She turned to the full-length mirror that Skulduggery kept in here, just so he could check the overall effect of whatever hat he was wearing. Hugely vain and narcissistic, but endearingly so. Her clothes – freshly washed – were so ripped and torn they barely stayed on. Valkyrie parted a long slash in her T-shirt and traced a finger along her side. Still alive. She leaned in and examined her face. “The scars are almost gone,” she said loudly.

“That’s good,” Skulduggery responded from the other room.

So many hats in here. She took one, a black one, and tried it on. It looked pretty good on her, she had to admit. She liked the way it came down low over one eye. It gave her a rakish quality. Calm. She put the hat back on the stand and walked into the main living room. Skulduggery stood among the ruins of what had once been a sofa. Valkyrie raised an eyebrow.

“I was trying to make up the sofa bed so you could get some rest,” he explained, and pointed to the second sofa across the room. “Unfortunately, it would appear that that is the sofa bed, and this, apparently, is just a sofa.”

“Not any more it’s not.”

“Well, yes, now it’s a dead sofa. It put up a valiant struggle, however.”

“I’m sure its family would be proud.” She wrapped herself in a blanket and collapsed into an armchair.

“I kill a sofa for you and you go and sit in a chair?” Skulduggery asked. “I don’t think you appreciate the sacrifice that has been made for you.”

“I don’t need a bed right now. I just need to nap for a few hours, then the scars will be completely gone and I can go home and collapse into my own bed.”

“So you’ll be OK here on your own?”

“I’ll be fine. Go off and issue that arrest warrant. But don’t kill anyone. I want the chance to beat the hell out of Melancholia for what she did – but I don’t want her dead. Not yet anyway. You’re going to be calm about this, aren’t you?”

“Exceedingly.”

“You promise?”

“I cross the place where my heart used to be and hope to be even more deader than I am now.”

“Well, OK then.” Valkyrie looked away for a moment. “Why didn’t Darquesse come out?”

“Sorry?”

She shrugged at him. “Melancholia nearly killed me. I was kind of expecting Darquesse to take over and, you know…”

“Relying on Darquesse to save you would probably be a bad habit to get into,” Skulduggery said.

“I know,” she responded quickly, “and I wasn’t. But still… it’d help if I knew the rules. Do I Hulk out when I’m in danger, or does it have to be like when the Jitter Girl actually had her fingers in my brain, or…?”