When he’s done, he sits at the kitchen table, looking at his reflection in the window. They’d cleaned up at a gas station, but his face is a swollen mess and his clothes are stained with dried sweat and blood. His eyes dip to the mug of coffee he’s set aside for her. Steam rises from the brim.

A few minutes later, Xena comes in. She goes right up to Danny, nuzzling her snout into his hand until he pets her.

Elsewhere, he hears water running.

Xena wanders over to her bed, circles it a few times, and lies down. She rests her head on her paws, then looks up at him with wet brown eyes.

Valkyrie is standing there, in blue jeans and a jacket. Her hair is freshly washed. He hadn’t heard her come in.

“Now I know why you’re ninja-quiet,” he says. There are two bags by her feet. “You going somewhere?”

“Home,” she says.

This surprises him. “After … after everything that’s happened?”

“It’s time.” She comes forward, picks up her coffee, tastes it. “This is cold.”

“You’ve been gone a while.”

“I suppose I have.”

“Why did you leave?” he asks. “I mean, I know, the trauma must have been … unimaginable, but …”

“We won,” she says. “But the things I did when I was Darquesse, and the things I did later, in order to beat her … I had to leave. I couldn’t stay. Not after what I’d done to …”

“Alice.”

She nods. “I didn’t deserve a sister or a family. Stephanie … now Stephanie deserved a family. Everything she did, she did out of love for them.”

“But so did you. You said it yourself, protecting them was the reason you did everything.”

“I did it wrong, though. I did it badly.”

“You did what you had to do. I can’t believe you’ve been living up here alone for the past five years, blaming yourself, hating yourself for the things you had to do. You saved us all.”

“No. I didn’t save us. Not that time.”

Danny finishes his coffee. It’s lukewarm. “Skulduggery sounds like … an amazing person.”

Valkyrie gives one of those soft smiles. “Yeah.”

“He was a true hero, to give his life like that.”

“Hmm?” says Valkyrie. “Oh, no, he didn’t give his life.”

Danny frowns. “He didn’t? But you said he walked into the Accelerator.”

She shakes her head. “I said he walked towards the Accelerator. He told me later, when he was taking his hat back, that a world without him would scarcely be worth living in. No, he hauled Ravel up off the floor and pushed him in instead.”

Danny blinks. “But … but the soul had to be given willingly.”

“It was,” Valkyrie says. “But there was nothing in the rules that said the soul you willingly gave had to be your own.”

“And that … worked?”