Your reviews are the greatest things. I look forward to getting the notifications every Monday at school. I came home the day after I uploaded the previous chapter, and there 23 new e-mails! Thank you all for your kind reviews and story alerts and favorites.

For the next three weeks/the remainder of April we're having state standardized tests, and we shouldn't get much homework, so I'm hoping I'll get a lot done :D


Entry #11: Written June 20th

Dear Diary,

Freaking sand puke lasted all the way until yesterday (the 19th). Doctor Jacques let me go home after the second day, which was nice of him, but I was still miserable. The upside was that Monsieur Rhett came over a few times and hung out with us.

Did you see what I just wrote?

"The upside." …

ARGH.

But alright, let me explain about my day, since it's three in the morning, which technically make this the 21st, but whatever. It doesn't matter till I go to sleep and then wake up later.

So anyway, yesterday morning, I had thrown up again, but there was something strange about it. It wasn't strangely colored or that it looked weird, but I felt this strange weight sort of being lifted off of my chest. I took that as a sign that I would stop throwing up, and yes, I haven't blown once. I quick showered and slapped on some shorts and stuff, since it was especially hot. I joined everyone outside and told everything I was done being sick. Fletcher asked how I knew, and I told him because, and that if I were to get sick again, I'd go vomit on him. He cringed and threw the baseball he was playing with at me, but I struck it with my shadows like a bat and sent it shooting halfway across the field.

(Yeah, he was throwing the ball in the yard, then teleporting across the yard, then catching it, then throwing it back, and teleporting again to the other side. It was amusing.)

Skulduggery was leaning up against a tree branch in a tree with his hat pulled over his eyes and his arms crossed over his chest. I climbed the tree skillfully and made him scoot over, since the branch was big enough for both of us. I slouched next to him and tried not to tense up too much when his arm draped over my shoulder.

"So you're feeling alright now?" he asked from beneath his hat.

"Yeah," I said, "I'm feeling pretty awesome right now. I haven't been outside in a long time."

"I can tell," he chuckled and poked at my vampire-pale legs.

"I rather enjoy being this pale, so there."

He shrugged. "If you say so."

"Bonjour!" shouted someone from the house.

"Hey!" Tanith cried excitedly. "It's Monsieur Rhett!" Everyone perked up. Skulduggery and I jumped from the tree and landed on the ground softly. I raced Tanith to Monsieur Rhett, but I so totally beat her. Monsieur Rhett laughed at us.

"Aw, he likes you better, Val," Tanith grumbled as she stalked off.

I chuckled once, afraid that she was actually right. "Whatever Tanith!" She turned around and stuck her tongue out at me.

"How old is she again?" Monsieur Rhett asked quietly.

"Somewhere around 100 at least," I said. He smiled and asked if I would go take a walk, and I felt like we were in Victorian times.

"Should I get a chaperone?" I asked sarcastically.

He glared but shook his head. He grabbed my hand and yanked me closer to the villa but out of Gordon's earshot.

"So…" I began.

"Right, oui, oui…Uh…Would you want to go-" he started in French, but I cut him off.

"Non-French speaker over here."

"Right. Excusez-moi! Uh…" He paused and scratched his head.

"Is there something important you want to tell me?" I prompted him. "Like, something with the Sanctuary?"

"No, not really," he whispered. "Mademoiselle Cain, I was really just wondering if you might… consider going somewhere with…me."

"Are you asking me on a date?" I asked incredulously. He was doing a rather bad job at it.

"If you want to call it that. Like, it could just be friends, hanging out and doing…things. Nothing formal like that, but just something simple and…yeah."

"Well it just so happens I love doing things," I muttered and smirked. He smiled and scratched his head again.

"Fantastic," he said. "Can I go and steal you around six tomorrow?"

I nodded and said, "Sounds peachy, Monsieur Rhett." He bit his lip and snickered softly. But before I could react, he suddenly leaned down and kissed my cheek lightly. I gasped and gaped at him. He merely shrugged and turned invisible, then bolted off. I followed his footsteps in the grass, and I shot out a tendril of shadow at him. He shouted at the blackness at his feet and materialized in front of me. He did that thing with his fingers and the eyes (ya know, that watch-you're-back look) and I laughed at him. He disappeared into the air again and the footsteps on the grass faded gradually. His car purred to life somewhere on the other side of the villa and he raced down the road and the sound his engine made became fainter and fainter.

"What did he want?" someone suddenly asked in my ear.

I screamed and slapped whoever had just said that. Skulduggery stumbled back from my slap, clutching his jaw.

"Jeezums, Valkyrie!" he shouted. "Crazy psycho!"

"Well give me a warning when you're going to creep up on me like that!"

Skulduggery groaned and kicked at the dirt for a minute before looked back up at me. "Well? What did he want?"

"…Oh, right. Uh…He just asked if I wanted to…uh, go out somewhere with him tomorrow at six."

"Ah."

"Do I need your approval?"

"What? No, crazy. Why would I care who you date and don't date?"

"Because you're the over-protective brother in this relationship, right?"

He paused for a moment, then nodded and groaned. "Meanie, Valkyrie."

I shrugged and went back to the tree we were in. The rest of the day was normal and fun, and most of us just stayed outside and played around. We played baseball. Everyone cheated. But, really, I'm not all that surprised. Like, Skulduggery was pitching the ball for me, and I gathered my shadows in a bat shape and when the ball came towards me I sent it hurtling out to faaaaaaar left field. Fletcher teleported to the general direction, and it seemed like he wasn't going to catch it, but I saw Skulduggery's hand wave a little, and the ball magically landed in his hands. I glared and growled at Skulduggery, but played fair.

Until he was up to bat.

Ghastly threw the ball, and Skulduggery being Skulduggery, deemed it unworthy since it was too off, and China sent it back to Ghastly. Ghastly then chucked it to Skulduggery, who whacked it way out into Tanith's field. It dropped a little away from her, and Skulduggery took off charging to first and then second base. I acted fast and shot a string of darkness across the grass and it snagged Skulduggery's ankle. He went down ungracefully. It was the funniest thing we had ever seen. Even the ever stoic China was giggling loudly. Skulduggery got up and glared at me, but after that, we continued normally.

SO. Getting to today and the date.

It was around 4:30 in the afternoon when I stepped out of the bathroom in my short shorts, smelling all nice and my legs were smooth, since I was forced to shave them. Skulduggery was sitting on the bed.

"Isn't there a rule where your not supposed to shave your legs on the first date?" he mused loudly.

I shrugged and said, "Well, I found this one to be a bit different, so I figured it'd be alright. And when would you have the opportunity to hear that rule?"

He held up a finger like he was going to argue, but put it back down. "Whatever, Valkyrie," he mumbled. "What are you going to do on your date?"

"Not sure," I answered truthfully as I slathered my legs with lotion and stuff. I grabbed my jeans and my tank top and disappeared back into the bathroom. I came back out a second later, and Skulduggery scoffed loudly.

"Why shave when you're not even going to…Oh…" He trailed off, thinking the same thing I was thinking.

Alright, now Diary, I'm not an easy girl. No one has been in my pants before, and it'll be my husband or my super-duper long term boyfriend thing that finally gets in there.

"Ouch," I muttered. "It's the first date, so I wouldn't ever even dream of that. And plus, I just don't think he's the right guy."

"Oh really?" he asked. He perked up a bit at this.

I shrugged again and yanked a comb through my hair. "Yeah, actually, I'm just going to end this conversation right now."

He nodded a few times and placed his hands behind his head. "And he'll need my approval," he said, completely ignoring me.

I groaned and threw a hair-clip at him. "Alright, no more about this particular subject, please."

"No guy I know will be able to do…that to you until I say so," he continued

I snarled quietly, but said, "Oh, right, because you're a dictator." I winked at him and smoothed my hair out, and suddenly, it was dry. Skulduggery's hand closed from its previous state of being open and he put it back by his side. I grinned at him and shook my now dry hair around. For the remaining time I just kind of sat around, making sure I didn't turn ugly suddenly or something.

Six rolled around soon, and the doorbell rang a few minutes after the hour. Tanith answered it and let Monsieur Rhett in, grinning and giggling like mad. I was busy hitting Fletcher with a magazine for stealing my phone.

"My, you are violent," was the first thing he said to me. I whipped around and smiled at him gracefully, then turned and hit Fletcher again and got my phone back. "Ready?" Monsieur Rhett asked when I had turned around again. He was wearing regular jeans and a really awesome leather jacket. His hair wasn't ridiculous, like Fletcher's.

I nodded and gave a wave to everyone and stepped out of the house. Monsieur Rhett was right behind me. He graciously helped me into his pretty Rolls Royce. I seriously think the Bentley had some pretty high competition.

"Any thoughts about tonight?" Monsieur Rhett said after a few minutes. We were driving into the heart of the city, so it'd be something awesome and Paris-y what we did.

I shrugged. "You live here, so you pick. Nothing super fancy or anything. I'm in jeans over here."

"Oui, nothing fancy. Paris is like that at points. Have you ever been to the Louvre by any chance?"

I shook my head. "No; I haven't been to Paris or France many times ever. I saw the Arc de Triomphe once when I was four. The Eiffel Tower I haven't seen close up yet, but everyone knows what it looks like."

He nodded. "Then you shall become a well-rounded and cultured woman after seeing the Louvre, Mademoiselle Cain."

I laughed and punched his arm. "Please call me Valkyrie."

"Only if you call me Alaire."

I shrugged. "I can do that." He took his eyes off the road a minute to shoot a look at me. His smile reached his eyes and he looked really adorable. Monsieur – I mean, Alaire, applied more pressure to the pedal and we sped down the roads all up Paris.

I won't bore you about most of our Louvre tour, but there were just a few really hilarious/awesome highlights. We saw the Mona Lisa, and Alaire pointed out that she had no eyebrows.

Mind. Blown.

I always knew there was something strange about her face, but I could never place it. That's the coolest thing I think I've learned on this trip. We also saw about a jillion paintings and sculptures of naked people.

"Seriously, why are they always naked?" I muttered after staring at this painting of these two girls, like, bathing or something.

"Every single painter on Earth was either a pervert, or they really liked the human body. They're both pretty believable. I love how many of the beautiful girls used in these paintings aren't skinny models. They're what models should be."

"Wow," I said. "You're opinionated."

He shrugged. "I just always thought that art imitates life, so why doesn't it go vice versa? Put that in your pipe and smoke it for a bit!"

I chuckled and kicked his leg lightly. "Hey! Pretty sculptures of more naked people?" I pointed off to the right where there was a sign saying where the sculpture exhibit was.

"I love them," Alaire grinned, leading me towards the display. We got there, and he seemed to explode with happiness. "I could marry these sculptures."

"Is there a condition for people who want to sleep with sculptures? You know, there's pedophilia, necrophilia, bestiality, etc."

"Haha," he laughed dryly, "how about 'stonephilia'."

"No, because that's really stupid," I said cheerfully. "After I get back home, I'm totally going to think up a word for that."

He glared and began stalking towards me. I grinned big and stepped backwards and away from him, but my foot snagged on one of the sculptures and I went toppling backwards. I landed on the tiled floor in a heap. I sat up, groaning and rubbing my head. Alaire was right there next to me, making sure I wasn't spontaneously bleeding or something.

"I'm so sorry," he muttered a few times.

I waved my hand away. "It's cool man," I said. "I seem to fall a lot at random times, so no worries. Though we may want to get out of here before some scary French guard comes marching in here to yell at us. What did I trip over anyway?"

"This," he said and gestured to that one sculpture of that chick with the cloth and no arms. Of course, waist up was visible. Always naked. "Aphrodite of Melos is the name, I believe."

"Sorry, Aphrodite. Don't go screwing with my love life because I tripped over your pretty statue, okay?" Alaire laughed and hoisted me up. We left the Louvre and at this point, I realized I was hungry and we ate…things. ("You actually eat snails? I thought that was just a stupid stereotype!" "They're not as disgusting as you may think!")

After that, we just walked around in this cute little park. We talked about everything, really. Magic, families, friends, Sanctuaries, those types of things. He told me about how his and Aya's parents were shipped off to the same Russian prison that Baron Vengeous was being kept it for suspicion of treason and trading secrets with other Sanctuaries.

"I apologize for being Johnny Raincloud here," Alaire had said. "What are your parents like? Are they still alive?"

"Yeah, but they're not magical. They have to have it in them, since I have it, but they don't do anything like that. I had to tell them about this other life when they accidentally saw the Echo-Stone version of my uncle that died when I was twelve. Also, seeing the living skeleton as a friend was a bit of a shocker. I couldn't pull off the Halloween gag."

He nodded. "Was it hard to tell them?"

"Not especially. They listened after getting over the initial shock. They know some of the things I do, but I've never given them full details."

"They know you're here in Paris?"

"Yeah, but I haven't explained what's going on or why I'm here. They call it my 'business,' and I feel so terrible for jetting off and leaving them back at home with no way of knowing if I'm alright. Of course, Tanith or someone would go and break the news, but I can't stand the thought of that."

"Well then I'll go ahead and take the bullet for you, alright?" Alaire said and smiled lightly. I bit my lip and slowly leaned in closer. I gripped his leather jacket lapels and pulled him closer and crashed my lips to his. He grunted once, but relaxed and kissed me back. I let go of his lapels and rested my hands on his shoulders, then clasped them together behind his neck. Alaire's hands crept up my back and yanked me closer to him. I eventually pulled back and looked up at him. We both turned to the sound of music, and I instantly could tell what it was.

There was a man and woman standing off the side by a bench. The man was playing the guitar, and the woman was singing. She was singing that love song theme thing from Lady and the Tramp, which, is really awesome and adorable. Alaire laughed and dragged me away from the people who laughed good-naturedly.

And so, for a little while longer, we just wandered around this park. Suddenly, Alaire turned to me. I had been walking on a stone wall.

"Valkyrie, excuse me for my bluntness, for I suppose I've always been a little strange and would rather just plain say what I'm thinking, so forgive me for this," he said softly.

I cocked my head to the side and hopped from the wall. "What is it?"

"I'm curious as to where this will leave…us."

Ah. The awkward talk commences, I see. I suppose it didn't turn out as awkward as I thought it would be, but still. I felt so bad.

"I will completely understand if there is someone else," Alaire continued.

I gasped but tried to remain calm. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"I can tell, Valkyrie," he said while giving a look. "There's someone else that you've got those fuzzy feelings for, and I bet I can guess who it is."

"Alright," I said, "then guess. I'll tell you if you're right or wrong."

"I'm going to say it's a one Monsieur Skulduggery Pleasant," Alaire replied smugly.

I glared at him, but finally nodded. "Was it really obvious or something? There are only a few people who know about it."

He shrugged. "Well, I do live in the City of Love, so maybe it's just a natural talent that comes with living here. I had thought at first that maybe if was Monsieur Fletcher Renn, but I figured it had to have been Monsieur Pleasant."

I groaned and kicked the bench near us lightly. "Well, just promise me you didn't think I went out with you to make him jealous or something. I swear that wasn't it. I mean, seriously, I had a great time. My head hurts a bit after tripping over Aphrodite, but other than that, this was too fun."

Alaire smiled at me. "I know you didn't do this to make him jealous. I think you did it unintentionally, however. I could tell from you just talking to me or Monsieur Renn he'd get a little tense."

"I figured he just didn't like you. That tends to happen with him," I said casually.

"Right, I gathered. But anyway, back to my original question: Where does this leave us?"

"Not together as a couple?"

"Ouch."

"You know what I mean."

He nodded and smiled kindly. "I know, I know."

"And really, I'll eventually have to go back to Ireland. Unless you wanted to move back with us, which I doubt you'd want to. But I don't do long-distance. I can tell it'd be complicated."

"Oui, since I must stay with my sister and the Sanctuary, I can't leave."

"Right, so it's mutual, really?"

Alaire nodded then asked if I wanted to go home. It was getting cold and late, I suppose, so I went ahead and said yes. We took a long route and saw the Arc de Triomphe. Then we jumped into his beautiful car and sped back to the villa.

We arrived there shortly, and he helped me out of the car.

"I really did have a really awesome time tonight," I reiterated again. "It was probably the best date I've ever been on."

He scratched his neck and smiled softly. "Everything done in Paris is automatically much better."

"Oh, geez, city love!"

He chuckled a few times, yet it faded quickly. "May I…go ahead and just kiss you again?" I looked up at him wide-eyed and biting my lip, but I nodded anyway and leaned in closer to him.

Alaire's hands gripped my face tenderly and he kissed me on the lips. I tilted my head, but he pulled away quickly.

"I wouldn't want to get too attached," he merely said. I whimpered and gave him another peck, then dashed back into the house. Before closing the door, I winked at him. He waved and climbed back into his sleek car and drove off swiftly.

I shut the door softly and climbed the stairs. The clock on the wall it was around eleven at night. I could tell that everyone was sleep, all except one person. The light in mine and Skulduggery's room was still on. I poked at the door a few times, then tentatively opened it. Skulduggery was seated in one of the armchairs by the bed.

"Oh, you're back," he merely said.

"You were so watching from the front window, weren't you?"

He mocked fake astonishment. "I can't believe you would even suggest such a thing-"

"Skulduggery!"

"Alright, I was."

I growled at him and threw a pack of gum at him. I ran into the bathroom and shut and locked the door so he couldn't get in.

"Valkyrie, I hate you!" he shouted through the wood.

"Thank you, I love you too." MORE THAN YOU KNOOOOW.

He chuckled and stopped jiggling the doorknob. I stepped out, but was instantly tackled by Skulduggery. We both landed on the soft carpet, him on top of me.

"How was it?" he asked as casually as someone could while laying on someone else.

"It was definitely a lot of fun," I replied curtly.

He nodded and grunted once. "Marvelous. Did you get attacked by anything?"

"Not if you count me tripping over that pretty statue that has no arms."

"What, you mean Aphrodite of Melos? Geez, Valkyrie, I knew you were dumb, but you should have known that."

I stuck my tongue out at him and pushed him off of me. I stood up and grabbed my pajamas and declared I was going to shower, and that if he screwed with my clothes I'd kill him. He laughed and went to sit back down in the armchair.

When I got out of the bathroom a bit later, he was meditating. I figured it was a good opportunity to get caught up with you and tell you about my day.

And what a day it was.

Man, I seriously bet Aphrodite's up there with all those Greek Gods and Goddesses just cackling evilly. She probably can't wait to get her hands on my love life so she can just crap all over it.

Just watch, Diary.

I bet that by the time I get back to Ireland, something major will have happened involving me and Skulduggery. I'll give you a quarter if it turns out to be wrong, alright? Yeah, I thought so.

My, I should probably stop talking to you like you're a real person.

~Valkyrie


AAAH. SO MANY WORDS.

But I hoped you liked it and thanks for reading! Sorry for any mistakes! :D