“Wouldn’t I know which one I was?”

“Good God, no. The lies we tell other people are nothing to the lies we tell ourselves.”

“You have an amazing ability to depress me sometimes, you know that?”

“I try my best.” Skulduggery gestured, and his mud-soaked hat rose into his hand. He gazed at it forlornly. “How are you feeling?”

“Headachy. But fine. Bad man got away.”

“Yes, he did.”

“He killed Paul Lynch and now the little old lady Lynch confided in. Somebody doesn’t want us to know anything about the Passage. You think he was a Necromancer?”

“Even though dressing in black is in no way an indication – yes, I quite do.”

She nodded. “Me too. Plus, he had a ridiculous beard. I should probably ask Solomon about him.”

“I should probably help.”

“No hitting.”

“A small amount of hitting.”

Fletcher lunged out of thin air before them, his eyes wide, fists clenched, ready to fight. He looked at them, spun round, spun back again.

“Where are they?” he asked.

“Back in the box,” Valkyrie told him. “Did you find out anything?”

“China wasn’t at the library,” he said, the rain flattening down his hair. “Nobody there could help me. How did you beat them?”

“With unimaginable skill,” Skulduggery said. “Valkyrie, I’ve got a two-hour drive back to Dublin where dry clothes await me.”

She nodded. “I’ll be ready.”

He walked to the Bentley. Fletcher turned to Valkyrie, hands loosely holding her arms. “I didn’t want to leave,” he said quietly.

She smiled. “I know.”

“You should have come with me.”

“Let’s not ruin a nice moment by arguing, OK?” She kissed him.

He sighed, and instead of rain on her face there was sunshine, and instead of being outside a small cottage with a broken window they were behind a tree in her back garden. “Much better,” she murmured. Dripping wet and covered in mud, she took Fletcher’s hand and they stepped out from behind the tree.

Her parents, cousins, aunts and uncles, friends and neighbours, people she’d known all her life and people she’d never met stood around the barbecue pit and stared, their chatter dying away.

“Uh,” said Valkyrie.

Chapter 6 - China’s Secret

Chapter 6
China’s Secret

n Monday morning, China Sorrows walked the weed-strewn gap that led to the Church of the Faceless. She entered without knocking, found the head of this little chapel on his knees with his eyes closed, praying. A small man who greatly resembled a weasel – Prave, his name was. She didn’t know his first name and she didn’t care. She’d been here only once before, and by the time she left she had blood on her hands and a gun to dispose of.