Valkyrie loaded the bags into the back of the car and got out of there.

She was halfway home when the phone rang. It made her jump. She pressed Answer and Skulduggery’s voice filled the car.

“We have a name,” he said.

“Sorry? A name for what?”

There was a pause from the other end. “You sound like you’re in a bad mood.”

She sighed. “I’m just hungry. I haven’t eaten since breakfast. And the fact that I now have visions has made me hugely grumpy. I don’t want to see the future, Skulduggery, especially if the future looks like that. I’m barely holding it together as it is.”

“What do you mean?”

Her hands tightened on the wheel. “I mean the stress.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes. The stress. You know this. I talked about this.”

“You did. But for a moment it sounded like you’ve been going through more than you’ve been letting on.”

“No. Just the stress. So this name you’re talking about – a name for what?”

“For a suspect.”

“Wait, we have a name for whoever’s been recruiting from Corrival Academy?”

“We may have.”

Her eyes narrowed. “And where did we get this name, Skulduggery? Who gave us the name? It was Omen, wasn’t it? It was. For God’s sake, I thought we agreed on this.”

“We do,” Skulduggery said quickly, “and I was planning on talking to him in the morning, breaking it to him in person, and then a short while ago I received his text message. I didn’t expect him to come up with a name so quickly, to be honest. I mean, it’s probably nothing.”

“It’s undoubtedly nothing,” said Valkyrie. “He’s had half a day of being undercover and he has a name for us already? Either Omen is imagining things or he’s the greatest undercover agent in the history of the world.”

“You may be right.”

“So who is it?”

“Who is what?”

“The name.”

“Oh. Parthenios Lilt, a history teacher.”

“And why does our super-spy think the history teacher is a recruiter for the anti-Sanctuary?”

“The history teacher doesn’t like mortals, for one thing.”

“I don’t like mortals.”

“You don’t like anybody.”

“That doesn’t make me the recruiter.”

“Parthenios Lilt leads a study group called Arcanum’s Scholars, a reference to Rebus Arcanum, a supposedly long-dead explorer into Realms Unknown. That’s what he called them. With capital letters and everything.”

Valkyrie stopped at a crossroads as a huge tractor, festooned with lights, rumbled by. “Why is he supposedly long dead and not actually long dead?”

“We never found the body.”

“And what does he have to do with this Lilt guy?”