“Literally. I was killed three hundred years ago or thereabouts, when I was somewhere over a hundred and thirty years old. Tortured to death and then burned, had my remains thrown in a sack and then dumped in a river. For reasons too complicated to go into right now, I was able to put myself back together. This face you see is a mask. These clothes are, for want of a better word, enchanted, giving the illusion that my body has greater mass than it actually possesses.”

“Uh,” said Valkyrie’s dad, “so what is it you think you are? A ghost? A zombie?”

“Neither. I am … unique. Even though I’m dead, it would not be inaccurate to call me a living skeleton.”

“You’re a skeleton?”

“Beneath my disguise, yes.”

“But … we’re all skeletons, aren’t we?” responded Valkyrie’s mum. “Beneath our skin?”

“What a wonderfully enlightened view you have,” Skulduggery said, smiling. “Unfortunately, I’m not talking in riddles. I’m going to take off my glove now. I want you to prepare yourselves.”

Valkyrie’s folks glanced at each other.

“Sure,” her mum said.

Skulduggery pinched the tip of his right thumb, pulling the glove loose. He went up the fingers, pinching and pulling at each one, and then, with unhurried elegance, he gently pulled the glove off, and laid it on the table. For a few seconds, it kept its shape, like there was a hand still in there, but then it deflated, and flattened. Not that Valkyrie’s parents were looking at the glove. Their eyes, and Fergus’s, were transfixed by the skeletal hand that clenched and unclenched for them to see.

“How are you doing that?” her mum asked, her voice breathless.

“Magic,” Skulduggery answered.

“But how do they move? There’s no muscles or …”

“If you would allow me to remove my mask?”

They nodded, and the tips of his phalanges tapped the sigils at his collarbones, and his face flowed away, revealing the skull beneath.

Her parents leaped up, their chairs sliding backwards. But once they were on their feet, they froze.

“Good God,” Fergus whispered.

Valkyrie’s parents stood there, staring. Their eyes were wide, their faces pale, but they weren’t panicking. That was good. That was a good sign.

Her mum screamed.

“Sorry,” she said immediately after. “I don’t know where that came from.”

“Quite all right,” Skulduggery said. “You’re handling this whole thing remarkably well, all things considered.”

“You’re a skeleton,” Valkyrie’s dad said.

“I am.”

“But how do you stay together?”

“Magic.”

“How do you talk?” her mum asked.

“Magic.”

“Do you have a brain?” asked her dad.

“No,” said Valkyrie. “But he has a consciousness.”

“That’s amazing,” said her mum. “Just … astonishing. Is there a God?”

“That depends on which one you mean,” Skulduggery said. “Most of the gods we’ve encountered have been insane.”

“You’ve met gods?”

“Oh, yes.”

“I’ve punched one,” said Valkyrie.