Valkyrie Cain despised April Fools.
She hadn't always, of course. When she was little she enjoyed terrorising everyone in the vicinity with tasteful pranks. But that was when she was the one messing about. Ever since she started hanging around a certain skeleton she became painfully aware of how tedious it could be to be the victim.
Because not only did Skulduggery like reminding her of the fact that he could easily trick anyone and everyone, her included. No, that wasn't the worst of it. It was the gloating.
"I win. Again."
Valkyrie's hands were at her sides clenched tightly into fists. She took a deep breath and didn't speak.
"It's nothing to be ashamed of, dear. You simply lack the skills to fool someone of my prowess and intellect. Keep trying and perhaps you'll get exceptionally lucky one day."
She glared at him. Insufferable man. "Yeah. Whatever. Mail's on the table."
She waved her hand in the general direction of the envelopes before stomping to the kitchen. Chuckling at his partner, Skulduggery went to his chair, sat down, then picked up the pile and started sorting through them. Valkyrie poured herself a glass of water and listened as Skulduggery listed them.
"Bill. Bill. For you. Sanctuary related. For you." He paused. "Mm, no sender."
"Oh wow. A mystery," she said sarcastically, draining the last of her glass. She rinsed it and put it away. "So what is it?"
There was no answer.
"Skulduggery?"
Valkyrie frowned and went to him. Skulduggery was in his chair, envelope in one hand and a piece of paper in the other.
She came closer, leaning over the armrest to get a better look.
The piece of paper was actually a picture. It showed a plain wooden table with a hat on it, nothing else. "OK, that's kind of weird."
Skulduggery mumbled.
"Sorry?"
"That's my hat."
"What?"
Skulduggery didn't respond, instead flipping the picture over. On the back, the words 'Save me' were scrawled in black sharpie.
Slowly, Skulduggery got up and left the room, shoulders tense. After a slight pause, Valkyrie followed him up the stairs. She found him standing in the doorway of his hat room, gloved fingers digging into the woodwork, seemingly on the verge of collapsing. Disconcerted by his behavior she looked inside and froze.
The hat room, normally filled to the brim, stood devoid of all its namesakes, shelves completely empty and not a hat in sight.
"My hats…" Skulduggery's voice was faint, horror evident.
"Wow," she breathed.
He looked at her.
"…Valkyrie."
She looked back.
"Yeah?"
"What did you do to my hats?"
"What? You think I had something to do with this? How could you even consider that." Skulduggery's posture was rapidly changing from despair to annoyance and her voice cracked, lips twitching up at the corners. "I mean, you're right, but still. I'm hurt."
"Valkyrie tell me what you did to them right now!"
"I didn't do anything," she said airily.
"Valkyrie!"
She rolled her eyes.
"Fiiine. No need to get your knickers in a twist. I really didn't do anything though. I just let Fletcher in while you were out getting groceries."
Skulduggery began muttering curses in Gaelic, too fast for her to follow but she guessed they involved Fletcher, and her, and bodily harm in various ways.
"Where are they?" he asked eventually, almost hissing.
Valkyrie smiled, unconcerned by his mood, and pointed to one of the shelves on the far side of the room. Skulduggery stalked towards it and quickly found another picture.
It was similarly shaped to the first, a square piece of thick paper like the ones that came out of a polaroid camera. It showed a waving Fletcher, dressed in a thick winter coat and woolen hat, ankle deep in powdery white snow. There was something next to him.
"It's a cute penguin right?"
"You stole my hats and left them on the South Pole?!"
Valkyrie laughed. "God no, I'm not that cruel."
Skulduggery relaxed a fraction, voice raising hopefully. "Oh. Thank god, I-"
"There's only, like, 5 of them there."
Her declaration was met with horrified silence. Valkyrie fancied that if she really listened she could actually hear Skulduggery's world imploding.
"I figured leaving them all in one place would be kind of boring," she continued, blatantly relishing the moment.
"…Where are they?" Skulduggery asked quietly, voice devoid of, well, everything.
"Not sure, really. I left the places up to Fletcher. He said something about lamas. Or alpacas, one of the two. Skulduggery? You ok?"
He didn't answer her, instead going to a corner of the room and sinking down in silence. His knees rose and Skulduggery wrapped his arms around them, pulling them to his ribcage.
"Skulduggery?" He didn't respond, apparently lost in a catatonic state.
Valkyrie waited another 5 seconds before taking her phone out. She flipped to the camera setting, lifted the device and snapped a shot of the two of them. She went to sit down beside Skulduggery and sent the photo to Tanith with the caption 'I won'.