“My love,” said the woman’s ghost, “my sweet, you have done terrible things, things that have marked your soul. You carry that mark with you wherever you go, and because of it you have worked so hard to redeem yourself. You have saved the world. You have done so much. Surely it is time for you to be at peace?”

“Maybe some day. But not today.”

“My darling, you belong dead.”

And then another voice, as a third blurred figure stepped into view. A familiar voice.

“You belong dead,” said Ghastly Bespoke.

Skulduggery jerked away, raising a hand as if to ward him off. “Ghastly?”

“We’re waiting for you,” Ghastly said. “In the cold and the dark. We’re waiting. We’re watching. We see … everything.”

“What are you?” Skulduggery asked. “Who are you?”

“You killed my mother,” Ghastly said, and Skulduggery went quiet. “We see the past and the present and the future. I know the things you’ve done. I know the lies you’ve told. To me. To your oldest friend.”

“If you truly see into my past,” Skulduggery said, “then you know what happened. You know I wasn’t myself.”

“I don’t care,” Ghastly said. “Being dead means you don’t care. You don’t hold grudges. You only need. We need you, my friend. Your time is up.”

“No,” said Skulduggery.

“We never got to say goodbye. We never got to shake each other’s hand. I’m offering it now. Join us.”

Ghastly held out his hand. Skulduggery observed it for a moment, then shook his head. “I’m sorry. I can’t do that.”

Another figure emerged from a side street.

“Told you,” said Anton Shudder.

More blurred shapes stepped into view.

“You belong dead,” said Shudder. “You deserve to rest. While I was living, I was never at peace. Now? Now I’m content. Now I can smile.”

Skulduggery took another step back. “What is this?”

“We are the people you have left behind,” his wife said. “We are the people you have let die. We are the people who have died around you. We are the people you have killed.”

More figures, thickening the crowd. Fletcher saw Mr Bliss, and Kenspeckle Grouse, and the assassin Tesseract, and the Necromancer Craven. He searched the faces, eyes flickering from one blurred visage to the next, until he found her. She turned in that instant, as if looking back at him. Stephanie.

Fletcher grabbed Wreath’s arm. “Is it real? Is it really them?”

“I don’t know,” Wreath said, disentangling himself without taking his eyes off the scene below. “I don’t know how the Necropolis operates. I don’t know what they’re capable of.”

“But it’s a trick,” said Fletcher. “They’re drawing all these memories from Skulduggery’s mind or something, right?”