Valkyrie opened her eyes.
“Welcome back,” Reverie Synecdoche said, barely raising her gaze from the chart at the foot of the bed.
“Hey,” Valkyrie muttered, her tongue heavy. They were in Reverie’s clinic, a building Valkyrie was getting to know well. She had a bandage taped to her chest. She was hooked up to a drip. The bed was comfortable, the pillow cool. It occurred to Valkyrie that the pillows in the clinic were always cool.
“Skulduggery told me to tell you that he’s over at the High Sanctuary, waiting to talk to the Supreme Mage,” Reverie said. “He doesn’t fancy his chances.”
“Do you have magic pillows?” Valkyrie asked.
“Why would we have magic pillows?”
“Because they’re always cool.”
“We flip them a lot. How are you feeling?”
“Disappointed about the pillows, but otherwise OK.” She frowned. “I feel drunk.”
“That will fade. You had quite a nasty injury.”
“Oh, no.”
“You were lucky. It missed your heart.”
“I’m very lucky.”
“Yes, you are.”
“I went into her mind.”
“Did you?”
Valkyrie nodded. “Abyssinia’s mind. I went in. Saw her memories.”
“That’s nice.”
“It wasn’t really. I’m not used to feeling drunk, you know. I don’t drink. Well, I mean, I have drunk, you know. I have imbibed the alcohol. I’m just not used to it. I don’t like being drunk.”
“Of course you don’t,” Reverie said, coming closer and checking the drip. “You’re a control freak.”
Valkyrie’s eyes widened. “I am offended. I am not a control freak. How very dare you. I just like being in control of the situation at all times. Is that bad? Is that wrong?”
“Not at all,” Reverie murmured, making a note on the clipboard.
“Things have a habit,” Valkyrie continued, “of spiralling out of control. You think everything is one way, and then it goes poof, and it’s all everywhere. I like to keep a handle on it. Try to keep it all together. You know what happens when things go all everywhere? Bad things happen. I’ve seen it. So I try to scoop it all back into the basket. Did I mention the basket? There was a basket somewhere in this anatomy. Anatomy?”
“Analogy.”
“Analogy, yes, thank you. There was a basket that I forgot to mention. The basket was holding everything and then …” She sighed. “Anyway. I’m not a control freak.” Her eyes widened. “I cut off one of Skeiri’s thingies.”
“That doesn’t sound nice.”
“Her thingy. Her … thing. With the snapping and the biting. The same as Razzia. Razzia has the same snappy and bitey thing.”
“This is an interesting conversation.”
Valkyrie waved her arm like a snake, her hand snatching at the air.
“Ah,” said Reverie. “The parasite.”
“Yesssss,” said Valkyrie. “I cut it off. I feel so bad. Do you think it’s like I killed her pet? I don’t want to kill her pet. I love animals.”
Reverie replaced the chart at the end of the bed, checked her watch, and looked at Valkyrie. “Was the parasite trying to attack you?”
“Oh, yes, Reverie, it really was. It was all …” She made a scary face.
“Well now,” Reverie said, “it sounds to me like you had no choice.”
“But I love animals.” Valkyrie started to cry.
Reverie patted her head. “It’s OK. You did the right thing.”
“Do you think it’ll grow back?”
“The parasite?”
“Do you think it’ll grow back, like a foot?”
“Feet don’t grow back, Valkyrie. You’re thinking of lizard tails. The parasite won’t grow back, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, noooo.”
“You were defending yourself. If this Skeiri person really cared about her parasites, she wouldn’t have sent them to attack you, would she?”
“I suppose not.” Valkyrie sniffled, and wiped her nose. “When can I leave?”
“I’ll have a nurse come by in about twenty minutes, take the tube out of your arm, and you’ll be free to walk out of here.”
“Cool. Can I take the pillows with me?”
“No. They’re ours.”
“Just one of them, then. This one.”
“No.”
“What about that one?”
“No.”
“Both?”
“Neither.”
“Half?”
“A nurse will be in soon.”
“You’re mean.”
“They’re not your pillows, Valkyrie.”
“You’re still mean.”
Half an hour later, Valkyrie was feeling a lot less drunk. She got dressed and the nurse gave her fresh gauze to change her dressing.
Militsa Gnosis was waiting in the lobby when Valkyrie walked out.
“I heard you’d been injured,” she said. “Thought I’d call round. I was going to bring flowers and grapes, but it occurred to me that you don’t really seem like a flowers person.”
“I’m really not,” said Valkyrie. “But I do like grapes.”
“I should have brought grapes, then. You want to go for a coffee?”
“To be honest,” Valkyrie said, “I would love to.”
They stopped at the first coffee shop they came to and took a table at the back.
“So what was it that injured you?” Militsa asked. “Bullet? Knife? Arrow?”
“Tentacle.”
“Seriously?”
“A tentacle with teeth that shot out of a lady’s hand.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. It’s a parasite. It’s called a … well, it’s called whatever it’s called, but most people just call it a parasite.”
“She hot?”
“The parasite?”
“The lady.”
“Um … I suppose. Although Razzia’s hotter.”
“That’s the Australian?”
“Yep. They both have the parasites, but Razzia has the most beautiful mouth. I think you’d like her.”
“I have always been partial to a bad girl,” Militsa said, and sipped her coffee. “You want to talk about it?”
“About what? Getting injured? I’m always getting injured.”
“Well,” said Militsa, “you were always getting injured, but then you went away and you didn’t get injured for years.”
“Ah, I still got injured,” Valkyrie said. “I still trained. My instructor didn’t exactly take it easy on me.”
“Or you didn’t take it easy on yourself.”
“Meaning?”
Militsa took another sip. “I’ve known you, what, six months? Seven? Around that? I might be way off here, but when you left Ireland you were so wrapped up in guilt over what Darquesse had done, over what you yourself had done, that you were looking for exciting new systems of punishment. So you hid for five years from the people who loved you, and … what? How did you spend your time?”
“I fixed up an old house.”
“OK.”
“I got a dog.”
“Good.”
“I read a lot.”
“Excellent.”
“And I trained.”
“You fought?”
“I trained. I worked out. I sparred.”
“And you got hurt?”
“You can’t train to fight without the risk of getting hurt.”
Militsa shrugged. “OK. I get that. Who was your instructor?”
“Someone I found.”
“You found someone good enough to train you, after you’d spent years training with Skulduggery? That’s a high bar to match.”
Now it was Valkyrie’s turn to shrug.
“I get the feeling you don’t want to talk about this,” Militsa said.
“My mind’s just not on it, that’s all. There’s a lot going on – and not just with me. Like, wherever you look there’s drama. What do you think of this whole refugees-from-another-reality thing? Isn’t that nuts?”
“Have you seen it? The portal?”
“Yeah. I usually view dimensional portals as a bad thing, but the people coming through just look so scared …”
“We’re helping them out at the Academy,” said Militsa. “It started with food and blankets, but the High Sanctuary seems to have handed us full responsibility for their well-being – which, you know, because they’re still coming through is a lot more than we can handle.”
“Are you in charge?”
“Well, I’m spearheading it, yes, but there’s a load of volunteers.”
“Then it’ll be fine,” Valkyrie said. “So long as you’re involved, they’ll be all right.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Militsa said, smiling. “But it is not what I signed up for. I’m a researcher and a teacher. I can barely organise my desk, let alone relief aid for thousands of terrified mortals. I keep imagining that one of these days I’ll grow up and become someone who knows what they’re doing, but so far that hasn’t happened. Do you ever think about that? Growing older, I mean?”
Valkyrie shrugged. “That’s the good thing about magic, isn’t it? Growing older isn’t something we’ll have to think about for another few hundred years.”
“That’s growing old. We won’t have to worry about growing old. Growing older is different. We still do that.”
“I suppose,” Valkyrie said, her mind drifting to Alice – wondering what it would be like to watch her little sister grow up and age naturally, reaching her thirties, her forties, while Valkyrie still looked nineteen.
“Sometimes I look at people like the Supreme Mage,” Militsa was saying, “or the headmaster, or even Skulduggery … All of these people are hundreds of years old and, I don’t know, I start to wonder what effect that has on them.”
Valkyrie drank her coffee. “I’m not sure I get what you’re talking about.”
“I study magic,” Militsa said. “It’s what I do. It’s what I love. But, when I look at sorcerers who’ve been alive for centuries, I start to ask questions. About whether or not it’s worth it.”
“I am so not getting this.”
Militsa laughed. “Never mind. I’m talking nonsense!”
“No, no,” said Valkyrie, “come on. What do you mean?”
Militsa hesitated. “They lose something, I think. The more lifetimes go by, the less … human they become. I don’t mean that in a bad way – at least, not in general. But I think there’s a sacrifice you make when you embrace magic.”
“Maybe there is,” Valkyrie said, “but I don’t agree with you about the less human thing. Yeah, OK, China’s a bit of a mystery, but Skulduggery’s a good person.”
“To you.”
“To the world, which he has saved a few times.”
“I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“I’m not offended. Really.”
“I just think … there’s a price to pay. We’re not immortal, and yet compared to the mortal people we grew up with, our old friends and neighbours, compared with those poor people from the Leibniz Universe, immortal is exactly what we are. And I think there’s a sacrifice we have to make in order to live like that. A piece of yourself you cut away. How else are you going to be able to watch the mortals in your life grow old and die while you stay young?”
Valkyrie smiled, and leaned forward. “I do not wish to think about this right now.”
Militsa leaned forward, too. “I do not blame you. Let us never speak of it again.”
“That works for me, gorgeous.”
Militsa blushed. A blush on a redhead was extremely noticeable.
“You’re scarlet,” Valkyrie said, and laughed.
“Shut up,” Militsa replied, looking away, to the front of the café. “Oh, thank God. A change of subject.”
Valkyrie looked round. Skulduggery nodded to her from the door.
She smiled at Militsa. “Be right back,” she said, and joined Skulduggery outside.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“Sore. Did you manage to speak with China?”
“I did not. I should have stayed at the clinic. I should have been there when you woke.”
“What for? You’ve seen me in one hospital bed, you’ve seen me in them all. I looked into her head, you know.”
“Abyssinia?”
“I took her by surprise, I think. She … It’s like she opened the door into my thoughts, but instead of her walking through into my mind, I barged straight into hers.”
“What did you see?”
Valkyrie hesitated.
Skulduggery nodded. “You saw me.”
“Yeah. Sorry. I kind of used you as an anchor to get through her memories. I saw you put on Vile’s armour, I saw the night you stabbed her and threw her out the window … It’s weird because it was me. I was experiencing her memories as her, so it was me you stabbed.”
“Oh. That’s most unfortunate. I sincerely apologise.”
“I’m over it.”
“That’s good to know. Did you happen to see if the child …”
“Is really yours? I didn’t. Do you think he could be? You told Abyssinia you don’t remember everything you did as Lord Vile. I didn’t know that.”
“There are periods that are hidden to me,” Skulduggery said. “Blank spots in my recollections.”
“But you remember everything.”
“Apparently not.”
“Skulduggery … is Caisson your son?”
“I don’t know.”
“Would you want him to be?”
Skulduggery watched a tram pass, and didn’t answer.
“Militsa’s waiting for me,” Valkyrie said. “Call me in the morning, OK?”
“I will. I’m glad you’re alive, Valkyrie.”
“Me too.”
She went back inside.