“Hey Ryan,” she said, her voice quiet.

“That’s not my name,” he told her. His own voice shook like it always did when he was emotional. At least, that’s what he remembered.

“I’m going to call you Ryan until I can’t call you Ryan any more,” Valkyrie said. “I don’t care about Deacon. I’ve never met him. I don’t know him. I know you, Ryan. And I like you.”

He nodded. Didn’t answer.

“We’re going to go looking for the Machine now,” she said. “We have a few hours before the cleaning crews get here. Skulduggery thinks dismantling the bomb won’t be a problem. Do you still want to do it?”

Ryan tried to see her pretty face in the gloom. “What would you do if I didn’t? Would you cut off my hand and dismantle it yourself? How do you know you can trust me? I’m Deacon, after all.”

“You’re still you.”

“There is no me.”

Her hand found his. Despite himself, Ryan’s heartbeat quickened. “We all have a side to ourselves that we don’t like,” she said. “Skulduggery has one. I have one. Now you have one. But you don’t have to be ruled by it. You can make your own choices, Ryan. Deacon wants to sell the Machine – to make some money and then leave the mess for someone else to deal with. You want to take it apart so that nobody can ever use it. You can choose to help us. You can choose to help me.”

“And me,” Skulduggery said from the other side of the room.

“Shut up,” Valkyrie said, not turning away from Ryan.

“Right,” said Skulduggery.

The ghost of a smile found its way on to Ryan’s lips. “If I do help you,” he said, “that would really annoy Deacon, wouldn’t it?”

“Oh,” said Valkyrie, “it would.”

Ryan liked that idea. It was the only way he could think of to have his revenge on a man who had snatched away a family and a life that were never real in the first place. But Ryan’s hurt was real. His pain was real. And for the next few hours, at least, Ryan himself was determined that he himself would be real.

“I have one condition,” Ryan said.

He saw the outline of Valkyrie’s head tilting to one side. “OK,” she said cautiously.

“If I do this, and I dismantle the bomb, can I kiss you?”

He felt her slow, slow smile. “We’ll have to see about that,” she said, and got up. She pulled him to his feet.