“It was not relevant to this story,” Skulduggery said, “that’s what it was. Anyway, I saw the error of my ways, took off the armour, hid it in a mountain where no one would ever, ever find it, and returned to being good old me.

“Then, a few years later, Abyssinia returned. Rather than die a painful death alone in the shadows, she had somehow become vastly more powerful. She attacked both Mevolent’s army and ours. She decimated battalions. No one could stand against her. Then a deal was struck.”

“Between Abyssinia and Mevolent?”

“Between Mevolent and us.”

“Oh my God.” Valkyrie shook her head. “I need to sit down.”

“You are sitting down.”

“I need to sit down more.”

“A secret deal,” Skulduggery went on. “A few soldiers from our side and a few soldiers from their side. The Dead Men and the Diablerie, working together.”

“You’re joking,” Valkyrie said.

He shrugged. “It made sense. She was an enemy to us both, so we pooled our resources and set off. It was an uneasy alliance, to say the least. As the weeks went by, tensions grew. The only reason we didn’t murder each other was because we finally picked up Abyssinia’s trail. She was travelling with a boy that turned out to be her son.”

“So what happened?”

“Abyssinia led us into a trap we barely survived. It was only when China held a knife to the boy’s throat that Abyssinia stopped her attack. We offered her a deal. We would let her son go free if she allowed us to kill her.”

The room was quiet. “And did she accept?” Valkyrie asked.

“She didn’t have a choice,” Skulduggery said. “We killed her and we let the boy walk, then we dismembered her, cut off her head and burned her limbs. But it was only when I carved her heart from her chest that it finally stopped beating.”

“Jesus,” Valkyrie whispered.

“And that’s it. That’s the story.”

“So wait a second,” Valkyrie said. “You betrayed her, threw her out of a window, tracked her down and threatened her son, and she agreed to let you kill her … and at no stage during all this did she tell anyone that you were Lord Vile?”

“As far as I’m aware, she didn’t breathe a word of it to anyone.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know,” Skulduggery said. “I hope I don’t get a chance to ask her.”

“What happened to the son?”

“No idea.”

“Could he be this King of the Darklands guy that Auger is destined to fight?”

“Possibly.”

“She ever mention that to you, the fact that she was the Princess of the Darklands?”

“It never came up in conversation.”

“Where are the Darklands? I mean, is it an actual place or, like, a state of mind or something?”

“I don’t know,” Skulduggery said.