They got to the bottom of the stone stairs and a sour-looking man beckoned to them impatiently. Valkyrie glanced at the greyclad Cleavers as she passed them, their faces hidden behind visored helmets. She used to find them threatening, but compared to the White Cleaver who stood with the Necromancers, they were positively cuddly.
The impatient sorcerer herded them quickly through the corridors.
“I don’t have time to be doing this,” he griped. “I’ve got work to do, for God’s sake. Don’t they know I have work to do? Showing you people where to go is an Administrator’s job. Do I look like an Administrator to you?”
“No,” Tanith said. “You look like a remarkably grumpy man.”
He glared at her and she narrowed her eyes. He looked away.
“In there,” he said, pointing to a room. “The Grand Mage will be with you when he’s with you. If you want anything, tea or coffee, get it yourself and don’t bother me any more.”
He stalked off and they looked at each other.
“Guild wants us left alone so that we’ll go after the skull,” Ghastly said quietly. “He wants us arrested and thrown in the cells. He’s just waiting for us to make a wrong move.”
“Let’s not disappoint him then,” Tanith responded. They ignored the Greeting Room and took the first corridor to their right. The people they passed didn’t even glance at them.
They passed the Gaol, where the sickest, most evil sorcerers in the country were kept in cages hanging off the ground. An average criminal would be sent to one of the maximum security prisons, but the Gaol was reserved for the worst of the worst.
Beyond the Gaol was the Repository. Making sure no one was watching, Tanith pushed open the double doors and they crept inside. Ghastly held up his hand and read the air, feeling any disturbances.
“We’re alone,” he announced and all three of them immediately strode among the dimly-lit shelves, looking for a wooden sphere about twice the size of a tennis ball.
Valkyrie hurried to the place where the cloaking sphere had been kept the last time she was here, but the space was empty. She quickly checked the rest of the shelf, her eyes skimming over the arcane objects. The collection of magical artefacts in this room was enough to make collectors like China Sorrows envious.
They searched for five or six minutes and came up with nothing.
“This isn’t good,” Ghastly muttered when Valkyrie passed him.
She clicked her fingers to summon a flame into her hand and searched the darker recesses of the room. This wasn’t good at all.
“Do we have a Plan B?” Tanith called out from behind a stack of scrolls.
“We barely have a Plan A,” Valkyrie muttered.
Ghastly had his ear to the door and he stepped away. “They’re coming,” he said.
Furious, Valkyrie whipped out her phone and called Fletcher. Her plan hadn’t worked. The only thing they could do now was get out before they were caught.
“The Repository,” she said into the phone and Fletcher appeared behind her. Symbols flashed on the walls and blue lightning darted to where he was standing. He screamed as the lightning danced through him. When the symbols faded, he collapsed with a moan.
It was a trap and, right on cue, the double doors swung open and a dark-haired woman walked in, a squad of Cleavers behind her.
Ghastly and Tanith converged on Valkyrie as she knelt by Fletcher.
“Get us out of here,” she ordered, but tremors coursed through Fletcher’s body.
“Can’t,” he mumbled.
Davina Marr looked at them and smiled. “Welcome to the Sanctuary. You are all under arrest.”
She sat across from Marr and did her best to ignore Pennant, standing beside the door. Having the door in front of her was their mistake. Anytime Skulduggery had used this interview room, he’d positioned the suspects with their backs to it. It meant they had to crane their necks to see whoever walked in. The way Marr had arranged it, it was almost like this was Valkyrie’s office and she was sitting at her own desk.
Valkyrie worked at looking calm and hiding the panic she was feeling. This had been their one chance to get Skulduggery back. If Guild hid the skull or worse, destroyed it, their one chance would disappear. She went cold inside thinking about it.
“Valkyrie,” Marr said eventually, raising her different coloured eyes from whatever it was she was reading. Valkyrie doubted the file had anything to do with her. It was probably just some random collection of pages Marr thought might intimidate her. “You’re in quite a lot of trouble.”
Valkyrie said nothing and rubbed the fingers of her right hand against each other. Her Necromancer ring had been taken. She missed it.
Marr had dark hair, cut short at the neck. She was pretty, in an unremarkable way. “You were caught trying to steal Sanctuary property. Do you know how serious that is? Do you know how long you could be put in prison for?” Marr sighed as if disappointed. “This isn’t a game, Valkyrie. You’re part of something that is turning out to be very dangerous. Ghastly Bespoke and Tanith Low are looking at twenty years in prison at the very least. Twenty years, Valkyrie. What is it you were trying to steal anyway?”
Valkyrie fixed her eyes on a speck of lint on Marr’s collar and didn’t answer.
“We have Skulduggery Pleasant’s head. I know you’re here to steal it, and let me assure you, we do understand. Skulduggery was a friend of yours.”
“Is a friend,” corrected Valkyrie.
“Was I referring to him in the past tense?” Marr asked, looking ashamed. “Oh dear, I’m very sorry. Yes, he is a friend of yours and I’m sure you consider him a very good friend. We all have good friends and we would do a lot for those friends – within reason, naturally. But this crusade of yours, to open up the portal, it’s…quite frankly, it is not within reason.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Valkyrie said.
Marr’s smile was becoming as irritating as her manner. “Of course you don’t,” she whispered conspiratorially. “But let’s pretend you did. Let’s pretend, and this is without incriminating yourself – that means to get yourself into trouble – that you did want to open the portal to try and bring your friend back. It would mean that you’d also be opening the portal for the Faceless Ones. Do you see that? Do you understand?”
Valkyrie was becoming fixated on Marr’s little nose. It was like a target, begging to have a chair smashed into it.
“The only reason they came through the last time was because they had been signalled,” Valkyrie said. “Hypothetically speaking, if we were to open that portal now, they wouldn’t be waiting. But Skulduggery would.”
“The Grand Mage has expressly forbidden that portal to ever be opened again. I’m sorry.”
“I don’t work for the Grand Mage.”
“The Sanctuary polices the entire magical community in Ireland – not just the people who work there. Valkyrie, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but your friend is most likely dead.”
“Of