Zalla Dane's apartment was neat and clean, with a bag in one corner that was filled with clothes that weren't hers. There were books—not on bookshelves, but on a table or two. All were open. All were empty.

Zalla sat on her couch, hunched over, hand covering her mouth, staring at a box of letters. Well, at blank pieces of paper. She was having trouble breathing, and Valkyrie sat across from her and had absolutely no idea how to help.

"Everything?"

Zalla threw her phone on the table. Valkyrie picked it up, scrolled through the one-sided texts. Smilie faces and winkie faces and not a single reply. Valkyrie set the phone back on the glass, turned to look at Skulduggery standing behind her.

"What did Beleaguer write?"

"I told you, she didn't—just histories! Recollections of things! Reports on wars and political stuff, trials! Who the fuck is doing this?!" She sobbed, covered her mouth with her hand. "It's like they want to take her away," she said, so soft.

"It's not personal," Skulduggery said, picking up one of the abandoned books and flipping through it. "I feel as though it might have been a side effect of corrupting Beleaguer's work."

Zalla let out another sob.

Skulduggery gave her a moment, then snapped the book shut, took out a notepad. "That being said, I need you to give me as many book titles or subjects you can think of. Or enemies—"

"She didn't have any."

"Book titles, then," Skulduggery said, voice quick.

For a moment, Valkyrie didn't think Zalla was going to say anything. But the other woman sat up, closed her eyes, concentrated.

"There was the most recent one, didn't have a title yet. Necromancers. Uh, the one about the New Zealand conflict, and the title was War of Proximity, something like that. Another one on China's diplomacy with France, it was called something like that, too. And then…"

She opened her eyes, looked at Valkyrie, away just as quick.

"And then?" Skulduggery asked.

"Well, the whole… the whole war. She covered from the War of the Sanctuaries, how it bled into…" Zalla took a breath. "You know. Everything. The rebuilding, the warlocks. Firsthand accounts from that."

Valkyrie frowned, and she wished Zalla had put a fan out. Her mind felt like a swamp, and she rubbed her forehead, tried to get her thoughts straight. She didn't want to be here. She wanted to be with Alice. No, not Alice, that made her heart hurt. She wanted to go back to Skulduggery's house and take a cold shower.

Not to Finbar's, either.

Skulduggery was talking, and Valkyrie tuned back into the conversation.

"We'll call you. We're going to check with our sources, see if any other authors have experienced something similar to this. It's a pretty unusual happenstance, so it should have been reported somewhere."

Zalla nodded, grabbed a throw pillow, hugged it to her stomach. "Yeah."

Skulduggery touched her shoulder, and Valkyrie stood, hesitated. "I'm sorry. About Bel."

Zalla didn't answer, but there was something in the look she gave Valkyrie that made her want to turn away.

Valkyrie followed after Skulduggery. She winced as she heard another stifled sob as they shut the apartment door. Skulduggery handed her the book as the descended the stairs, and Valkyrie flipped through it, frowned.

"Nothing."

"Are you surprised?"

Valkyrie shut the book. "It's just—it's stupid. Everything."

"That's not very scientific."

"Yeah, well, the scientific method hasn't exactly worked out for us, has it?" Valkyrie stepped out into the muggy air, scowled. "I wish it would just hurry up and rain. We've been dying."

Skulduggery followed after her, slower. "You keep referencing that."

Valkyrie looked over her shoulder. "What do you mean? About the rain? Probably."

"No, that nothing is making sense. That we've been having trouble on the case, that we've been researching and it hasn't worked out in our favor. We've barely begun on this case, and you're already frustrated that we don't have leads."

Valkyrie wanted to get into the Bentley, but she leaned against it, instead. Her stomach was rolling, and she wished she hadn't eaten the ice cream. And her head hurt. And her ribs.

Skulduggery approached her slowly. "Valkyrie, is everything okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, everything's fine. Look, can we just go to Gordon's again and research? Or, or to Roarhaven, see if China has anything? Or can we… Just, something else?"

Skulduggery tilted his head, and she realized he was questioning her. "Finbar's?"

Valkyrie swallowed. "No."

"Why?"

They stood there, looking at each other. The sky was starting to get dark, clouds swirling over the apartment tops. Valkyrie wanted to cry. She shrugged.

"What's the point?"

Skulduggery opened his jaw, but his phone rang. He looked down at his pocket.

"You should get that," Valkyrie said. "It might be useful. Some information."

Skulduggery looked from his pocket to Valkyrie, and just when she thought he would let it ring, he slipped it out of his pocket and answered it.

…

Valkyrie's eyes snapped open and her body lurched involuntarily. She gasped in pain, curled on her side as her muscles screamed at her.

She waited for the ache to subside, then slowly processed. She was at Skulduggery's. It was night. It was raining; a small part of her cried out in relief. She was sore, so sore. No, think past that, what hurt?

Her back, like she had fallen. She wondered if she had broken something. She flexed her toes, her fingers, slowly sat up. Nothing felt broken. She just felt like a giant bruise.

The rain tapped against her window. She hadn't realized how much she missed the sound.

She reached for her phone on the side table, frowned when it was dead. She searched around, found the charger cord on the ground, plugged it in to the phone. She waited for it to charge, stood up, stretched, held the pose, her breath, released.

The phone lit up.

Lit up with text messages.

Valkyrie cursed, sat back on the bed.

Alice 6.50 pm: Where r u?

Alice 6.50 pm: Are you just runnin late or….?

Alice 7.17 pm: Serisouly are you gonna show?

[ Missed Call, Mom, 7.30pm ]

Alice 7.40 pm: If youre gonna bail the least you could do is warn me because now mom thinks that it's because u make us fight

Alice 7.41 pm: whatever have fun w skullduggery

Valkyrie sighed, rubbed her eyes.

Me 2.33 am: Sorry time got away from me!

Valkyrie waited to see if Alice was up this late. After five minutes, Valkyrie stood back up, found a tshirt, and pulled it on. She trudged downstairs, squinting in the dark, wondering if Skulduggery was up this late, or if he was meditating.

She froze halfway down when she realized Skulduggery was at the base of the stairs. He was just… standing there, completely still. Valkyrie followed his gaze, but he just seemed to be looking towards the kitchen.

"Skulduggery?"

He jerked like she shocked him, looked at her. "Valkyrie?"

Valkyrie frowned and sat down on the stairs. "You okay?"

Skulduggery tilted his head. "Perfectly fantastic, thanks for asking. Is everything all right with you? What are you doing up so late?" His skull turned away from her, slightly. "What am I doing up so late?"

"I had a bad dream." Valkyrie shrugged.

"I think I had a nightmare, as well," he mused. He stepped closer to the stairs.

"Did you know it was Thursday? Alice texted me. I guess I forgot, or something. She's going to be pissed." Valkyrie yawned. "Maybe you could come over next week. She'd forgive me if she could ask you about your… Well, whatever weird thing she finds interesting about you."

Just the sound of rain against the roof.

"Yes."

Valkyrie frowned. "Well, that was very monosyllabic of you."

"Careful," Skulduggery murmured, "that was a big word."

Another silence.

"Uh, well, I'm going back to bed." Valkyrie stood. "In the morning we're—what, seeing if any other authors were murdered? Visiting China? Going cave spelunking?"

Skulduggery's head snapped back to her. "What did you say?"

Valkyrie raised an eyebrow. "Uh, are we going spelunking?"

"Maybe. Are you feeling okay?"

"Are you feeling okay?"

Skulduggery stepped up the stairs toward her. "I'm not sure. I don't think either of us are. I think we're missing something. It's right on the tip of my metaphorical tongue, but I can't quite figure it out." He stopped, a head shorter than her on the stairs. "I feel like we need to go to Finbar."

Valkyrie frowned. "What? Why?"

"Why not?" he asked quickly.

"It… doesn't seem like it would help our case any. I dunno'." Valkyrie yawned again. "We'll talk about it more in the morning. Just… try to meditate, alright? You're a little…" She waved her hand vaguely at him. "Night."

"Goodnight."

Valkyrie fell gratefully back into bed, curled into the covers. Alice hadn't texted back. Valkyrie let her eyes drift shut.

…

Her phone was ringing. Valkyrie opened her eyes, blinked, grabbed it.

"Alice, listen, I didn't mean to—"

"Uh, Miss Edgley? It's Steven Mullaney, the agent for Gordon Edgley's books."

Valkyrie sat up. Her body was still sore, and she winced. Rain pattered. She felt like she could breathe again, and her thoughts felt sharp and crisp. She wanted to go downstairs and talk and joke, investigate.

"Oh. Yeah."

"I'm calling in regards of… a printing error."

Valkyrie stood. "Mm, alright. I have to get going to work, so if you could just tell me how much it'll cost to fix it, how it will affect sales, I would really, really appreciate it."

There was silence on the other line, and Valkyrie wondered if he had hung up.

"Do you have any of Gordon's books nearby?"

"Uh." Valkyrie looked around, looked under her bed. "I think so. Uh, yep." She hooked her free hand around one of Gordon's thicker novels and pulled it out from under the pile of laundry. "Found one."

"Open it."

Valkyrie's heart skipped a beat.

She opened it.

Empty, empty pages.

"Skulduggery!"

"I'm sor—"

Valkyrie hung up on him, stood up, nearly tumbled down the stairs, book clutched to her chest.

"Skulduggery!" Her voice scared her.

He stepped out of the living room, looked up at her. "What's wrong?" he asked, voice low.

Valkyrie couldn't even speak, she just shoved the book at him and sat down on the ground at his feet. Her fingers were shaking and she wanted to fucking kill someone but all she could do was thinking about all those copies on all those shelves and some small part of her screamed.

Who the fuck was this person?

I'm going to kill them.

"They knew. They knew we were looking for them," Valkyrie said and stood, shook out her hands, wanted to pace. "They knew and they're just fucking with me, with Gordon. He loved those books, Skulduggery."

"I know."

"He loved them. I swear to God, whoever's doing this better be able to put them back, put all those fucking words back or I'm going to kill them. I'm going to hurt them. They're all I have. They're the reason—"

Valkyrie turned, walked into the living room, tried to control her heaving chest. She let out a little noise that was half growl and half sob. She sucked in a breath, held it. Turned to face Skulduggery.

He stood in the doorway, looking at a blank page, one of the first. Where the dedication would have been. The scene made Valkyrie want to turn away, crawl back into bed. It made her miss Gordon's voice. His jokes.

To my best friend—

"Are they related?"

Skulduggery looked up. "I'm not sure. I've yet to receive any word of similar occurrences. We're going to find out. Get dressed."

Valkyrie stomach rolled as she pulled her work clothes on, as she sat in the Bentley. They peeled away from Skulduggery's house. Skulduggery was dialing people, making calm, clipped requests. They didn't talk in between phone calls.

Everything was slow and fast. Valkyrie remembered the first book she had read of Gordon's, something wonderfully fantastic that had left her terrified of bugs for weeks. Gordon has teased her about it, grinning like a madman.

She remembered the book she had read years ago. Before a man had called her and broken in and caught fire.

She remembered Tanith devouring chapters.

Valkyrie grit her teeth.

The rain was lightening up when they pulled up in front of the cemetery. They got out, strode across the green grass, through the headstones.

Gordon's grave had been dug up, reburied. Fresh.

Valkyrie's heart twisted, and she shut that part of herself off, deadened it. It wasn't helping. She needed to think. But someone had come here and touched her uncle and now everything he had ever done was gone, gone.

Valkyrie looked at the dirt.

"Are they related?"

"One of the Sanctuary's dummy companies, a publisher, was the one who noticed the anomaly. All books published within the past fourteen years, all recent history analysis, about the wars. And Gordon, now."

Valkyrie fist clenched. "They knew we were looking into it."

Skulduggery was still. "How? We were barely on the case for more than a day."

"I don't know. I don't know!" Valkyrie turned, boots soaked through with dew. Ghastly needed to make her new ones. "Nothing makes any sense! God! Fuck!"

Skulduggery started walking back. "We need to see Finbar."

Valkyrie's throat tightened, and she felt lightheaded. "No, we need to do something useful." She followed after him, grabbed his arm. "Skulduggery, what will that help? He's just going to mumble about his son! We need to…"

Skulduggery was looking at her, head tilted down. "Why are you so against it? Why have you been?"

"I—there's no reason! Especially not now!"

"Why are you afraid? Valkyrie?"

Valkyrie's breath caught in her throat. "I don't know! I don't… Please."

"Valkyrie," he said, softly, stopped to look at her. "Something isn't right. You know that. I need you to evaluate why."

Valkyrie felt like she was holding a gun to her head. "Fine. Fine, we'll go. But it's pointless."

Skulduggery nodded, reached up, ran his thumb along her cheek. "We'll figure it out."

Shoutout to Heslen for guessing the plot. You were right-they're just concussed. They got knocked around too much in the cave.

Also thanks to Blufox03 and RedIvySparrow for reviewing. ( I do read your reviews, I'm just too lazy to actually respond. )

Reviews, theories, etc. welcome!

Also, there is a sequel planned.