When Valkyrie got into the Bentley the next morning, Fletcher was already sitting in the back seat. She could tell both he and Skulduggery saw her new hair, which she wore down, but she was glad neither of them said anything. Once she was in the car, she handed Skulduggery the envelope.
"When did you get this?" he asked, turning off the engine.
"Last night," she replied. "Someone knocked on the door. I couldn't see anyone, but I saw a car and heard it drive off after I had opened the door."
Fletcher leaned forward between the two front seats as Skulduggery opened the letter.
"Do you think they followed Hansard to Gordon's?" she asked.
"Seems the most likely explanation," Skulduggery said, still examining the letter.
"Why would they go through the trouble of letting Hansard know they had his father if they don't want anyone looking for him?" Fletcher asked.
Skulduggery looked up. "That's the million dollar question isn't it?"
Valkyrie thought for a moment. "Okay so this guy says he's a follower of Mevolent right? Is it possible that he's been a Mevolent follower since the war? Maybe Scapegrace wasn't the original Killer Supreme, even if he doesn't realize it."
"It's possible," Skulduggery said. "There should be a registry of Mevolent followers somewhere in the Sanctuary, if such a thing has survived all the Sanctuary explosions and moves over the last decade." He turned the key and the engine turned on.
"So we're going to go look through a bunch of old papers and hope we find something?" Fletcher asked.
"Essentially," Skulduggery replied.
Valkyrie sighed, leaning back against her seat. "I shouldn't have said anything."
They ended up in a dusty room in the Sanctuary.
Valkyrie coughed. "I love doing research," she said, sarcastically.
"That's the spirit," Skulduggery said, wading through stacks of files on the other side of the room.
"Do you have any idea what this registry should look like?" Fletcher asked, nearly tripping over a stack.
"None at all," Skulduggery replied, cheerfully.
"Awesome," sighed Valkyrie, surveying the room.
"Well, nothing's going to get done just standing around, start looking," said Skulduggery. "Valkyrie start in that corner, Fletcher start in that corner, and I'll start here." He pointed at each corner of the room as he spoke.
"What about that corner?" Valkyrie asked pointing to the unoccupied corner by the door.
"Let's hope we find it before then," Skulduggery said. "Theoretically it should be fairly large, but it's possible part of it has been lost along the way."
They all began going through stacks, taking one file folder off at a time, opening it up, briefly scanning the first page, before moving onto the next folder. They worked in silence like this for two hours, at which point Valkyrie began to feel she might lose her mind.
"I think I found something," Fletcher said, and Valkyrie and Skulduggery both looked up from their own piles hopefully. "Oh, never mind."
"Ugh, there has to be a better way to do this," Valkyrie complained, setting down the file she was holding and moving on to the next one.
"I suppose I could ask China if she knows where it might be," Skulduggery said. Valkyrie and Fletcher both stared at him without speaking. "Ah, I suppose I should have started there," he realized.
"You think?" Valkyrie asked.
"Well, no reason for us all to stop working," Skulduggery said. "You two stay here." Valkyrie thought about arguing, but realized she couldn't go in his place because she had no idea where China would be.
As soon as she was sure Skulduggery was gone, she turned to Fletcher. "If Skulduggery asks, I was working very hard the entire time he was gone."
Fletcher dropped the file he was holding. "So was I."
She grinned, jumping up to sit on top of a file cabinet. She looked around and neither of them said anything for a moment. "It's weird," she said, finally. "So much has changed since I left, but so much is still exactly how I remember it."
"Yeah?" Fletcher said.
"Even this room," she said. "In the original Dublin Sanctuary, the Repository was right next to where this room is now." She thought for a moment. "God, that was right after we met you when we broke into it."
"Wow," Fletcher said. "It's been what, ten years?"
"Yeah, it has been." Valkyrie laughed. "You were so annoying back then with your know-it-all attitude."
"I was annoying? If I had a know-it-all attitude, you definitely had one," he countered.
"Sometimes I miss those days," she admitted. "That's kind of messed up isn't it? I mean the world was about to end, but everything was straightforward. People who worshipped the Faceless Ones were bad and everyone who wanted to stop them were good."
Fletcher shrugged. "That's understandable. Everything was definitely simpler back then."
She looked down at the floor and hesitated before saying, "Fletcher, do you think I'm a good person?"
"Of course," he replied without hesitation. "Why wouldn't you be? Darquesse wasn't you. I know that wasn't you. You're the one who saves the world, remember?"
"I don't think it's that simple." She ran her fingers through her hair, reaching the end much sooner than expected, and remembering she had cut it.
"Even if it's not, I don't think you'll ever be able to move on unless you accept there's nothing else you could have done to stop it," he said.
"I could have walked away when I found out my true name—I should have walked away."
"The world still needed you to save it."
"The world would have been fine," she said with a laugh. "It's survived the last five years, it could have survived that much longer without my intervention. Besides, my staying wasn't about the world, it was about me wanting to stay."
"Nothing major has happened in the last five years, not like the remnants escaping or Melancholia, and that's why the world has been okay," Fletcher replied.
"Someone else could have stopped those things."
Fletcher shook his head. "You know that's not true. You're Valkyrie Cain, prodigal sorcerer since age twelve and extreme bad ass. How many other 20 something year-olds can say they've saved the world more times than they can count on one hand."
"Fletcher, that's not the point," Valkyrie said, shaking her head.
"Then what is?" he asked.
She opened her mouth to reply, but nothing came out.
"Exactly," Fletcher said. "You're being too hard on yourself. You did what you had to and things turned out badly. That doesn't make it your fault."
"Even before Darquesse though I don't know if I actually was a good person," Valkyrie said. "I mean, just because you fight on the right side, does that make you good? I wasn't doing it because it was good, I was doing it because it was fun."
"I don't think you really believe that."
"You know what I was like, Fletcher," she said. "I bloody cheated on you because I thought it was fun! I treated everything like a game."
"Valkyrie, from the way I understand you didn't choose to enter this world, this world all but physically dragged you into it," Fletcher said. "Yes, cheating on me wasn't a great thing to do, in fact I'd argue it was a pretty awful thing to do, but why did follow Skulduggery in the first place?"
"I wanted adventure."
"And?" he prompted.
"And following him was the way to get it," Valkyrie finished.
Fletcher sighed. "What was your first case?"
"Serpine stealing the Scepter, but I don't know what that has to do with any—"
"How did you meet Skulduggery?" he interrupted.
"Through Gordon—I saw him at his funeral, then after some guy broke into Gordon's house looking for a key."
"So you're telling me, not even one little part of you followed Skulduggery to find out what happened to your uncle? Because I've heard Ghastly say you told him as much."
"Maybe a little, but—" she stopped. "When did you talk to Ghastly about me?"
Fletcher instantly went tomato red. "We talked a few times, right after we broke up. That's not important though, the point is, this didn't all start because you wanted to have fun, it started because you wanted to do something for Gordon."
"If that's true, I wouldn't have stuck around after Serpine was dead—he was the one who killed Gordon."
"So after you nearly got killed avenging your uncle you stayed for shits and giggles?"
"Honestly? Yes," she admitted. She shook her head. "I can't believe I'm arguing with you about this."
"Just like old times, right?" he semi-joked.
"That's the other thing, I was even worse while we were dating," she said. "I mean you were the best boyfriend a girl could ask for. You teleported me to different continents whenever I asked you to, but I still would yell at you."
"To be fair, I did tend to take things a little far," Fletcher admitted. "Even if I didn't like you risking your life, it was your life and I shouldn't have been telling you what to do with it. I was trying to be the protective boyfriend, but I kept forgetting that you could easily beat me up."
"We were a mess," she agreed just as the door flung open, and Dexter Vex walked in, causing all three of them to freeze.
"Oops," Vex said. "Didn't realize this room was occupado."
"We're working very hard in here," Valkyrie said, making a show of jumping off the filing cabinet and opening the next folder on her stack of files. She looked down at the page. "Wait, this is it."
"Damn," Fletcher said. "Good thing we were working that entire time or we might not have found it."
Vex narrowed his eyes. "Well, I'm just going to get my file and go." He walked over to the cabinet Valkyrie had just been sitting on, found the folder he was looking for, and was just about to leave when Skulduggery and China walked back in.
"We found it," Valkyrie said, lifting the folder up for them to see.
"Glad to see this has been a complete waste of my time," China said.
"That is generally how it works isn't it?" Skulduggery replied. "You find the thing you're looking for as soon as you ask for help." He tilted his head. "Hello, Vex."
"Hi," Vex replied. "Can I go now?"
"Of course," said Skulduggery, stepping aside from the doorway, allowing Vex to leave.
"So he's an elder now?" Valkyrie asked after he had left.
"Yes," said China. She looked around the room at the three of them. "This case you're working: anything major?"
"I don't think so," Skulduggery replied. "Seems like a straightforward kidnapping."
"Good," China said before walking away without any further comment.
"She seems cheerful," said Valkyrie.
"Definitely," said Fletcher.
Valkyrie coughed as dust was stirred up again. "Can we go now?" she asked.
"Do we have the registry?" asked Skulduggery.
"Yes," Valkyrie answered.
"Then yes."