Valkyrie bolted for the dais, but he caught her, yanked her back, and she cried out and pushed against him and he hit her, hard, in the side, and she folded, gasping.

“Sorry,” he said.

Tears in her eyes, and not just tears of pain.

“Don’t you dare,” she gasped.

“I have, unfortunately, little choice in the matter.” Skulduggery looked at the Engineer. “A soul, willingly given,” he said. “That’s it? That’s your entire brief?”

“Correct,” said the Engineer.

“No loopholes? No other way around it?”

“None.”

“A soul, willingly given. That’s what your creator programmed into you? Those words and no others? No stipulations? No qualifications? No exceptions?”

“None.”

Skulduggery looked down at Valkyrie. “You heard the robot.”

She ignored the pain, forced herself to stand. “Please don’t do this. Let me go instead.”

“Nonsense.”

He went to turn away, but she grabbed his arm. “No! Listen to me! We can think of something else! We can figure it out!”

“We don’t have time.”

Valkyrie put herself in front of him, pressed both hands against his chest, felt his ribs. “For God’s sake,” she said, “please don’t do this. Skulduggery, please. I can’t lose you.”

He tilted his head and, with a gloved finger, he brushed a tear from her cheek. “You’ll never lose me, Valkyrie.”

“But I need you with me,” she said. “I’ve done awful things. I … Skulduggery, I killed Alice.”

“Alice is alive.”

“But I still killed her. It doesn’t matter what I did after that moment. I killed my own baby sister. What kind of person would do that?”

“A person with no other choice.”

“I need you here. Please. I’ve done terrible things. I hate … I hate myself. I have to go away. But I need someone to come back to. You can’t leave me alone.”

“Valkyrie—”

“Please don’t go. Skulduggery, I’m begging you.”

“You’re really making quite a fuss over nothing.”

She hit him, punched him right across the jaw, pain flashing through her fist, through her entire body. “You are not nothing, you bloody idiot! You changed my life! You made my life better! You made me better! What do you think I’m going to do when you’re gone? You think I’m going to be happy? I swear to Christ, if you go, I go.”

“Well,” he said, “now you’re just being silly.”

“You have nine minutes, fourteen seconds,” said the Engineer.

“Nine minutes,” said Valkyrie. “Nine. We can think of something in nine minutes. We can find a volunteer in nine minutes. Please!”

Skulduggery put his hands on her shoulders. “Valkyrie, trust me on this one thing, and step out of my way. I have to do this.”

She looked up at him. “I don’t want you to leave me.”

“And I never will.”

“You said we’d be together until the end.”

He nodded. “Yes I did.”