Chapter 202

"I can't believe you," she growled at him, getting out of the taxi aggressively. Skulduggery was forced to stay in there long enough to pay the man, giving Valkyrie ample time to go Solomon's house, slam the door shut and bolt it.

She heard as the taxi door was closed after Skulduggery but couldn't hear his steps after that. He'd been using his facade and she didn't know where his missing tooth was. Probably in his pocket.

She sighed to herself and went up the stairs. A door wouldn't stop him, but it would take a little while for him to pick the lock. He'd have to do the backdoor unless he wanted one of the neighbours to call the Gardaí on him.

She shed her clothes on the landing and threw them into the guest bed she and Nadia had occupied last time they were together. She felt like an idiot. She should have taken Nadia's hand and taken her with her.

Heaving a big sigh, she shook her head and went to the shower. Someone had cleaned in there since she was last in Ireland. She remembered leaving nail polish remover on the windowsill, and she'd had bottles on the floor, because Nadia took all the space on the shelves. A quick check under the counter found the healing stones. She turned on the bath and filled it halfway, threw in a full stone because she was too lazy, exhausted and emotionally drained to break it, and sat herself in. The little radio was still suckered onto the glass of the shower, so she grabbed it and set it to some station playing Queen, cranked it up way high so she wouldn't have to hear if Skulduggery got in, and closed her eyes.

She didn't even need a bath but she felt so grimy and dirty still.

Some time went by before she could motivate herself to get her somewhat less sore body out of the bath and into the shower to wash. She methodically used the guest shampoo and body wash, scrubbing all over her body as roughly as she could, before turning off the water and towel drying. If Nadia were with her, she'd dry them both off and hold her tightly. Instead, she settled for quickly towel drying it so it was sticking up in all directions, still way too short on her head but beginning to grow out now, and wrapped the towel around her body. After opening the window and turning on the fan, she snapped off the radio.

She didn't hear anything. Trying to act as if she didn't care, she left the bathroom and went straight for the guest. She and Nadia still had a few items of clothing in the top draw of the dresser, which was strange because it seemed as if Nadia had otherwise moved out of Solomon's, but she didn't question her luck as she finally pulled on some pyjama trousers and a crop top. It left her armpits and the strip of hair up to her bellybutton exposed, but she was so tired she didn't care. Her family had always rolled their eyes over her self-consciousness towards hair anyway.

She wanted to continue being full of rage, but she was just tired.

The only issue was, she promised herself a hot chocolate before bed when she got back. And some food she enjoyed. She had hoped to order dinner and a smoothie but didn't have her phone as she'd left that in her bag which was now at the Sanctuary. So she had to either go downstairs or not get her wish.

She really, really wanted to not see Skulduggery, but in the end, the need for food was too great and she quietly padded down the stairs.

He wasn't in the living room or office, and for a moment, she honestly thought he wasn't there. But when she went into the kitchen and saw him making her a drink, she wasn't surprised.

She looked at him for a moment, noticing the tooth gap, before making the decision that his drink wasn't good enough for her, despite knowing he almost certainly made it exactly how she liked it in a way she didn't know how to replicate. He must have gone to the corner shop and bought new milk and whipped cream as well, and a Flake.

She sniffed as he set it on the table and let him sit himself down before putting her nose in the air and got about making a new hot chocolate. Technically a cocoa as she refused to use his milk and used boiled water with her powder instead. No cream for her either… or chocolate Flake.

Her phone was on the counter.

He must have gotten it from her bag before he followed her out of the Sanctuary. Is it too petty to not use it just because he brought it to me? She could replace it. Pick that one up like it had something nasty on it, put it in the bin and wash her hands. That isn't too petty, is it? Surely not.

The kettle finishing brought her out of her distracted thoughts and she poured the drink before stirring and deciding that while it wasn't at all too petty to never touch the phone, it was just as good to not thank him or acknowledge that he brought it, and it let her get food without involving him or getting dressed. Standing with her back to him, she purposefully ignored all the messages on her phone and ordered a takeaway for herself instead.

When she was done, Skulduggery graced her with his thoughts. "Valkyrie," he said incredibly softly, his velvety voice low, "sit with me. We don't have to talk."

She ignored him and went to the living room instead.

After settling on her favourite chair and wrapping a blanket around herself, she placed her phone on the floor to ignore and raised her mug to smell the drink without having to put the burning liquid in her mouth. Skulduggery followed again.

Right before he spoke, she interrupted him. "This is nice. You following me around like a dog. Are you enjoying it?"

"I can't say I am," he said just as softly as before as he took a seat on a sofa to her right. "But it is nice to see you after these last few months."

"I'm not that happy about it."

"I can tell."

"I'd rather you just left actually."

"I see that."

"Why are you still here then?"

"Because I love you."

"Do you? Do you though?" She said in a mocking voice. "Seems to me you just pick me up and drop me when you feel like it."

"I know, I've done a lot of wrong," he acknowledged. "I'm not ever going to say I haven't. But I can't try to salvage our relationship if I don't try. And I really do want to try."

Valkyrie grunted noncommittedly.

"It's okay if you can't forgive me," he said slowly. "I would understand if you hated me even. But for the sake of working together for the war coming to us, we may need to find a way to at least talk civilly."

"Who says I want to work with you at all, hum?" She asked, lowering the mug and resting her head back on the sofa with her eyes closed. "I have a lot of options. You could take Tanith. I could stay with Nadia and the baby. It means nothing to me if I don't work with the Dead Men."

"Please don't blame your brothers," he asked softly.

"I'm not blaming them," she said mildly. "I'm not upset with them either. They can do what they like. But if you're already set on going when the time comes, you may as well. I can do something else without the Dead Men and it makes no difference to me."

He was quiet for some time. "You don't mean that."

She swallowed and felt burning in her chest. "I suppose not. But that doesn't mean I'm not willing to do it. Whether I'm with you or anyone else, it won't stop someone from dying, so it hardly matters. I may as well go where I'm wanted rather than with someone who might drop me at a moment's notice who-knows-where. It's probably safer, actually."

"Your brothers would be disappointed you think that."

"I hope you're not trying to guilt me right now."

"I'm sorry," he said after a moment. "That was… not particularly well thought on my part. I just mean to say, you're our family and you have been since you were just a few days old and we met you. Honestly, before that even. As soon as Gordon told us about your mother being pregnant with you, we were looking forwards to seeing you. We all fell in love with you the day we met you. I might have messed up along the way, but I truly didn't mean to Valkyrie. I don't want to act like I'm making excuses, but I was not mentally capable of making good decisions, and I made choices regardless of that fact. And you suffered for it."

"Yeah, I bloody know," she tried to say, but it came out as a whisper.

She looked over at him, tears pricking at her eyes. All that anger and upset, it was still there, but she had waited for him to come back and say that.

"I want to believe you," she said slowly, swallowing back the feeling in her eyes. She wasn't going to cry again. She meant that. "But I'm not sure I trust you anymore, Skul. You've really hurt me. You hurt my family. All of us. You weren't here for so much. But I'm glad you were at therapy so now I'm just confused."

"Would you like a hug?" He asked, opening his arms.

She considered not accepting for a moment, but suddenly felt desperate for it. She just felt empty and so, so tired and she so wanted him to hold her.

Nodding pathetically, she put the horrible cocoa on the coffee table and fell into his arms.

After adjusting for a moment, he had both his arms around her and she had her head on his shoulder. The panicking she had felt inside stopped and she took some deep breaths.

"There we go," he whispered. "I've got you, Valkyrie. I'll do anything to help you see I mean it. I promise you. I love you so much."

"Thank you," she replied, putting a hand on his chest. "I missed you."

"I missed you too, honey."

"I have something to tell you," she whispered.

"What is it?"

"Me and Nadia are engaged."

He squeezed her tighter. "Nadia told me. Congratulations. I'm so proud of you."

She smiled.

.*****.

"Hey," Nadia said cautiously, poking her head around the door into the living room. She saw Skulduggery and Valkyrie curled up together on the love seat, blanket wrapped around them. "Oh. Have you talked?"

"Yeah," Valkyrie smiled tiredly. She opened her arms and Nadia came over, the rest of the family including Solomon but no Corrival following in behind her. She leaned over to give Valkyrie a hug but Valkyrie pulled down despite her shout, forcing her to sit on Valkyrie's lap.

"This doesn't work," Nadia complained.

"Shush," Valkyrie commanded, wrapping the blanket over Nadia and holding her tightly. "Ignore him."

"Kind of hard, I'm practically on top of him."

"Eh," she shrugged and leaned her head back on Skulduggery's shoulder.

After a moment, Nadia sagged and apologised to Skulduggery. "It's quite fine, Nadia. I'm not sure Valkyrie is awake enough to think things through right now."

"Shut up, bone face."

"So tired," he said in fake misery.

Valkyrie smiled slightly. "You're a dick."

"I'm a skeleton," he said matter of factly.

"It's good to see you Val," Tanith said quickly, coming over and kissing Valkyrie's cheek before putting Laila on top of Nadia. From her new vantage point on Nadia's lap, Laila looked at Nadia and Skulduggery before turning almost fully to see Valkyrie's face, giving her a critical stare. After a moment, she turned back to her mother as if to ask 'what am I meant to do now?'

"Hey, baby, do you still remember Aunty Val?" Valkyrie asked Laila. Laila didn't even look at her.

"I'm sure she remembers you," Ghastly reassured her. "She's really starting to get curious about her surroundings."

"I can see, she's so big." She got another hug from Erskine from behind which included Skulduggery, Nadia and Laila in it before everyone started sitting down, throwing her take out rubbish on the floor. "Go on then. Tell me the damage."

"We already did," Dexter smiled. "Skul coming back was the only extra thing."

"Yeah, no, something happened," she smiled.

"Just the usual. Terrorist attacks, crime waves. Oh, Tanith was held hostage for a day, but I singlehandedly rescued her before help got to us," Saracen said smugly.

"Ooh, well done," she grinned at him. "Did you have fun Tanith?"

She shrugged. "It wasn't so bad. They just tied me up basically. They were in Sudan. Solomon was saying the attack actually happened close to where you guys were?"

She looked at Solomon. "I don't know, if he says so."

"It was."

"It was," she relayed to Tanith. "In case you didn't get it the other two times."

"I'm glad to know, I was really worried I'd never find out."

"Bet you were," she nodded before taking a sip of her strawberry smoothie and then offering the straw to Nadia who took a sip, who then took it, popped the lid, dipped a finger in and put the little bit of smoothie up to Laila's face. She looked at it a moment before opening her mouth and shallowed Nadia's entire finger into her mouth. "Damn Laila," she said without meaning to. "Calm down."

There was some laughing and Laila made a fuss over getting more smoothie which Nadia gave her.

"She's eight months old now," Nadia smiled. "You missed her having her first real foods. We took a bunch of photos and videos though."

"Good," she smiled. "I'll be there for other things."

"Of course," Nadia smiled, resting her head back on Valkyrie. "Did you and Skulduggery make up?"

"We spoke," she said simply.

"Well, that's good," Nadia replied. "How did all the stuff go? The operation and… stuff?"

"It was fine. It was done as quickly as we could," she said with a sigh. "I hated the food. It was gross. We had fish puree."

"Fish stew," Solomon chipped in.

"Fire puree, it was just whipped fish flesh, it was disgusting, and I hated it and they served it like ten times."

"Twice."

"And everything was communal, so it was weird. And they don't do chemicals or anything so we just had water to clean with and the water tasted so gross it made me feel physically sick."

"You were ill the entire time we stayed there."

"Yeah, no, I threw up at least thirty times in the last two months, it was bad," she admitted. "I never want to go back."

"You will not ever be able to go back, it is as good as a sacred place to Necromancers," Solomon told her.

"What happened?" Skulduggery asked.

"No one told you?" Valkyrie asked, looking around the room. After everyone shook their heads, she thought about it a moment but came up blank and chose to just tell him. "I had to have a Magic Keeping Ritual to bind my magic because the Spiders have this thing that steals people's magic and we thought I might have Pure Magic. It turns out I don't, but it is pretty close and I can do a shit ton more stuff than I thought I could do, so we decided to do it anyway because by then it was almost certain someone would let something slip that I may have had Pure Magic and it was safer to just not let The Torment have it. Even though it isn't Pure."

"Valkyrie has the strange ability," Solomon took over, "to essentially sponge other people's magic. She can touch their souls, it seems, and take the information on how to perform and use that person's magic at the level that person is at. For instance, she did it to me and was fully capable of doing every advanced Necromancy I have ever learnt, things I know she didn't know before her magic locked onto this. She can do it to other people also. However, after some time, she loses the information and abilities and goes back to how she is normally."

"Temporary intelligence."

"Quite."

"That's cool," Tanith grinned. "We could walk on ceilings together."

"Yeah for a minute and then I'll fall on my head!" She exclaimed with a frown. "I'll die!"

"Naa, you can do a sick flip down to the floor, you'll be fine."

Valkyrie raised her eyebrows in agreeance.

"That's quite a big Ritual," Skulduggery said, keeping the conversation on track. He was obviously trying not to show that he didn't approve.

Valkyrie snorted a laugh and rubbed her eyes. "You don't have to pretend to like it. Solomon hated it too. So did everyone to a degree. But it had to be done. As soon as any of us uttered the idea I might have Pure Magic it was too late. I had to protect myself."

"Yes, but there are side effects."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. I sorted out as much as I can. Don't worry about it, okay?" After a moment, he nodded and settled back so she could rest her head on him again. "Did you notice I'm taller than you now?"

"Yes, I did."

"You are smol. But not as smol as Tanith, the smolest of us all," she smiled.

"Laila's the smallest," Tanith said, rolling her eyes.

"Laila doesn't count, she's a baby. You're the smolest and there's nothing you can ever do about it."

"I can wear platform heels and run in them. I'd like to see you try."

She let out a laugh. "Imagine if I learnt to run in platform heels and wore them everywhere, I'd be a giant! I could be seven foot!"

Nadia laughed and pulled herself from Valkyrie's arms, standing up and taking Laila with her. "Come on, you need sleep, Val. You sound delirious."

"Oh, come on, me in platform heels is hilarious."

"Yes, it is, but you're practically slurring your words."

"You're no fun. I've slept like three hours in five days, that's plenty."

"I hope not," she said disapprovingly.

"What you gonna do about it?" Valkyrie teased.

Nadia almost laughed but watched Solomon as he sat himself in Valkyrie's place besides Skulduggery, although he sat properly and not over Skulduggery. Skulduggery looked at Solomon as he sat. Solomon turned to him and said, "You're an idiot," then leaned over and kissed his cheek. "Don't do that again."

Valkyrie looked at Nadia and gave her a smirk and they left the room quickly after throwing Laila at Anton.

"He sounds like a tween tv show," she giggled on the landing. "He should have slapped Skul first, to make it complete."

Nadia covered her mouth to keep from laughing too loudly. "Shut up, they're being cute."

"They're cringy," she grinned.

"Yeah, but it's adorable."


This is different from how you and I expected, I know. But it's okay. I have a whole arc planned. Also I've upped my future chapters by two which is good. It gives me more fuck up leeway.

Tell me what you think! This arc isn't over. But tell me what you think right now!