Cassandra sagged and Skulduggery caught her. Finbar collapsed and Fletcher only noticed when he heard the thump beside him.

“Oh,” he said. “Sorry.”

Finbar mumbled something, and waved his hand weakly.

Fletcher looked up again, at where the portal had just been. At where Darquesse had vanished. “We beat her?”

“We didn’t beat her,” Skulduggery said. “We fooled her. There’s a difference. Everyone link up.”

Geoffrey and Philomena held out their hands. They were pale. Weak. What they had just done had taken a lot out of them. Fletcher made sure everyone was touching, then teleported back to the Medical Wing.

Valkyrie was the first to see them – of course she was – and she sat up in bed and tried to move her parents and Synecdoche out of the way, but the doctor was having none of it.

“You do not move,” she said sternly.

Fletcher and Skulduggery walked over. Valkyrie’s neck was in a brace and her face was swollen and cut. Her left hand sported new bandages which matched the bandages on her elbows.

“She’s gone,” Skulduggery said.

Valkyrie tried to nod, and winced. “I know,” she said. “I felt her somehow. She seemed happy.”

“She’s got a whole new universe to conquer. I’m sure she’s thrilled.”

Fletcher spotted Tanith across the room, sitting on the edge of a bed with her head down. “Is Tanith OK?”

Valkyrie hesitated. “She’s fine. But Billy-Ray Sanguine is dead. I … I told her about, you know … the two of them. When she had the Remnant. I couldn’t not tell her. Not after he gave his life to save her. I figured she ought to know the whole story.”

“How did she take it?”

Valkyrie shook her head. “I’m still not sure.”

Synecdoche sat her up, lifted her shirt, and applied clear gel to her badly-bruised torso.

“We’ve got an assortment of broken ribs here that we’ll have to mend later today,” the doctor said, “along with the broken arm, the concussion, the fractured skull and the internal injuries. For now, though, we’ll strap you up and move you on. We need the space and, astonishingly, you’re not critical.”

Synecdoche motioned to an assistant to finish the job, and hurried to a moaning patient elsewhere.

“Is that it?” Desmond asked. “Darquesse is gone? It’s over?”

Skulduggery nodded. “Cassandra and Finbar and the others gave her the reality she wanted and then allowed her to leave it. As far as she knows, we’re all dead. Our universe is dead. There’s nothing for her to come back to.”

“No more danger?” Melissa asked.

“Not from Darquesse.”

Melissa sobbed, turned to Valkyrie and grabbed her good hand. “Sweetheart …”

“Mum …”

“Sweetheart, I am so proud of you. I am so … proud. No parent has ever been as proud of their daughter.”