So! This is the LAST CHAPTER of section 1. Section 2 will be up shortly, but try to consider these last nine chapters as a very long prologue to the actual story. :) I hope you enjoy, and thanks to all of you how commented on the last chapter, I loved reading them all, and I hope this chapter gets an equally big response. So be sure to leave a review and I'll be sure to post another chapter as fast as I can. Till then, enjoy!


Stephanie had stood, looked to her sleeping daughter in the crib, and then walked over and kissed her gently on the cheek. She moved to Carol's room, and did the same, her body strangely automatic, as if her heart had gone stone cold. She recognised the feeling – it was grief. It was if she was kissing her babies goodbye forever, as if she were about to die. But, in their eyes, she was.

She slipped quietly into the master bedroom. John was asleep, his head buried into the pillow. She took her protective clothing quietly, emptied the drawer of socks and underwear, and slipped them into a bag before watching him for a moment, the way his chest rose and then dipped with a slight shudder, and then left the room. She got changed in the bathroom, placing her hat on her head with delicate care so that the shadows just covered her eyes, the way she had always liked it. The new clothes were still warm, as if permanently insulated, even though she hadn't worn them in two days. They held some familiarity, but now it was almost alien to be wearing them willingly.

The air downstairs seemed colder, less inviting. She tore a piece of paper off the notepad in the kitchen and scribbled a quick note. She tried not to pay attention to the way her arm shook as she wrote, the words scribbly and child-like. She took her key and unlocked the front door, putting the note on the floor so John would find it when he woke up. She took one last look at her house, the home she had built, and then closed the door before the tears could brim in her eyes. The key turned smoothly in the lock. She thought about slipped in the key back through the letter box, after all, she didn't plan on coming back. But something in her said no, she needed to keep it. She would need it later. She pushed the thought aside as she pushed the key into her pocket. She wasn't coming back.

She turned, and walked briskly down the path to the pavement, and then followed it. She slipped her phone out of her pocket and dialled, her fingers quivering either from the cold or from the shock of what she had just left behind.

The Bentley was pulled up outside the park when she arrived. Skulduggery was waiting anxiously, his body as stock still as it usually was. She walked up to him quietly, and said nothing. There was nothing she needed to say. Instead, she burst into tears, and then felt two bony arms wrap themselves around her into a hug. She didn't know how long she stood there and cried into his shoulder, but it was a while. When she eventually pulled away, he offered her a tissue, and she accepted.

"The sun will be rising in an hour or so," Skulduggery said quietly, and she nodded. If she was going through with this for real, she needed to have disappeared by sunrise. "Valkyrie, I'm not sure if I should say this, but if you are coming back, and I won't blame you if you change your mind, but you should probably have a contact."

"A contact?"

"Someone to keep you updated on what's happening. Birthdays, anniversaries. You children are going to grow up, maybe get married, someday. You'd want to know if that was happening, wouldn't you?"

"Yes."

"So, who do you trust that could keep you updated, without it looking conspicuous that they still had contact with you?" Valkyrie racked her brains, thankful of the fact that Skulduggery had suggested it. She had thought about everything she would miss. She hadn't thought of keeping contact with anyone. After about a minute, a single name popped up in her head. She looked to Skulduggery.

"Can you take me to my parent's house?"


Alice was having a wonderful dream about kittens. Kittens overrunning the school and becoming the masters of education, where all exams were on which foods were the nicest, and classes were spent watching propaganda on how cats were better than dogs, like the film Cats vs Dogs, except the ending had been changed so the cats won, and they were the good guys. It was a very strange dream.

She woke up to someone gently shaking her arm. She tried to pull the duvet closer to her, not wanting it to be morning just yet, the room seeming colder than normal. She couldn't be bothered with Fridays.

"Five more minutes," she muttered, wafting her mother away with her hand.

"Alice, wake up. It's Stephanie."

"Stephanie?" It was her sister, not her mother, that was waking her up. Why? Why was her sister there in the first place should have been the obvious question, but the first question that popped into mind was 'doesn't she know I like sleep?'

"Go away, I'm sleeping." She muttered. She must still have been dreaming. Then the shaking got rougher, and she had to wake up.

"What?" She asked, rolling over. She was about to complain when she saw the tear streaks on her sister's cheeks reflected by the moonlight coming through the window. Why was the window open? That must have been why it was colder in the room.

"Stephanie? What's wrong?" She sat up, rubbing her eyes with a yawn, but she was awake now. Surely it was nothing serious.

"I'm leaving." Stephanie replied shortly.

"Do you want me to fish-sit?" Alice asked, yawning some more.

"What? No, I don't want you to fish-sit. I don't even have any fish."

"Oh, yeah. I thought you were getting fish?"
"No."

"Oh. Well, what is it then?"

"I just told you. I'm leaving."

"Yeah, but where? When are you coming back?" That created a pause.
"I'm not coming back." She answered shortly, and Alice removed her hands from her face, and looked at her.

"What?"

"I can't tell you where I'm going. But I'm not coming back."
"Don't lie to me."

"I'm not lying. Listen, I need you to do me a favour?"

"What?"

"I need you to keep me updated."
"Updated?"

"Yes. If I leave a card or a letter or something with you, I need to know that I can trust you to get it to who it needs to be with, and vice versa."

"I don't understand."

"So, like, if it's Carol's birthday, you could take a picture of her for me, and I'd leave a card with you to give to her. Got it?"

"Well, yeah, but-"

"Please, Alice. I don't trust anyone else, but you cannot tell anyone that you're keeping contact with me."

"What about mum and dad?"

"Especially not mum and dad. Not John, not the kids, no one. Not even your closest friend. This has to stay a secret, Alice. Can I trust you?"

"But-"

"Can I trust you?" Stephanie asked defiantly, and Alice looked at her, saw the focus in her eyes burying the pain. Slowly, she nodded.

"Yeah, yeah you can trust me."

"Ok, good. So, can you do this for me?"
"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Ok. You know when Lucia's and Carol's birthdays are, right?"

"Yes."

"Good. Thank you, Alice." Her sister stood, and began to walk towards the window. Alice sat up in alarm.

"But, Stephanie, where are you going? Why are you leaving?"

"I'm leaving to keep you safe. But I can't tell you where I'm going."

"Why not?" Stephanie looked from the window to her sister, sadly.

"You won't be safe if you know." Then she turned and jumped out of the window. Alice had never thrown the covers off herself so quickly before in her life as she lunged to the windowsill to look over at what would undoubtable be the splattered body of her older sister. Her own breathing rang in her ears as she looked down, prepared for the horror. But there was nothing there. No sign of anyone, or anything. No splattered Stephanie on the ground, No Stephanie anywhere. It was like she had disappeared into thin air, into the shadows themselves. Alice stuck her head out of the window and looked from left to right. There was no sign of anyone. Her sister was gone. She brought herself back inside, and closed the window, pulling the curtains shut as they had been before. Then she decided it had all been just a dream. A stupid dream. A stupidly vivid dream. Definitely.

Alice climbed back into bed and tried to go back to the kitten overlord dream, but all she could see now were the tear-streaked cheeks of her sister, and the pain held in her eyes.


Valkyrie Cain was alive again. This time it was Stephanie Edgely who had died.

Valkyrie looked at the Sanctuary walls around her as Skulduggery led the way. The sun had risen. People were coming into work. The elders were meeting in the council room, ready to hear the urgent news Skulduggery had to tell – imagine what their faces would be when they saw her again, this time back for good. She had wiped the tears from her face, washed them away. She was presentable again, not that she cared.

Her footsteps echoed along with Skulduggery's as they walked down the corridor, and she thought of her ever changing personalities. Valkyrie Cain had been dead and buried, and now she was alive again, and it was Stephanie who as dead and lost. Stephanie, who had a family, a life. She was dead now, and in her place was a low hum in the back of Valkyrie's mind, a slow sigh.

'It would be amusing watching you struggle with this,' Darquesse muttered to her 'If I wasn't experiencing it as well.'