“We can change it.”
Her voice shook. “My parents, Skulduggery.”
He laid a hand on her shoulder and his voice was soft. “You’ll save them.”
“You saw what I did. I let them die.”
“No. She let them die. Not you.”
“She is me.”
“Not yet.”
“There’s no use. She saw what we saw, she knew it was coming and she still just stood there and let Darquesse kill them. That’s what’s going to happen.”
“No, Valkyrie. You’ll find a way to save them. I have faith.”
“My head hurts.”
Cassandra came back, handed her a glass of water that she only took a sip from, and a folded leaf, the kind Kenspeckle had, to numb the pain of the headache.
“I can only imagine how hard that was to watch,” Cassandra said. “But this is about more than you, and more than your parents. This is about everything.”
“The end of the world,” Finbar said, rejoining them. He looked tired. “That’s the bit I saw in my vision – the darkness spreading across the planet. I didn’t see the other stuff.” He looked at Valkyrie. “I didn’t see you and your folks. I’m sorry.”
“We’re not dead yet,” Skulduggery interjected. “Well, I am, but the rest of you have a bit to go.”
“You know as well as anyone,” Cassandra said, “that visions of the future are subject to change and to interpretation.”
Skulduggery turned to Cassandra. “Do you have any idea of a time frame? When is all this going to happen?”
“I don’t know. Valkyrie looked three or four years older than she is now, but we can’t be sure. The only thing we know for certain is that Darquesse is coming, and she’s coming to kill us all.”
Skulduggery put on his hat, dipping it over his eye sockets. “Not if we kill her first.”
She called the reflection’s phone and arranged to pick it up as it made its way home from school. It got in the back seat and didn’t ask any questions. They pulled in a few miles later and Skulduggery got out of the car while Valkyrie and her reflection switched clothes. Ten minutes later they arrived in Haggard. The reflection sneaked around back to hide in the bushes while Valkyrie walked in the front door. It was an unusual sensation she realised, not to be coming in through her bedroom window.
“Mum,” she called, dumping her schoolbag in the hall, “I’m home.”
For three long seconds there was nothing but a dreadful, heavy silence, and then her mother appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. Smiling. Safe. Alive.
“How was school?” she asked and Valkyrie bounded forward and hugged her. Her mum laughed. “That bad, huh?”
Valkyrie laughed in return and hoped it was convincing. She hugged tight and then forced herself to break it off, moving immediately to the fridge to hide the tears that threatened to spill on to her cheeks. “School was fine,” she said, as brashly as she could. “School is always fine. Nothing interesting ever happens there.”
She opened the fridge, took a breath, and when she was composed, she shut the fridge door and turned. “How was your day?”
“Full of adventure and drama,” her mum said. “I just got back myself. I’m expecting your father home any minute.”
“He’s finishing work early? He never finishes early.”
Her mum shrugged and they heard the front door open.
“Is she back yet?” Valkyrie’s dad asked from the hall, as he stumbled over something, probably her schoolbag. “Yes, she’s home,” she heard him mutter. He walked into the kitchen and Valkyrie hugged him.
“You told her?” he asked.
“Nope,” her mum said. “She’s just in a hugging mood.”
Valkyrie stepped back. “Told me what?”
Her father looked down at her. “You grow taller every day, you know that?”
She made herself keep the smile. Suddenly she didn’t want to get any taller. She didn’t want to grow any older. Being taller and older and stronger meant being closer to the time when Darquesse would come for them. She wanted to stay the same height and age forever.
“We have news,” her mother said, wrapping her arm around her husband’s waist.
Valkyrie frowned. “What?”
“We’ve decided to get a pet,” her dad announced.
Valkyrie laughed, and it was a real and genuine laugh. After everything that she’d had to deal with over the past few months, having something so gloriously normal and fun as a new pet took on unimaginable levels of comfort. Plus, she’d always wanted a pet.
“Can we have a dog?” she asked. “And not one of those annoying yappy dogs. Hannah Foley has a Chinese Crested dog that doesn’t have any hair, and it looks like the little guy who hangs out of Jabba the Hutt’s ceiling. I don’t want one of those. I wouldn’t be able to take it for walks without being embarrassed for it.”
Her dad frowned. “You’ve seen Star Wars? When did you see Star Wars? I’ve been trying to get you to watch it for years.”
Valkyrie hesitated. Tanith had made her sit down and watch the movies over the course of one weekend. It had been an educational experience.
“I like the lightsabres,” she said.
“We’re not getting a dog,” her mother told her, bringing the conversation back to where it started.
“We can’t get a cat,” Valkyrie argued. “They don’t do anything except plot against you and multiply like Gremlins.”
“We’re not getting a cat either.”
“Can we get a snake?”
“No.”
“Please? I can keep it in my room and I’ll feed it mice and things and I won’t kill it.”
“No snakes, no hamsters, no rats, no guinea pigs.”
Valkyrie smiled hopefully. “A horse?”
“How about something a little smaller?” her dad said. “Like, I don’t know, a brother or a sister?”
Valkyrie looked at them. “What?”
Her mother’s smile widened. “I’m pregnant, sweetheart.”
It took a moment, and when that moment was over, Valkyrie found herself leaping across the room and hugging her mother and screaming “Oh my God!” over and over. Then she thought that she might damage the baby, so she jumped back and leaped for her father and hugged him, and he laughed.
And later, in her room, tears came to her eyes when she thought