“But you had five years of death and destruction. I’ve only had a few weeks.”

“You think the length of time makes any difference? People still died. You’re going to feel exactly how I felt. But you’re stronger than me. You might be able to deal with it better.”

“You know,” Valkyrie said, “for a skeleton, you can be really morose. We used to have great conversations where we’d insult each other the whole time. Can we go back to those, please?”

“Of course,” Skulduggery said. “The moment you tell me what else is wrong.”

Valkyrie’s smile threatened to vanish, but she managed to keep it up. “Trade,” she said. “You tell me how you knew it wasn’t really me, and I’ll tell you what’s wrong.”

Skulduggery shrugged. “Little things. Little movements. Little facial expressions. One big thing.”

“Oh?”

“Darquesse never asked to go home.”

Valkyrie thought about this. “Huh.”

“Now your turn,” Skulduggery said. “What’s wrong?”

She took her time. She chewed her lip. Her stomach flipped and churned. She didn’t want to say it. She didn’t want to say it out loud. To say it out loud would be to admit the awful, awful truth.

“When Darquesse was kicked out,” she said, “she took all my bad feelings and my horrible thoughts with her and … and she took something else.”

“What?”

“My magic,” Valkyrie said, looking at him. “She took my magic.”

31

CREEPY KID

eing a Monster Hunter sucked.

The main problem was that they spent most of their time searching for monsters to hunt. The Remnants did not want to be found, and Fletcher had lost count of how many small towns they’d checked. They all had divining rods now and, apart from Gracious and Donegan, they all felt astonishingly stupid.

But that still didn’t stop the others from prying into Fletcher’s personal life.

“What’s wrong with you?” Gracious asked as they walked through the darkness. “I thought you’d be delighted to have Valkyrie back.”

“I am,” said Fletcher, doing his best to concentrate on the ridiculous twig in his hands. “Of course I am. We all are.”

“Then why the sour face?”

Donegan glanced back. “That there is the expression of a man torn between two lovers.”

Saracen seemed amused. “Is that true, Fletcher?”

“No,” Fletcher scowled. “I’m going out with Stephanie. That’s all there is to it. I was with Val, but she dumped me for a vampire, of all things, and now I’m with Steph. End of story.”

Gracious passed. “No regrets about that?”

“None,” said Fletcher. “And when did this become a group discussion anyway?”

“We’re Monster Hunters,” said Dai. “We share things.”

“Do you think maybe you hooked up with Stephanie because you couldn’t have Valkyrie?” Saracen asked.

“What? No. God, no.”

“Because it’d make sense.”

“That’s not why I did it.”

“It’s only natural.”