Cassandra Pharos was ready for them when they arrived. The door to her cottage was open, and Skulduggery led the way inside. They went down into the cellar, where the coals beneath the floor grille were already glowing orange, filling the chamber with a close, muggy heat. Cassandra sat on the chair, umbrella open and held comfortably over her head. Her lined face, framed by a cascade of grey hair, broke into a smile when she saw them.

“Hello there,” she said brightly.

Stephanie liked Cassandra. She was one of the only people who didn’t treat her like a poor replacement for a real person.

“There have been a few changes to the last vision I showed you,” she said. “Skulduggery, be a dear and turn the water on, would you? Now, while it’s still fresh in my mind.”

Skulduggery turned the valve on the wall, and water sprinkled from the pipes in the ceiling. The coals hissed and steam billowed. Skulduggery waited until Cassandra was lost to sight, then turned the water off.

The first time Valkyrie had come down here, she’d witnessed Cassandra’s vision of the future. The second time had revealed greater detail, and yet there were some aspects that were different. Knowledge of the future changes the future, Cassandra had said. The second time, the vision had begun with Erskine Ravel in his Elder robes, his hands shackled, screaming in agony. That future had already come to pass with two tiny differences – Ravel hadn’t been wearing his robes, and the room in which it occurred wasn’t the room in the vision.

This time, with Stephanie down here instead of Valkyrie, the vision was different again. It didn’t start with Ghastly running by. It started with Tanith staggering through the fog, one hand at a wound in her belly, the other gripping her sword. It wasn’t a ruined city that materialised around her this time, but one of the Sanctuary corridors. She stumbled against a wall, waited there a moment to catch her breath.

“Suppose it’s fitting,” she said, looking up at someone just over Stephanie’s shoulder, “that it comes down to you and me, after all this time.”

A figure walked right through Stephanie and she jumped back, disrupting the steam.

Tanith did her best to stand upright. “Come and have a go …” she said, but her words faded along with her image, and the steam swirled and Stephanie saw herself standing in the city.

Because that’s who it was. It was Stephanie. When Valkyrie had seen this, she hadn’t been able to understand how there could be a Valkyrie Cain and a Darquesse in the vision at the same time. But of course there had never been a Valkyrie Cain. It had always been Stephanie and Darquesse. From the very beginning, that’s how it was meant to be.