"CLARY?" yelled Magnus up the stairs of Skulduggery's humble abode.

"YES?" Clary called back.

Some considerable amount of time later…

"Welcome to the Sanctuary!" Skulduggery announced, flinging his arms wide in front of…

… a blank wall.

"Uh…" said Simon.

Skulduggery turned round and frowned. "It hasn't opened. Well, that rather spoils the dramatic arm-fling."

Valkyrie laughed, bending down to search for the bit of wall that would activate the entrance to the Sanctuary. She found it, and a second later the wall was opening to reveal a tunnel lit with torches that lead down into the bowels of the earth.

She glanced casually at the others to see their reaction. Magnus looked impressed, but nobody else did. In fact, Simon was looking very nervously to the door of the room as if he expected a crowd of demons to appear from it. She almost laughed at his expression but then stopped suddenly. Thoughts were beginning to slink, unbidden, into her mind. Something in his eyes, in the curve of his cheekbones, reminded her of Fletcher. The way he reached up to flick his hair from his eyes…

Stop it, she told herself firmly. Stop thinking about Fletcher, because then you'll start thinking about Caelan, and the breakup, and the sadness…

She snapped out of her thoughts, but her gaze lingered on Simon.

"Now you're just showing off," said Skulduggery. Valkyrie was thrown for a moment. Showing off? What did he mean? Then she remembered the door.

She grinned at him. "And of course you wouldn't do anything like that."

He cocked his head on one side innocently.

"Come on," she said, "Let's go."

"But we haven't impressed them yet," Skulduggery whined. "Look at them. They're all unimpressed."

Valkyrie sighed. "For goodness' sake," she exclaimed.

Skulduggery leaned in and lowered his voice. "But we've got to impress them. It's an unwritten rule of the Sanctuary. You must impress any outsiders upon entering."

She glared at him. "You made that up."

"For once, my dear Valkyrie, I didn't," Skulduggery replied. "One hundred per cent true."

Valkyrie frowned. "Really?"

"No, of course not, that would be preposterous. Honestly, what have I been teaching you all these years?"

About five minutes later they were walking briskly through one of the Sanctuary's many corridors. Valkyrie was easily keeping up but she could just see behind her that Simon was having a problem matching Skulduggery's effortless speed. She dropped back as casually as possible and went over to Simon.

"Hi," she said. "I'm Valkyrie. Clary was telling me about you, but I don't think I've had a chance to speak to you yet." As the words came out of her mouth she wanted to call them back in again. What was she saying? "Um, I know Skulduggery can be really hard to keep up with," she said. What?! What on earth? Why couldn't she just make normal conversation?

Simon looked unsure, as if he didn't know how to reply. No wonder. Say something, Valkyrie, she screamed to herself in her head. "Um..."she said.

"Yeah, he talks really fast, I suppose," said Simon. "But I'll get used to it."

He had a warm voice, rich with an American accent but slightly shy. He's not the only one, Valkyrie thought. She couldn't understand it. She'd never been shy in front of new people before... A hint of a smile crept on to her face as she remembered one of her first conversations with Skulduggery- where she had taken his hat hostage and threatened to stamp on it if he didn't let her come with him... "Yeah," she said, "Skulduggery's annoying. It's his natural charm. But he's OK when you get to know him." She tried a laugh to ease the tension. To her relief, Simon laughed too. "So..." she began. "Do you like Ireland?"

"Well, I haven't really had much chance to see much of it," Simon replied. "It's all been fighting demons and meeting mages so far." Valkyrie laughed. "Very nice mages, it has to be said," Simon continued. "Very... nice..." he trailed off, looking at Valkyrie. "I... um... do you want to go to a coffee shop maybe? You know, when we've finished looking around the Sanctuary... I mean, us, we could all go together, you know, chat..."

Valkyrie smiled. "I'd love to. Sometimes all I need is just to go to a coffee shop and chat." Simon smiled back at her. "I don't really get the chance to relax often."

She suddenly had the feeling that there might have been something else behind Simon's words. Maybe he hadn't intended to go with the others... maybe he had wanted it just to be him and her...

Valkyrie shook these thoughts off determinedly. She was entertaining herself with fantasies.

"What's that?" said Clary suddenly.

"What?" said Skulduggery. He looked over to where Clary was pointing. Valkyrie looked too and saw an interesting marble sculpture sitting in a niche in the stone wall. Strange: she couldn't recall ever seeing it before. It was a model of a huge marble hand, polished pink and about the size of her forearm. There were tiny sculptures of people huddled together on the palm. It seemed out of place somehow; the only other statue she had seen in the Sanctuary was a huge granite one. This small marble sculpture seemed like it was in the wrong place. "Oh, that," said Skulduggery. "That is what we refer to in Ireland as a sculpture."

"That means he doesn't know what it is," Valkyrie cut in. "I don't know either; maybe we could ask someone. It's really... interesting, though."

"You like it?" Valkyrie heard a honeyed voice behind her. She turned round to see a woman dressed in a shimmering violet skirt and an obsidian-black jacket. Her eyes were like crystals of aquamarine.

"China Sorrows," said Valkyrie.

"Indeed. You wanted to know about the sculpture? It was carved by one of our Sensitives. They said they felt moved to create the artwork, and it is thought to have relevance to our noble work, so it is displayed here in the Sanctuary."

"That's... nice," said Valkyrie.

"Valkyrie Cain, you forget your manners." China said, and pointed an elegant hand towards the others. "You have not introduced me to your charming friends."

Valkyrie looked round only to see Simon, Magnus, Jace, Alec and Clary staring, captivated, at China. She looked helplessly at Skulduggery, who shrugged.