He clicked his fingers, summoning flame into his hand. “Your, what do you call it, your ‘aura-vision’ is a psychic ability. How do you know that it doesn’t go deeper? Indulge me this once.”

“I’m always indulging you.”

“Then indulge me once more.” He dropped the ball of fire to the floor. The flames lit the coals beneath and heat immediately started to rise.

“What do you think is going to happen here?” she asked. “I’m suddenly going to have a vision? I don’t have visions.”

“Not yet, but the energy all around you could trigger something, and, if it does, we’ll be able to see it played out in the steam.”

“Or we’ll just be standing here getting a cheap sauna that will wrinkle your suit and ruin my hair.”

“Nothing will wrinkle this suit,” said Skulduggery. “Ghastly made sure of it.”

“We saw him in Cassandra’s vision,” Valkyrie pointed out. “We saw Ghastly with Tanith. We saw them kiss on Devastation Day – only he died before that could happen. Even if I did have a vision, so what? Ghastly’s death proves that visions of the future mean nothing.”

“No,” Skulduggery replied, taking a yellow umbrella from a hook on the wall and passing it to her. “His death proves that the future can be changed if you know what’s coming. And we have no idea what’s coming. We don’t even know who we’re up against, not really, so we don’t know what we have to avoid. Try, Valkyrie. At least try.”

She sighed, then sat in the chair. It was quickly turning hot in here. When the first bead of perspiration formed on her temple, she opened the umbrella as Skulduggery turned the red wheel. Water rushed through the pipes, gurgling like the belly of a ravenous beast. The sprinklers started up, tapping a growing applause on the umbrella. Steam rose, getting thicker, becoming mist, becoming fog. She lost sight of Skulduggery, but heard the wheel turn again, and the water cut off. She collapsed the umbrella, shook it and laid it on the floor before standing.

“Now what?” she asked.

“Now focus,” Skulduggery said. “Or don’t focus. Empty your mind, or maybe fill it.”

“You’re a great help.”

“I don’t really know how this works.”

“Hush,” she said.

She stood there, eyes fixed on the empty space in front of her. She tried to relax her thoughts, but they were in as big a jumble as ever. Her head buzzed. The headache was coming back.

“I don’t think this is working,” she said.

And then something moved ahead of her.

13

A shadow in the billowing steam. Valkyrie narrowed her eyes. “Did you see that?”

“I saw something,” Skulduggery said.

“What was it? It looked like—”

Something flared in the distance, a sudden fire or explosion. Valkyrie walked towards it.