Skulduggery and Valkyrie waited for Adedayo to finish screaming. It took a few seconds.

“Excellent,” Skulduggery said, opening the door and moving his seat forward. “In you get. We need to talk, and privacy is required.”

Adedayo should probably have run away. Instead, he climbed in.

Skulduggery got back behind the wheel and Valkyrie slid into the passenger seat. The car started with a gentle purr, and they left the school grounds and turned on to the road.

“Um,” said Adedayo, “are you kidnapping me?”

“No,” Skulduggery said immediately.

“No,” said Valkyrie.

“Absolutely not,” Skulduggery said.

“Are we, though?” Valkyrie asked.

Skulduggery shook his head. “If he agrees to come with us of his own free will, then it’s not kidnapping, it’s a day out.”

Valkyrie looked back at Adedayo and shrugged. “There you go.”

“Cool,” Adedayo said, trying to smile. “I just wanted to check. Could I ask what’s going on? And also how are you a skeleton?”

“The story of how I became a skeleton is a long one,” Skulduggery said. “Thankfully, it is also a really interesting one because it’s about me. The year was 1690, and the war with Mevolent had reached—”

“We’re just going to skip this,” Valkyrie interrupted, “because, like we said, we don’t have an awful lot of time. Skulduggery, Adedayo already knows about magic. He’s one of us.”

“Oh, good,” said Skulduggery, turning right. “That cuts down on the tedious explanations and the screaming.”

“I was just saying that.”

“I don’t know an awful lot, though,” Adedayo pointed out. “Iyá Agba, my grandmother, she was magic and she taught me a few things in secret. The rest of my family don’t know. Things like …” He clicked his fingers a few times, but nothing happened, and he frowned. “Usually sparks fly out.”

“It can be difficult to make magic work when you’re nervous or scared,” Valkyrie said. “Or when people are trying to kill you.”

Adedayo blinked. “Will people be trying to kill me?”

Valkyrie and Skulduggery glanced at each other.

“No,” Valkyrie said unconvincingly.

“Adedayo,” Skulduggery said, “we know a few psychics and they had some rather disturbing dreams last night. The details are rather vague, but they all saw three beings at your address, they saw you, and they saw these beings abruptly depart. Then they saw these three beings destroy everything and kill everyone on the planet. Pretty standard apocalyptic stuff, to be fair – but it’s our job to make sure that doesn’t happen. So that’s why we’re here. We visited your home first, of course. Don’t worry, no one was there, but we did find a wooden box in your bedroom. This is where the creatures emerged from, I assume?”

Adedayo nodded. “My grandmother left the box to me.”

“It will, with your permission, be examined by experts at a later date, but from what we’ve seen the box appears to be an ancient but incredibly sophisticated prison. It’s quite astounding, really.”

“You get excited about the weirdest things,” Valkyrie muttered, before turning back to Adedayo. “What can you tell us about the creatures that climbed out of it?”

“Everything,” said Adedayo.

Valkyrie frowned. “Everything?”

“I … I don’t know exactly how to describe it, but I think they kinda looked into my head? To learn about the world and the language and stuff? But, when they looked in, I don’t know, it’s like they left the door open to their minds. So I went in. Only it was more like I was jumping into a swimming pool full of knowledge. It was amazing.”

“Oh, Adedayo,” said Skulduggery, taking another right, “you just might be my favourite person I’ve met since you got in the car. So who are they?”

“Gods,” said Adedayo. “All these gods, countless gods, lived, like, billions of years ago. Then the people came and started worshipping them and sacrificing each other, and things were good – if you were a god. The worshipping was nice, but all those sacrificed souls were … nourishment, I suppose. They made the gods stronger. So then one race of gods would attack another, and wars broke out, and … Anyway, there was this one race, called the Faceless Ones—”

“We’re acquainted,” Valkyrie said.

“Oh,” said Adedayo, “cool. So they hunted down and, like, eradicated all the other gods. Three races – the Cythraul, the Sathariel and the Deathless – were on the verge of being wiped out and they wanted to make sure that the Faceless Ones starved to death once they were gone. Just to, like, teach them a lesson or something. So each race sent one of their last survivors to kill all worshippers. The humans, basically. To cut off the source of souls, you know? But the Faceless Ones managed to trap them in a magical box, the box my grandmother had. They put it aside and forgot about it for all that time and … and then last night I opened it and let the Apocalypse Kings out. That’s, I think, roughly what their, like, collective name is.” He sagged. “I’m such an idiot.”

“Hey,” said Skulduggery. “Hey.”

Adedayo looked up. “Yes?”

“Hey,” Skulduggery said again.

Valkyrie glared at the skeleton, then smiled at Adedayo. “You’re not an idiot. There’s no way you could have known what was in that box or what would happen once you opened it. I mean, it’s a box. Boxes are meant to be opened.”

“I know another lady who said that,” Skulduggery muttered, turning right again. “Her name was Pandora and things did not go well for her.”

“Oh, really?” Valkyrie said. “You knew Pandora, did you?”

“Yes,” he responded. “Pandora Willoughby-Smythe, a very nice English lady who owned a rather nasty Pomeranian that got itself locked in a trunk one sunny afternoon. When she finally let it out, it had peed all over her cashmere blankets.” He shook his head. “It was a massacre.”

Valkyrie closed her eyes. “You will never not be weird.”

“So how are these Apocalypse Kings going to destroy the world?” Skulduggery asked, taking the next right.

They’d done a loop, and were arriving back at the school.

Adedayo winced. “I didn’t get a chance to find out before I had to leave the, uh, the swimming pool of knowledge that I mentioned. Sorry.”

“And how much time do we have?”

“Not long. All they have to do is get their strength back. They’re going to be feeding on souls. They’re going to, like, attach themselves, I suppose, to people and they’ll feed until they’re strong again. They don’t need to be as strong as they once were, just strong enough to do whatever it is they’re gonna do. But I think I know how to beat them.”

The car pulled up outside the school, and Skulduggery tilted his head. “Something you saw in their minds, while you were paddling around in the swimming pool of knowledge? A weakness?”

“Not exactly,” said Adedayo, and cleared his throat. “Má şi àpótí.”

“What’s that?” Valkyrie asked.

“It’s the last thing Ìyá Agba said to me. I think it’s a spell. I think, maybe, it’ll stop them, or maybe trap them in the box again. Àpótí means box, I think.”

“A spell, eh?” Valkyrie said, looking doubtful.

“What?” said Adedayo. “Don’t you do spells?”

“Not really,” Skulduggery said. “Spells can be useful in focusing your intent, distilling it down to its basic and most potent essence … but, in general, spells aren’t really a thing.”

“Oh,” said Adedayo. “OK.” He nodded, like he was accepting what they were saying, but he still thought his grandmother’s words were a spell. He still thought they could be useful. “Can you stop them?”

“That’s why we’re here,” Skulduggery said with utmost confidence.

Relief flushed the anxiety from his bones, and Adedayo smiled. “Thank you. Thank you.” Valkyrie and Skulduggery nodded. Didn’t say anything. “So, uh … will I just get out?”

“Yes,” Skulduggery said. “That would be a splendid idea.”

Valkyrie let Adedayo out on her side, then got back in. Before Adedayo could say anything else, they drove off.

He hesitated. Then waved.