“It’s not safe for him out there. He’s untrained, doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s basically an idiot. I need to know he’s somewhere safe. I need him kept out of harm’s way. You’re the only one I can trust to do that.”
“And this has to do with the Teleporter murders that everyone is talking about?”
“Yes.”
Kenspeckle turned back to Valkyrie. “Come with me to the Infirmary.”
He walked out without glancing at Skulduggery and she followed. When they got to the Infirmary, he told Valkyrie to hop up on the bed, then dabbed at her hands and cheek with a sweet-smelling cloth.
“It seems like every second day you come here,” he said, “mortally wounded, bones broken, bleeding to death, hanging on by a thread, and you expect me to perform some amazingly astounding miracle cure.”
“These are mortal wounds?” she asked sceptically.
“Don’t be cheeky.”
“Sorry.”
He shrugged, then shuffled off to the small table beside the bed. The medical department in Kenspeckle’s science-magic facility was small, but perfectly formed, and usually quiet – except for the times when one of Kenspeckle’s experiments went impressively wrong, or when old gods awoke in the Morgue. But nothing like that had happened in months.
“Do you know the problem with people your age, Valkyrie?”
“We’re too pretty?” she answered hopefully.
“You think you’ll live forever. You rush into situations without considering the consequences. You’re thirteen …”
“Just gone fourteen.”
“… and how do you spend your days?”
He came back to the bedside and started dabbing ointment on the cuts on her hands.
“Well, usually we’re on a case, so we’re tracking down suspects, or we’re doing research, or I’m training, or Skulduggery’s teaching me magic, or, you know …”
“And how, pray tell, do other just gone fourteen-year-old girls spend their days?”
Valkyrie hesitated. “Pretty much the same as me?”
“Amazingly, no.”
“Ah.”
“Once you become an adult, you can endanger yourself as much as you want and I promise I will not admonish you, but I’d hate to see you miss out on all the things normal teenagers do. You’re only young once, Valkyrie.”
“Yeah, but it goes on for ages.”
Kenspeckle shook his head and sighed again. He took a black needle and started to stitch the cut on her face. The needle went through her flesh without drawing blood, and instead of pain, she felt warmth.
“Has there been any progress?” she asked. “With Ghastly?”
“I’m afraid not,” he sighed. “I have come to the conclusion that there is nothing I can do. He will emerge from his current state when he emerges, and there is nothing anyone can do to speed up the process.”
“I miss him,” said Valkyrie. “Skulduggery misses him too, although he’d never say it. I think Ghastly was his only friend.”
“But now he has you, yes?”
She laughed. “I suppose so, yes.”
“And apart from him, do you have friends of your own?”
“What? Of course I do.”
“Name three.”
“No problem. There’s Tanith Low …”
“Who joins you on investigations, trains you in combat and is over eighty years old.”
“Well, yeah, but she looks, like, twenty-two. And she acts like a four-year-old.”
“That’s one friend. Name two more.”
Valkyrie opened her mouth, but no names came out. Kenspeckle finished the stitching.
“I can afford to have no friends,” he told her. “I am old, and cranky, and I have long ago decided that people are an annoyance I can do without. But you? You need friends and you need normality.”
“I like my life the way it is.”
Kenspeckle shrugged. “I don’t expect you to take my advice. Another problem with young people like you, Valkyrie, is that you think you know everything. Whereas I am the only one who can make a claim like that without fear of ridicule.” He stood back. “There. That should keep your face from falling off. The splinters should be out now too.”
She looked at her hands, just in time to see the last splinter rise from her skin into the clear ointment. She didn’t even feel it happen.
“Wash your hands in the basin, there’s a good girl.”
She got up, went to the basin and put her hands under the tap. “Will you help us out?” she asked. “Can Fletcher stay here?”
Kenspeckle sighed. “There is nowhere else to keep him?”
“No.”
“And he truly is in danger?”
“Yes.”
“Very well. But only because you asked so nicely.”
She smiled. “Thanks, Kenspeckle. Really.”
“You’ll probably be back to see me again before the day is out,” he said as he walked to the door. “You’ll no doubt want me to sew your head back on or something.”
“And you’ll be able to do it, right?”
“Naturally. I’m just going to fetch you a bandage, then you can go.”
He left and Clarabelle breezed in.
“Hello,” she said brightly. “You got into another fight. Did it hurt much?”
Valkyrie smiled faintly. “Not really.”
“The Professor is always going on about how you’d be dead if it wasn’t for him. Do you think that’s true? I think it’s probably true. The Professor’s always right about things like that. He said one of these days he’s not going to be able to save you. He’s probably right about that too. Do you think you’ll die one of these days?”
Valkyrie frowned. “I hope not.”
Clarabelle laughed like she’d just heard the funniest thing ever. “Of course you hope you won’t die, Valkyrie! Who would hope to die? That’s just silly! But you probably will die, that’s what I’m saying. Don’t you think so?”
Valkyrie dried her hands. “I’m not going to die any time soon, Clarabelle.”
“I like your coat by the way.”
“Thanks.”
“It’s a little small for you though.”
“Yeah.”
“Can I have it when you’re dead?”
Valkyrie paused, trying to think of an appropriate response, but Clarabelle had already flitted out of the room. A few moments later, Kenspeckle returned.
“Clarabelle’s odd,” Valkyrie said.
“She is at that,” Kenspeckle agreed. He fixed a small bandage over the stitches. “Give it an hour or so. The stitches will dissolve. It’s not going to scar.”
They walked out of the Infirmary.
“I heard