“You’re too young to be so cynical.”
“I’m not cynical. I just happen to remember the last four years. You give me one good reason why I should go. One good reason why I would be even remotely interested in attending.”
“Erskine Ravel will be there.”
“Well, OK then.”
Skulduggery laughed, and let go of his face. After a dangerous quiver, it settled down and stopped misbehaving, apart from the ear that was slowly drifting towards his chin.
“You’ve discovered your true name,” he said.
“Yes,” Valkyrie responded.
“And your true name is Darquesse.”
“That’s right.”
“And Darquesse is the sorcerer that all the psychics are having visions about – the one who’s going to destroy the world.”
“Correct.”
“So you’re going to destroy the world.”
“It looks like it.”
“And when did you discover all this?”
“About five months ago.”
“And you’re only telling me about it now?”
“Gordon, it’s taken me this long to stop freaking out about it. I need your help.”
Gordon began to pace the room. It was a big room, lined with bookcases and Gothic paintings. An oil portrait of a semi-clothed Gordon, his body rippling with muscles he had never possessed when he was alive, hung over the vast fireplace, glaring down at all who passed like a great and terrible god. Even though this house and the land around it had been left to Valkyrie, she still couldn’t bring herself to take the painting down. It was far too amusing.
“Do you realise what this means for you?” Gordon asked, as his slow pacing took him towards the corner of the room. “A sorcerer who knows their own true name has access to power other sorcerers can only dream about.”
His image began to fade away, and Valkyrie cleared her throat loudly. Gordon stopped and swung round, pacing back the way he had come. Immediately, he became solid again. The Echo Stone which housed his consciousness sat in its cradle on the coffee table, glowing with a soothing blue light.
“I don’t care about any of that,” she said. “I saw one of these visions, OK? I saw a burning city and injured friends and I saw Darquesse – I saw me – kill my own parents.”
“Now, just wait a second. From what you’ve told me about Cassandra Pharos’s vision, your future self and Darquesse seem to be two distinctly separate entities.”
“That’s just because at no time in that vision was I ever seen hurting anyone. We saw fragments of what’s going to happen. We saw Darquesse, me, as a figure in the distance, fighting and killing and murdering, and then we saw me, my future self, close up, feeling pretty bad about it all, which was nice of her, but she’s undoubtedly a little fruitloops. Listen, it’s taken a while for me to look at this and be logical about it, but obviously someone finds out what my true name is, and they use it to control me.”
“Then you’re going to have to seal your name,” Gordon said.
“Do you know how I can do that?”
“No,” he admitted. “I wrote about magic, but as you are aware, I never had the aptitude for it. Something like that, sealing your true name, is knowledge only a certain breed of sorcerer would have.”
“I can’t ask Skulduggery,” Valkyrie said quietly. “I don’t want him to know.”
Gordon stopped pacing, and looked at her kindly. “He would understand, Valkyrie. Skulduggery has been through an awful lot.”
“If he’s so understanding, how come you still won’t let me tell him you exist?”
“Well,” Gordon said huffily, “that’s different. That was never about him or anyone else. It was always about me, and my insecurities.”
“Which you are now cured of, right?”
He hesitated. “In theory …”
“So you’d be fine with me telling Skulduggery that I talk to you on a regular basis?”
Gordon licked his lips. “I don’t think that now is the perfect time for that. You have a lot on your plate, and I think I can be of more use to you without the distraction of other people.”
“You’re scared.”
“I’m not scared, I’m cautious. I don’t know how my friends would react. I am not actually Gordon Edgley after all – I am merely a recording of his personality.”
“But …?” Valkyrie raised her eyebrows.
“But,” he said quickly, “that doesn’t mean I’m not a person in my own right, with my own identity and value.”
“Very good,” she smiled. “You’ve been working on it.”
“I have a lot of time for self-affirmation while I’m sitting in that little blue crystal, waiting for you to drop by.”
“Is that your subtle way of telling me I should call round more?”
“I practically cease to exist when you’re not here,” Gordon said. “There’s nothing subtle about it.”
The alarm on Valkyrie’s phone beeped once. “Fletcher will be here soon,” she said, picking up the Echo Stone and its cradle. “We better get you back.”
Gordon followed as she led the way out of the living room and up the stairs. “The big meeting is this afternoon, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” she scowled. “Even after everything that’s been happening, with everything that’s hanging over me, I still have to waste my time at this stupid thing. Skulduggery says it’s important to see how this kind of politics works.”
“You’re lucky,” Gordon said wistfully. “I would have loved to have been invited to something like that when I was alive.”
“It’s going to be a bunch of people talking about what we’re going to do about setting up a new Sanctuary. What do I have to contribute to that?”
“I don’t know. A general air of grumpiness?”
“Now that I can do.”
They passed into the study, but instead of following her through the hidden doorway to the secret room where he kept the most valued pieces of his collection, Gordon went to a small bookshelf beside the window. “And how is Fletcher these days?”
“He’s grand.”
“Has he met your parents?”
Valkyrie