A woman’s voice spoke up. “Then you need to surround yourself with a better class of dead.”

Wreath frowned, pulled the viewing angle back as a shape, a ghost, drifted from one of the darkened doorways. It was female, Fletcher could see that much. There was a face, hazy though it may have been. He saw eyes, and a mouth.

“Hello, my love,” the woman said.

Skulduggery watched the ghost without speaking.

“I have missed you.”

Skulduggery turned to the Validator. “How are you doing this?”

“This is not trickery, I assure you.”

“It is really me,” said the ghost.

“You’re not allowed to talk,” Skulduggery said, anger snapping at his voice. “However you’re doing this, I’m going to give you one warning. Stop it before I lose my temper.”

The Validator took a single step back, allowing the ghost to drift closer to Skulduggery.

“I have been waiting for you,” she said.

“You are not my wife.”

“And you are not my husband,” said the ghost. “He was kind, and gentle, and loving, and he did all he could to avoid violence and bloodshed. But you … you are dark and twisted, and your soul is tormented by the things you have done. You have lost who you once were.”

“That man is dead. I’m the man who’s taken his place.”

“You should be here, with me,” said the ghost. “With us.”

Fletcher saw another smaller blur, the size of a child. It ran, in that indistinct way, in and out of doorways, like it was playing.

Skulduggery stepped back suddenly, as if he’d been struck. His shoulders sagged.

“When that madman killed us,” the ghost continued, “we stood on the other side of life and we watched. We watched you fall. We watched what he did to you, in the days after. We saw you scream and weep and beg. We prayed for you to die, for your suffering to come to an end. When he finally released you from your agony, we reached out, tried to pull you to us. To be together in peace. But you resisted. You fled back to the living world. Now the time has come again for you to join us.”

The child ran to its mother, and Skulduggery took another step back. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“You have taken your vengeance,” the ghost said. “You have killed the man who murdered us. What else is keeping you here?”

“I have debts that need repaying.”

He was speaking to the woman, but his head was down, looking directly at the child. As Fletcher watched, Skulduggery took one step forward. He started to reach down to the child, then stopped himself, and stepped back. He stood there, trembling.

Suddenly Fletcher didn’t want to be seeing this. He didn’t want to be seeing this at all.