She crashed into Skulduggery, arms wrapping round his waist as they swung back from the impact. She felt the emptiness beneath his clothes but held on, trusting in the quality of Ghastly Bespoke’s work to save her life once again. They swung now the other way, back over the chasm, a pendulum of two. It was all Valkyrie could do to stay clinging on. She closed her eyes and gripped her own wrist, and eventually the swinging slowed and lost its momentum. When they were more or less hanging there, Valkyrie looked up for the first time, and wondered what the hell she was supposed to do now.

“Hey,” she said. “Hey, wake up. Hey!”

He had no eyes to open, so it was impossible to tell if he were awake or not. She shook him again, then hung on as they swayed.

“What’re you doing?” he muttered.

“Skulduggery! Thank God! Are you OK? Skulduggery? Hey, pay attention!”

His head moved, ever so slightly. “Right, yes. Sorry. What?”

“We’re hanging over a bottomless pit of death. You’re going to have to fly us to safety. Can you do that?”

“Sure,” he murmured. He turned his head, looked at the tentacle wrapped round his upper arm. “That’s new.”

“I think it’s feeding on your magic.”

He nodded. “Get me free. Then I’ll fly.”

“You’re sure? You won’t need time to recover or anything?”

“No. Just … just get me free.”

“OK. Listen, you don’t happen to have a knife on you, do you? No? Hello? OK, I’m going to … I’m going to have to climb up, all right? I can get you free from up there, but you have to stay awake. Otherwise you’ll just fall. OK? Skulduggery?”

“Yes,” he murmured.

“Stay awake,” said Valkyrie, and wrapped her right arm round his shoulder. She pulled herself up, clambering over him. He didn’t notice. Her hand closed round one of the tentacles. The first time she’d found herself here the tentacles had been cold and slippery. Now they were warm and dry. The nourishment was doing them good.

Valkyrie twisted her hand round the tentacle and held on. Then she reached up with her other hand, grabbed another tentacle. Twisted, and held. Like this, she climbed, grabbing and twisting and holding. Her arms were already tired from hanging on to Skulduggery, but she kept going. It was slow. It got painful. She clamped her legs round the tentacles, the same way she’d seen in movies. It stopped her swaying too much.

She got halfway up and stopped to rest. Her fingers were burning from gripping so tight. Her arms and legs were on fire. Sweat dripped along her spine. She glanced down, then immediately closed her eyes as fear seized her heart and fright burst through her veins. No. Looking down was bad.