Unfortunately,” Crux said as he led Valkyrie to the holding cells, “we’re a tad overcrowded at the moment. I suppose that’s as a result of the Sanctuary finally having a Prime Detective who is good at his job.”

“Have I met him?” Valkyrie asked and got an angry yank on her shackles in response.

“What that means,” Crux continued, “is that you’ll have to share a cell.”

Valkyrie paled. “What? You can’t do that.”

“It’s not ideal, but we do what we must,” Crux said, failing to hide the glee in his voice.

She tried to pull away, but he dragged her viciously on.

“You can’t do that!” she shouted, hoping that someone would hear. “Let me talk to Mr Bliss.”

“Elder Bliss is busy with Sanctuary matters,” Crux said. “We’ll get this sorted out, I assure you. But for now, you’re going to have to be a good girl and share your room.”

He opened a cell door and shoved her inside. The door slammed behind her and the man on the narrow bed turned over and looked at her.

“Cain,” Scapegrace snarled.

The slot in the door opened up. “Hands,” Crux said.

“Get me out of here!” Valkyrie shouted.

“Put your hands through the slot, unless you want to stay manacled.”

Scapegrace’s right eye was swollen shut, his nose was bruised and his lip was cut. He moved slowly, like his whole body was sore.

Valkyrie thrust her hands through the slot and Crux removed the shackles. “The cell is, of course, bound,” he informed her, “so please try to behave.”

She bent low, so he could see her eyes through the slot.

“Detective Crux, you cannot do this.”

He smiled at her before closing the slot. She turned as Scapegrace got to his feet.

“They broke my fingers,” he said, holding up his bandaged left hand. “Those Cleavers broke my fingers and beat the tar out of me. Did you have a good laugh, did you? You and the skeleton? Were you grinning to each other as you sent me off to distract them?”

Valkyrie’s mouth was dry. There was nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. She couldn’t use her powers and she wasn’t wearing her protective clothing. She was an ordinary girl, trapped inside a small room with a grown man who wanted to kill her.

“I’m going to beat you to death,” said Scapegrace, nodding. “I wanted my first kill to be something artful. Something beautiful. But I suppose I could settle for something brutal. It would give me something to work up from.”

“You’ll never get out of jail,” Valkyrie said, her words thick in her mouth. “If you kill me, you’re going to spend the rest of your life in a cell like this one.”

“No, I’ll get out. Something will happen and I’ll get out. I always do.”

“You’ll be a killer. Security’s tighter for killers.”

“And why is that? Because people are afraid of killers. People are going to be afraid of me.”

He stepped forward and she stepped back, feeling the cold steel of the door through her clothes.

“What about Skulduggery?” she asked quickly.

“I don’t see him in here,” Scapegrace smiled.

“You don’t want him as an enemy, Vaurien. You know you don’t. Once he finds out that I’ve been arrested, he’ll come for me. He’ll appear at this door just like he did two days ago and he’ll open it and see what you’ve done. Do you really want to be standing here when that happens?”

Scapegrace hesitated. “They’ll put me in protective custody,” he decided. “They don’t much like your friend these days, in case you’ve forgotten. They’ll put me in a special cell where he won’t be able to find me.”

“He’ll find you. He’ll hunt you down.”

Scapegrace sneered. “Let him try.”

Valkyrie knew the rules. Tanith had drilled them into her often enough. With no other choice, when the onset of violence was a virtual certainty and retreat was not an option, the rule was to strike first and without warning.

Scapegrace was a grown man. He was a little under two metres tall and of average strength for a man his size.

Valkyrie was a fourteen-year-old girl who was tall for her age, and she’d been working out with two of the best fight trainers around for two years. Physically, Scapegrace was still superior, but he was also injured. He was keeping his weight off his left leg and his body was twisted slightly. She suspected cracked ribs.

Strike first and without warning.

Valkyrie kicked Scapegrace’s left leg and he howled. She tried shooting an elbow into his face, but his arms were up, flailing. She pushed him back to give herself room, and he looped his right fist against her jaw. Her head spun and she hit the door and nearly fell.

He came in with another punch, but she swerved away and it caught her on the shoulder. If she had been wearing her black coat, the blow would have been absorbed by the material. As it was, she went stumbling.

He reached for her again and she grabbed his bandaged hand and wrenched it. He shrieked and forgot all about his attack. She moved away from the door and, still leading him by his broken fingers, spun him in a tight circle around her. She brought his hand low and he dropped to his knees.

“Let go!” he pleaded, tears in his eyes. “I wasn’t going to kill you, I swear! I was joking!”

She released his hand and he clutched it to his chest, and she grabbed his head and drove her knee into the hinge of his jaw. He fell over backwards and didn’t get up.

The back of her legs hit the side of the bed and she collapsed into a sitting position. Her breathing was fast and shallow, and her eyes stayed glued to Scapegrace’s unconscious form.

Her shoulder started to ache. His punch had caught her right on the side of the head, and her ear was burning. She thanked God he hadn’t busted her in the mouth. She didn’t think she could handle losing another tooth.

She wondered what she would do when he woke up. There was nothing in the cell that she could use to tie him up, and no one had come to investigate the sounds of struggle.

She had beaten him. She had beaten him without using magic. True, he was already injured, and she had caught him by surprise, but the fact remained – she had fought a grown man and she had beaten him.

She started to smile, and then the smile faded as she thought what would have happened if she hadn’t beaten him. She’d probably be lying dead on the cell floor right now.

She got off the bed and unwrapped the bandage around Scapegrace’s injured hand. His fingers were badly swollen, the skin blue and yellow and purple and black. He didn’t even murmur as she tied one end of the bandage around those fingers, and the other end around the iron leg of the bed. At least now he wouldn’t be able to jump her when he woke up.

She sat on the bed again, well away from him, her back against the wall. She tied her hair into a ponytail and wondered if Skulduggery had realised yet that something had gone wrong. She tried to think of what he would do.

First, he’d call her phone and get no answer. After a while he’d turn up at the house – or more likely send Tanith, someone a little more normal-looking. He’d definitely speak with the reflection, and hopefully work out what had happened. And then he’d come for her.

Valkyrie sat back and waited.