He fell forward and the image swirled, and now they were in a city, smoke rising from the ruins. Valkyrie looked for something familiar, some way to identify what city this was – even a street sign – but the steam was lending everything a hazy quality. The city was an out-of-focus photograph, a blurred representation of reality.
Ghastly ran by, just like he had the first time, and then the street started moving around her like the whole thing, Ghastly included, was on a treadmill. It was hugely disorientating and Valkyrie had to hold Skulduggery’s arm to steady herself. Ghastly turned a corner and the corner whipped by so fast that Valkyrie jerked back. He eventually slowed his run and the street slowed its movement, and when he stopped the street stopped.
Ghastly glanced behind him, getting his breath back.
“That’s new,” Skulduggery murmured.
Ghastly had a scar bisecting the others along the left side of his head, just over his ear. It wasn’t fresh, but it wasn’t old, either.
“Well now,” said a voice in the steam, “don’t I feel stupid?”
Steam billowed and now Valkyrie could see Tanith Low leaning against a streetlight, both hands pressing into the lower half of her torso, which was a mess of blood and ruined flesh. Ghastly rushed over to her, his eyes wide.
Steam hissed as Ghastly and Tanith talked, but their words were snatched away until Ghastly grabbed her and Tanith cried out.
“Bloody hell, that hurts!”
“I don’t care,” said Ghastly, and he pulled her into him and they kissed, long and hard, so long and so hard that Valkyrie began to feel vaguely uncomfortable watching them. She was saved from having to look away by fresh clouds of steam, and a new image solidified in front of her.
The first time she had seen her future self she remembered thinking how much older she looked in the steam. Her future self had been taller, with strong arms and strong legs. But now they were identical, apart from the tattoo on her future self’s left arm and the metal gauntlet on her right. For the first time, Valkyrie noticed a strap that crossed her future self’s chest. She had something slung across her back.
“I’ve seen this,” the Valkyrie in the steam said, the wind playing with her hair. “I was watching from …” She looked around, narrowed her eyes. “… there. Hi.”
Valkyrie frowned. This was different from last time. She hadn’t said “Hi” last time.
The other Valkyrie smiled sadly. “This is where it happens, but then you know that, right? At least you think you do. You think this is where I let them die.”
“Stephanie!”
Two shapes in the distance, running. Sprinting. The other Valkyrie shook her head. “I don’t want to see this. Please. I don’t want this to happen. Let me stop it. Please let me stop it.” She held something in her hand, something the steam was obscuring as she looked at it. “Please work,” she said, tears running down her face. “Please let me save them.”
And then her image was swept away as Valkyrie’s parents neared. Her mother turned on the spot, looking up at the sky. She was holding something.
“Oh, no,” Valkyrie said weakly, watching as her baby sister clung to her mother.
“Stephanie!” her father shouted. “We’re here! Steph!”
A figure in black dropped to the ground behind them, cracking the pavement with the force of her landing.
Darquesse. She smiled with Valkyrie’s smile. From neck to toe she was dressed in a black so tight it was like a second skin. Desmond Edgley stepped between his wife and the monster.
“Give our daughter back to us,” he said.
Darquesse continued to smile.
“Give her back!” her dad roared.
It was nothing but a moving image, it wasn’t real, it hadn’t happened yet, but when Darquesse burned her family with black flame Valkyrie cried out nonetheless.
Skulduggery wrapped an arm round her shoulders and she sagged against him, tears in her eyes.
The swirling steam brought a new figure, Skulduggery, dressed in a black suit, his skull bare and his gun in his hand. He slowed and stopped, reached down to pick something up off the ground. His hat. He put it on, spent a moment angling the brim. Behind him, Darquesse approached. Skulduggery turned slowly, not bothering to look up. He reloaded his gun.
The smile on the face of Darquesse widened. “My favourite little toy. You know you’re going to die now, don’t you?”
Skulduggery raised his head slightly, one eye socket visible under his hat. “I made a promise.”
Darquesse nodded. “Until the end.”
“That’s right,” said Skulduggery, clicking the revolver shut and thumbing back the hammer. “Until the end.”
He raised the gun and fired and walked forward and fired and fired again. And then he fumbled slightly and the gun fell, and a moment later his glove followed it. His fingers spilled out across the ground.
He grunted, unimpressed, as his other hand dropped from his wrist, and now the radius and ulna bones were sliding from his sleeves and his ankles came apart and he stumbled, fell to his knees.
His hips detached and his upper body fell backwards with the sound of clacking bones. He was a ribcage and a spine and a head, trying in vain to sit up. The ribcage collapsed next.
Darquesse stepped over him, reached down, plucked his skull from his spine. She kissed his closed mouth, her lips on his teeth, then she let the skull fall and the jawbone broke and spun away.
Then Darquesse turned, looked straight into Valkyrie’s eyes, and smiled.
The smile dispersed with the steam, and then there was no more Darquesse and no more ruined city, and they were back in the Steam Chamber and Cassandra was opening her eyes.
“Distressing,” she said, her voice hollow.
Valkyrie didn’t say anything. She went straight to the stairs and got out of there.
The tea was hot and a bit too sweet, but Valkyrie drank it anyway. Her hands had stopped shaking, thank God. Cassandra’s hadn’t. Having visions of that nature could not be good for your nerves.
“So you’ll show me a vision of my family dying,” Valkyrie said, forcing some strength into her voice, “but you won’t tell me the name of my next boyfriend? How is that fair?”
Cassandra gave a shaky smile. “Because your next boyfriend might not be something you’d want to miss out on, whereas that particular future most certainly is.”
“The order was different,” Skulduggery said from where he stood by the window. “In the first vision, we saw Ghastly, then me, then Valkyrie, and then Valkyrie’s parents. In this one, it was altered. Is that significant?”
“I don’t know,” said Cassandra. “Maybe. Maybe not. Your knowledge of the future changes it. Sometimes in tiny, insignificant ways. Sometimes in huge, world-changing ways.”
“I spoke more this time,” Valkyrie said. “Did you see that? I was actually talking to me, the me watching. And my parents … they had my little sister with them. They didn’t have her in the first vision.”
Cassandra nodded. “The future is in a constant state of flux.”
“And Ghastly and Tanith,” said Valkyrie, “and Ravel … Was he dying? It looked like he was dying.” She looked up. “How do we stop