They walked for almost two hours. Skulduggery’s façade was used only when absolutely necessary, but even so it was close to failing when they got to where they were going. The church was nothing compared to Mevolent’s Palace, or the Faceless Ones’ churches, or even the Sanctuary in Roarhaven, but it was bigger and more impressive than any place of worship Valkyrie had ever seen back home. She frowned at the iconography built into the structure.

“The Children of the Spider?” she said. “They have their own church?”

“Apparently so,” Skulduggery responded. “And if Ravel has gone anywhere for refuge, it’s here. He planned the takeover of Roarhaven with them. It makes sense he’d seek them out in this reality.”

He checked the street, made sure there were no City Mage patrols, and they hurried through the open doors.

Immediately upon entering, they saw a cage suspended by chains. Within that cage, an old man with a long grey beard and long grey hair was forced to crouch, an old man Valkyrie knew as the Torment.

Skulduggery’s façade failed in that instant, and it flowed back off his skull.

The Torment peered at him through narrowed eyes. “Skeleton,” he said. “I’d heard your bones had turned to dust decades ago and you were carried away on a stiff breeze. Unless you’re another unfortunate who has had his flesh stripped from his body.”

“No,” Skulduggery said. “Same unfortunate, I’m afraid.”

The Torment shifted his attention to Valkyrie, his frown deepening and his lip curling beneath all that hair.

“And what exactly are you?”

She sighed. “Save your disgust, OK? I’ve heard it before. You don’t like me because I have the blood of the Ancients in my veins, and I don’t like you because you’re old and nasty and creepy and you stole Gandalf’s beard.”

“I don’t know who this Gandalf is, but that is not why you disgust me, you insolent little—”

Valkyrie jabbed her finger at him. “No insults. You hear me? I’m not in the mood and we don’t have the time. By the looks of it, you’ve been in that cage for a while now, and people in cages probably don’t get many opportunities to chat to people who aren’t in cages, so embrace this chance while you can, you miserable old goat.”

“What my friend is trying to ask,” Skulduggery said, diverting the attention back to him, “is why are you in a cage? This is a Temple of the Spider. Surely this is your home?”

The Torment sat cross-legged, and didn’t answer.

“Maybe this is a self-punishment thing,” Valkyrie said. “But instead of, like, whipping himself or wearing one of those shirts made of hair, whatever they’re called—”

“Hair shirts,” Skulduggery said.