moment. “They’re in the caves,” he said, dropping it. “They had someone down there already, searching for the other side of the entrance. If they shadow-walked anywhere, they’d have shadow-walked down there.” He went to the wall, removed the brick and twisted the key behind it. A section of the floor rumbled and opened. Valkyrie followed him to the stone steps, looked back at the Rippers.

“Any of you coming?” she asked, but they didn’t move.

“They’re not Cleavers,” Skulduggery said, already halfway down the steps. “They’re mercenaries. They were paid to provide security, not chase after people. Their job is everything above ground – which means the White Cleaver.”

The Rippers paid her no attention. They started to close in on the White Cleaver, and Valkyrie left them to it. She hurried down the steps as the floor closed above. “They didn’t do a very good job at providing security,” she pointed out to the back of Skulduggery’s head. “Everyone’s dead.”

“True enough,” he said.

They emerged into the caves. A Necromancer woman lay dead before them – proof, if any was needed, that they were on the right track. They summoned flames into their hands and ran.

Valkyrie had been down here before, and each time she’d been lucky to escape with her life. The tunnels twisted into each other, opened out into vast, empty spaces and closed down into the narrowest of gaps. Travellers needed to respect the caves as much as any adversary – a wrong turn could lead to a step off a precipice and a long fall into cold darkness. And that was before the creatures down here were taken into account.

Skulduggery slowed, and she did the same. They extinguished their flames, letting their way be lit by the shafts of silver light that worked their way down from the surface.

“We’re waiting,” called a voice, echoing playfully towards them.

Skulduggery grunted, and they stood up straight and walked forward. They emerged from the tunnel to stand atop a gentle slope that led ten feet down to the cavern floor. On the other side of the cavern stood Melancholia and Vandameer Craven.

“Now this is funny,” Melancholia continued. Her eyes were red. “We were hurrying along, Vandameer and I, and a thought struck me. Why am I doing this? Why am I running? I can understand why Vandameer runs – he’s a weakling who’s afraid of practically everything you’d care to mention. But me? Who do I have to run from? So I stopped running, and turned, and look who appears…”

“Melancholia,” Skulduggery said, “we don’t want to hurt you.”