“You don’t know that for sure.”
“No,” said the reflection. “But it’s what you suspect.”
“He wouldn’t let me do that. He just wouldn’t.”
“Maybe not. But he’d waste time. He’d second-guess himself. He’d look for another way. He wouldn’t go for the kill shot when he was given the chance, and by then, it might be too late. You don’t have that reassurance any more. It’s the two of you against the world. But that’s not what you need. You need him with his finger on the trigger, and the gun to your head. You should be thankful Darquesse is no longer an option. I can’t see how it could have ended well.”
Valkyrie sighed. “How am I supposed to know what to do?”
“You’re not,” the reflection said gently. “You’re seventeen. You’re supposed to be dealing with school and hormones and dim-witted parents. You’re supposed to be finding out who you are as a person.”
“But I already know who I am,” Valkyrie said. “I’m a world-breaker.”
She changed her clothes. It was still warm outside so she pulled on jeans and a different T-shirt and went for a walk along the pier, listening to the dark waves against the rocks, then turned and walked up into Haggard. She passed the takeaway that had sprung up when the Pizza Palace had gone out of business. The video shop was gone, too. A lot of things had changed in the last five years.
Carol Edgley came out of the takeaway holding a steaming bag of food. She saw Valkyrie and hid the bag behind her back. “Hi, Stephanie,” she said. She was blushing.
Valkyrie gave her a smile. “Hiya, Carol. Oh my God, that smells amazing.”
“Uh, do you... do you want to share?”
“Would you mind? Just one or two.”
Carol hesitated, then brought the bag out and opened it. She offered it to Valkyrie, who took a small handful of piping hot chips. Her stomach rumbled; she realised she was starving. She blew on them a few times before eating.
“These are so good.”
Carol smiled, and had a few herself. They walked towards the corner of Main Street, where the road split.
“How are things?” Valkyrie asked.
“Good,” Carol said. “Grand.”
“How’s your mum?”
“Fine. She joined a bridge club.”
“I didn’t know she liked bridge.”
“She doesn’t, but ever since we started defending you she needed a wider range of people to disapprove of.”
Valkyrie took another few chips, and grinned. “You know, if it makes your life any easier, you can always go back to agreeing with her.”
“No. No way. Those days are gone. Look at everything we missed out on because we were too busy being selfish. Gordon chose you to have all these adventures. He could have easily chosen us if we’d been nicer or cooler or, I don’t know, happier. It’s like Mum just kind of trained us to be miserable. Dad spoiled us and Mum was a bad example and look how we turned out. And then look at your mum and dad. They’re cool, and funny, and weird, and genuine. They’re genuine, y’know? Mum isn’t genuine.”
They walked along for a bit, with Carol eating her chips and Valkyrie looking at her. “She’s not all bad.”
“No,” Carol said. “She isn’t. She’s my mum, and I love her, but she’s not a nice person. You mightn’t think we realise that but we do.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Valkyrie admitted. “I don’t want to agree with you, because that’d be mean. And I can’t really argue...”
Carol laughed, and Valkyrie smiled.
“But no one’s perfect,” she continued. “My folks can get just as annoying as anyone’s.”
“But you had a head start,” Carol said. “They gave you that, and that’s what makes them cool. They didn’t spoil you. They criticised you when you needed it. They didn’t treat you like you were this little princess that only they could see. You were way more independent at twelve than we are even now. Do you understand that? The twelve-year-old version of you was more of a grown-up than I am right now, aged twenty.”
“I think you’re being a bit hard on yourself.”
They reached the corner and Carol turned to her. “Look at me, Valkyrie. I mean, just look at me. I’m a slob.”
“No, you’re not.”
“It’s ten o’clock on a Wednesday night and I’m walking home with a bag of chips, just like I do every night. I’m fat. I’ve always been fat and I’ve always hated being fat but I’m too lazy to do anything about it. I start diets but they’re too hard so I stop, and eat more. I’m fat and Crystal is thin, she’s way too thin and she won’t listen to me, she won’t believe me when I tell her she’s too skinny. She always says no, she hasn’t reached her target weight yet, and she gets thinner and thinner and I can see her bones now. I know you’re used to that with Skulduggery, but it’s a lot different when it’s your sister.”
“Yeah.”
“And then we look at you. Even from here I can see the muscles on your arms.”
“I have to be strong to do what I do. If I wasn’t involved in all this, I’d be just like you guys.”
“No, you wouldn’t. You’d still be tall, for a start, and you’d probably be swimming every day or horse-riding or something.”
“Well, that’s all you need to do. Whenever I’m not working on a case with Skulduggery, I train really hard. I practise magic, I fight, I lift weights, I work out. Every few months Skulduggery brings in another friend of his who’s an expert in some fighting style I’ve never heard of and I get thrown about the place. Whatever muscles I have I got through hard work and sweat. And I hated most of it. But all you have to do is find the activity that you enjoy and you won’t care about how hard the work is.”
“I’ve... I might have found an activity.” Carol looked away. “I’ve been, kind of… I’ve been practising magic.”
Valkyrie raised an eyebrow. “I see.”
“Just the fire stuff,” Carol said quickly. “I’m not really good with the air, and I don’t know about the water and earth, but I can click my fingers and sometimes things go on fire.”
“Sounds... dangerous.”
“I keep a bucket of water beside me when I do it.”
“Listen, I don’t want to tell you not to practise. I don’t have that right. You have magic in you, it’s part of your heritage, just like it’s a part of mine. But you’re taking a risk every time you do it. What if your mum sees you? Or your dad? They’d freak out, Carol. They’d call every emergency service they could think of. You could get into a lot of trouble.”
“I won’t, I promise.”
“Can you at least try not to set fire to anything? That’s going to raise some suspicions sooner or later.”
“I won’t do it in the house any more.”
“OK. Thank you.”
“Do you want another chip?”
Valkyrie smiled, and took one.
“Are you working on a case at the moment?” asked Carol.
“Yeah,”