Melancholia glared at her then shut her eyes. Her breathing became strained and she winced. Something like steam rose from her, drifting up and disappearing into the tunnel wall. She opened her eyes. They were no longer red. She was sweating. “There,” she said, panting. “Happy?”

“That was it?” Valkyrie asked dubiously. “That was the energy of three hundred people? A little bit of steam?”

“What were you expecting? Sparkling lights? A ray of sunshine? It is what it is. Now help me up.”

Valkyrie took out her phone, dialled Ghastly’s number. Even though her phone was magically enhanced, she barely had a single bar down here in the caves. Even so, it was enough for the call to go through, and enough for her to hear Ghastly’s tired voice, like he had just woken from a deep sleep.

“Ghastly?” she said. “Can you hear me? Can you—?”

She lost the signal, and put the phone away.

“Satisfied?” Melancholia asked.

“Very.”

“I hope you’re this smug when Vile catches up with us and I can’t do a thing to stop him.”

“Me too.”

They moved on, struggling to maintain a decent pace. More and more of Melancholia’s weight pressed down on to Valkyrie, and with every step her injured leg took, the Necromancer’s face would screw up in pain. She wasn’t going to last long in here, that much was obvious.

The ground dipped ahead of them and Valkyrie stopped, looked back, looked around.

“What are you waiting for?” Melancholia said. “Come on. Keep going.”

Valkyrie ignored her, looked up, saw a ledge. “There,” she said. “Climb.”

“What? Why? We’ll be faster going downhill.”

“We can’t go deeper. We have to stay as close to the surface as we can.” She tried pulling Melancholia to the ledge, but Melancholia yanked her arm from Valkyrie’s grip.

“I’m injured, you silly little girl. I can’t go around climbing everything for no reason at all. I say we vote on it.”

“We’re not voting. You’re going to do what I tell you.”

“And why would I do that?”

“Because I’ve been down here before. If we go deeper, we’re going to get lost. If we do manage to avoid Vile, we’ll either die of thirst or get killed by one of the things that live here. Either way, we end up dead.”

“I’d rather take my chances with rats and creepy-crawlies than with Lord Vile.”

“There are monsters down here, Melancholia, and they’re immune to magic.”

“Rubbish,” Melancholia said. “Nothing is immune to magic.”

“Well they are, and they’re a lot bigger than rats, believe me.”

Melancholia looked up at the ledge, and scowled. “Give me a leg-up.”