Adedayo took his seat in Irish class and waited for the room to fill up. Valkyrie was the last one in, and Miss Coll tapped her ruler on the desk to call for silence.

“We have a new student joining us today,” she announced. “Valerie, is it? Valerie, welcome. Most teachers would embarrass you by making you stand up and tell us a bit about yourself, but I’ve always found that to be needlessly cruel, so stand up and tell us a bit about yourself, there’s a good girl.”

It seemed to Adedayo that there wasn’t a whole lot that could embarrass a girl like Valkyrie, and she stood there like she was standing in her own living room.

“Right,” she said, “yes. Hi, everyone. I’m Valerie. A few of you might know me from my appearance in maths class yesterday. Like I said, I’m something of a prodigy, something of a genius, but I’m modest, and I hate showing off, so don’t ask me to prove it in any way. I don’t know anyone here apart from Adedayo, so I’d appreciate it if I could sit next to him just until I get settled. Because of how shy I am.” She fixed Massoud with a look. “I’ll take your desk, if you don’t mind.”

Massoud blinked at her for a moment, then looked round the room for support. When he received none, he sighed, gathered his stuff and moved to the empty desk at the front of the class.

“Cheers,” Valkyrie said. “Also I don’t have my books yet, so I’ll have to share.” She moved the desk closer to Adedayo’s, and sat.

Miss Coll looked at her. “You’re quite an assertive young lady, aren’t you?”

Valkyrie raised an eyebrow. “Am I?”

The lesson began, the class splitting up into pairs to hold conversations in the Irish language.

“What are we meant to be looking for?” Adedayo whispered. “The Kings won’t be just walking around out in the open, will they?”

“Wouldn’t that be nice?” Valkyrie responded. “Oh, that would make our job so much easier. But no, they’ll probably disguise themselves, so we’ll have to stay alert for something out of place. We don’t know how these guys are gonna do what they need to do, so just keep your eyes open, you know?”

“Eyes open,” Adedayo repeated, looking round the room. “Right.”

“And we can’t discount the possibility of possession.”

He looked back at her. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Possession,” Valkyrie said again. “When these Apocalypse Kings choose a target, there’s the possibility that, in order to feed on the soul, they might have to possess that person.”

“Like, possess possess? Like control their actions?”

“I might be wrong, but it’s something to look out for.”

“Have … have you ever been possessed?”

“Not me personally, but I know people who have. It’s not nice. Even after it’s over, you feel rotten, apparently. People like us, we’d recover a lot faster than mortals, but even so … Does not sound like a good time to me.”

“So anyone in this school could be possessed right now?”

“It’s a possibility.” She sighed. “This whole thing is totally unfair, to be honest.”

“What do you mean?”

Valkyrie gave a quiet grunt. “The Faceless Ones may have been a threat way back when, but the last time they tried to break through into this reality we pushed them out again. So the Apocalypse Kings want to destroy the world to starve the Faceless Ones … but there aren’t any Faceless Ones to starve. They came, they saw, we conquered.”

“Do you think the Apocalypse Kings will realise that?”

“I doubt it. They’ve been in that box since long before recorded history, and the only thing they’ve had to focus on has been the destruction of every living being on the planet. I don’t think they’ll be changing their minds any time soon.”

“Good point.”

“Make sure,” Miss Coll announced loudly, “that whatever it is you’re talking about it is as Gaeilge, yes? In Irish. That’s the whole point of the class, after all.”

She raised an eyebrow at Adedayo and Valkyrie, and Adedayo frowned back suspiciously.

After Irish, it was history. Once again, Valkyrie sat beside Adedayo as his classmates chatted and laughed among themselves. The teacher was late. A feeling of cold dread overtook Adedayo.

And then Skulduggery swept into the room, his robe billowing behind him like a cape caught in a crosswind. The class went quiet.

“Oh dear,” Valkyrie muttered.