Adedayo bolted, but she was on him before he reached the door, and she tossed him behind her like he was nothing but an old coat. He somehow managed to keep upright as he bounced off the wall, stumbling into the cubicle.

“You saw me,” Lorna said.

He slammed the cubicle door. Locked it. The latch rattled loosely. “No, I didn’t!” he called.

“You saw me,” Lorna sang. “That’s a pity. We were going to leave you alone. We thought it polite. You’re the one who set us free, after all. The least we can do is refrain from eating your soul.”

Adedayo pressed his hands against the door. “I won’t tell anyone, I promise.”

Through the gap between the hinges, he watched her shape get closer. “I know,” she said.

She shoved the door and it was like a truck hit it, flinging Adedayo back. He scrambled on to the toilet seat as she reached for him and vaulted clumsily over the cubicle wall. He hit the ground and bolted as she lunged, grabbing the back of his jumper. He turned, twisted, pulling his head and arms free, and then he was sprinting into the corridor.

She came after him.

Adedayo ran, adrenaline pumping through his system, painfully aware of how close she was, of how her fingertips grasped at the shirt on his back. Up the stairs, turning right, running alongside the balcony that overlooked the sports hall. She was going to get him. He was going to slow down or trip or make a mistake and then she was going to have him and this time there’d be no escape. He knew it. It was inevitable. He was dead unless he did something unexpected.

He launched himself over the balcony and Lorna screeched and grabbed his wrist and he swung back and hit the wall, but her grip wasn’t good and she had to let him go and he fell, slamming down on to the soles of his feet, jarring his knees, teeth crunching together, and then he was spinning, running on shaking legs, bursting through the double doors into the sunlight.

“Adedayo!” Valkyrie yelled from the Old House, and Adedayo sprinted across the courtyard. She grabbed him. “Let’s go,” she said, bolting for the stairs. “Skulduggery’s waiting. We have a plan.”

“What kind of plan?” Adedayo gasped, trying to keep up.

“A good one,” she said. “Well, kinda.”

He glanced back as the door burst open. Lorna stormed in, looked up, right at him, and smiled.

Adedayo tripped over the top step, would have fallen if Valkyrie hadn’t kept him upright, turning him to the second set of stairs. She stopped suddenly and he crashed into her. Mr Elliot stood halfway up, the hazy image of the Sathariel looming over him.

“Hold on,” Valkyrie whispered, wrapping an arm round Adedayo’s waist. She brought her other arm in and it was like the air seized them and flung them high over Elliot’s head.

A small part of Adedayo’s fear-spiked mind recognised how exhilarating it all was.

They crashed on to the landing and Valkyrie led the way onwards, to a part of the Old House Adedayo had never been. Down a narrow corridor they went, up some steps, turning a corner, up more steps, before arriving in an attic space the size of a swimming pool. The room was clean and empty, the ceiling high, the windows flooding it with light.

“So what’s the plan?” Adedayo asked, trying to get his breath back. “Where’s Skulduggery?”

“He’s supposed to be here,” Valkyrie said, frowning.

Adedayo kept his eyes on the door. “Maybe you should call him? Maybe you should call him now, like? It’s a bit of an emergency, don’t you think? Lorna said – or, no, the Cythraul controlling her said – they were going to eat my soul.”

“They’re not going to eat your soul,” Valkyrie said firmly.

“He said they weren’t planning on it, out of politeness, but he’s changed his mind and he’s gonna eat it.”

“He said that, did he?”

“He did.”

“Well, I can assure you, Adedayo, we are not going to eat your soul.”

Adedayo stopped moving for a few seconds, and then he turned, ever so slowly. Valkyrie stood there, smiling calmly, while the Deathless stood behind her, his fingers inside her head.