“Tanith. She was fighting someone – big surprise. I saw Cadaverous Gant, that Plague Doctor guy, and Omen and another boy – I think it was his brother. You know what that means, don’t you? Omen stays involved. We can’t let that happen. Asking him to keep an eye out for suspicious behaviour is one thing, but actually mixing him up in this stuff is just too much. He thinks this is all a grand adventure, but we’re going to get him killed.”

“Did you see him die?”

“No, but that’s hardly the point, is it? We can’t endanger the lives of two innocent boys.”

“I’m afraid we might not have a choice with Auger. The Darkly Prophecy relates directly to a King of the Darklands – obviously a relation to the woman you saw. He’s already involved, and it’s got nothing to do with us.”

“But Omen isn’t. There’s nothing in that stupid prophecy about Omen, right? Skulduggery, promise me you’ll fix this.”

“I’ll speak to him,” Skulduggery said.

“You need to make sure he stops. He has to understand that we don’t want his help any more.”

“I’ll pay him a visit.”

“Let him down gently, though, OK? He seems … I don’t know. Fragile.”

Skulduggery tilted his head. “Does he?”

“You don’t think so?”

“No, actually. He doesn’t have your strength, but I detected a certain durability about him.”

“He can be durable on his own time, then, because I don’t want him to take one step further into this thing.”

“Very well.”

He watched her take the packet of leaves from her jeans.

“Are you sure you want another of those?”

“My head is splitting.”

“I’m not surprised. But an over-reliance on painkillers is not something you want to develop.”

She folded one, put it in her mouth. “They’re leaves, Skulduggery. I’m not exactly going to get addicted to leaves, am I? It’s not like they make me feel good. They just stop my head from exploding.”

“Non-exploding heads is something we want to encourage,” he admitted, and helped Valkyrie up.

By the time she’d climbed the stairs, her strength had come back to her. She stepped outside and the cold air froze her through her damp clothes. She hurried to the Bentley, let Xena in and got in after her.

Skulduggery slipped behind the wheel. “Congratulations,” he said, starting the engine. “You have looked into the future. You are a bona-fide psychic.”

“Yay,” she said without joy. “I’m not going to start reading people’s minds, am I? I find it unbearable enough reading their faces.”

“I don’t know,” he answered. “I’ve never seen such a range of abilities in one person before. We don’t know your limits yet. We don’t even know if you have any. This is actually quite exciting.”