Valkyrie took hold of the collar of Quidnunc’s bathrobe and hauled him along after her. She opened the wardrobe, shoved him in and closed the door, then came back to Skulduggery.
She hesitated a moment, then smiled calmly and, keeping her voice low, said, “Can I ask a personal question?”
“Go ahead,” Skulduggery said.
“Remember when you were Lord Vile? Remember those days? Now, I know you were dressed in armour and everything, and you were all big and scary and whispery and sinister, but you were … you were still a skeleton, right?”
“Yes.”
“So, and I mean this in the nicest possible way, there is absolutely no way that you could have had a kid … right?”
“Right.”
“At all?”
“In the slightest.”
“OK.”
“Probably.”
“What?” Valkyrie said. “There is probably no way you could have had a kid? Where did this ‘probably’ come from?”
“We’re talking about magic,” Skulduggery said. “People do tricky things with magic.”
“I paid attention in biology, all right? Well, I didn’t, but my reflection did, and what I remember about the whole baby-making process is that eggs don’t fertilise themselves.”
“If Quidnunc is telling the truth, then Caisson was either lying to him, or Abyssinia lied to Caisson about his father.”
“Yes,” Valkyrie said. “That makes sense. That seems obvious. Because you’re totally not the dad, right?”
“Totally.”
“OK.”
“Probably totally.”
Quidnunc knocked on the inside of the wardrobe. “Hello? Can I come out now?”
Valkyrie opened the door, pulled him out. “Get dressed,” she said. “We’re going to want to talk about this a lot more when you’re in your cell.”
“Yes,” Quidnunc said, grabbing his clothes off the floor. “Thank you, yes. Could I make one request?”
“No requests,” said Skulduggery.
“It’s just, as a co-operating witness, I thought maybe I’d be granted one small request.”
“You’re not a co-operating witness. You’re under arrest.”
Quidnunc looked surprised. “Am I?”
Skulduggery tilted his head. “Aren’t you? Didn’t we place you under arrest? We may have forgotten. Doctor Quidnunc, you’re under arrest. Put your trousers on.”
“You haven’t even read me my rights.”
“Why does everyone think we operate according to mortal rules? We don’t have mortal trials, do we? We have Sensitives who can read your mind and proclaim your guilt or innocence.”
“So I don’t have any rights?”
“Not any we have to read to you. Haven’t you ever been arrested before?”
“No.”
“Well, now you’ll know for next time.”
Quidnunc zipped up his fly and pulled on a shirt. He picked a shoe up off the floor and looked around. “Can either of you see my other shoe? It looks just like this one.”
“We know what a shoe looks like,” Valkyrie responded. “It’s under the chair.”
“Ah,” Quidnunc said, moving to the other end of the room. He put both shoes on and started tying the laces.
Skulduggery held the car keys out to Valkyrie. “You’d better bring the car round.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You’re trusting me with the Bentley twice in the space of a few days?”
“I should stay with the doctor in case Abyssinia arrives. Pull up on the street outside and we’ll be waiting. Do not crash.”
Valkyrie took the keys, went to say something bitingly funny to Quidnunc – but Abyssinia was suddenly standing behind him.