“I don’t want our daughter risking her life any more than you do, Melissa. But that’s what she does. She risks her life for others. It’s amazing. It’s … inspiring. When she was a kid, you never wanted to read her princess stories, do you remember that? You said she gets enough princess stories rammed down her throat from cartoons and toys and colouring books … You wanted her to colour in pictures of astronauts and footballers and you wanted to read her stories about adventurers and mad scientists. Remember, in spite of everything we did, she went through a pink stage anyway, where everything had to involve princesses? She got bored of that pretty quickly, didn’t she?”

“Not conforming to society’s view of what girls should be is one thing, Des, and it’s a good thing. But this? This is insane.”

“It’s what you wanted for her.”

Valkyrie’s mum looked shocked. “Are you saying this is my fault?”

“It’s no one’s fault, Melissa. No one is at fault. There’s nothing wrong with what she’s doing. She’s a hero. Our job now is to support her.”

“I can’t support our daughter living a life like this. You can’t expect me to. Jesus, Des, she’s going to get herself killed!”

“She’s fighting to save us all.”

“Let someone else do it!” her mum shouted, and Alice started crying. “There are plenty of people with magic powers running around this place! Let them handle it!”

“It doesn’t work that way, and you know it.”

Valkyrie’s mum picked up Alice. “If something happens to her, Des, if she gets hurt, if she … If our daughter dies, I will never forgive you.”

Holding Alice tightly to her, she walked out. Valkyrie’s dad watched her go.

“Do your best not to die, sweetie,” he said quietly. “She’s the only one who knows how to work the dishwasher.” Then he followed after her.

Valkyrie went to bed early that night. She wanted to call Skulduggery to talk this through, but he was out trying to find the Necropolis. She would have called Tanith, but found herself hesitating. Even though the Remnant was gone, even though Tanith was back to her old self, ignoring the last two years was something Valkyrie couldn’t do easily.

She realised, then, that the person she needed to speak to wasn’t there any more, and she cried for Stephanie, and finally went to sleep.