“Yes I am.” Valkyrie stood. “And as your daughter, it’s my job to keep you safe. So that’s what I’m going to do.”

She walked out, leaving the smell of a roast dinner behind her.

47

THE DEATH BRINGER WAKES

he left her car at home and they drove to Roarhaven in the Bentley. She ran over the conversation a hundred times, trying to see how she could have handled it better. She came up short every time.

“You’re angry, aren’t you?” she said. They left Dublin, started hitting the narrower roads.

Skulduggery shook his head. “This isn’t about me.”

“But you had all those reasons for not telling my parents. Second Lifetime Syndrome and all that. People I love growing old while I stay young. You warned me.”

“What happened was not your fault,” he said. “This was Kenny Dunne’s act of honourable intent, misguided as it may have been.”

“So you’re not mad?”

He inclined his head towards her a fraction. “Your parents knowing the truth is a complication you could do without. It may lead to greater complications further down the road. If there is a road.”

Valkyrie dropped her face into her hands. “All I want to do is protect them. They’re going to try to stop me from doing that.”

Skulduggery was silent for a moment. “Your mother echoed a valid point you yourself have made.”

“I know,” Valkyrie muttered.

“Without magic …”

“I’m useless.”

“Not useless. Far from useless. But without magic, your future opens up. You can now walk away without losing anything. You don’t have to give up magic if you no longer have it.”

“I’d be losing this,” she said. “The job. Helping people. I’d be … I’d be losing you.”

He looked at her. “You’ll never lose me.”

Tears pricked at her eyes. She looked away. “When this is over, I’ll think about … everything. Until then, I’m in this all the way.”

“Very well.” They were on a lonely road now, a road that led to nowhere but Roarhaven. “In that case, we should probably have the conversation.”

She looked back at him. “Which one would that be? The birds and the bees? I’ve already had it.”

“The conversation?”

“The birds and the bees.”

“Right, yes, well … I’m talking about the other conversation. The less fun one. The fact is, Valkyrie, going up against Darquesse … we might not make it this time.”

“What? What about everything you were saying earlier about accentuating the positive?”

“Again, you brought up that particular song.”

“Of course we’re going to make it,” Valkyrie said. “Making it is what we do. Darquesse is just another bad guy we have to defeat.”

“She’s more than that. The threat she poses is more valid than any you and I have faced before.”

“You saying she’s going to win?”