Skulduggery – Crow

Anton – Bear

Ghastly – Panda

Dexter – Wolf

Saracen – Weasel

Erskine – Snake

Solomon – Raven

Chapter 73

Tanith got home barely two days later looking shaky and concerned but declared healthy of anything contagious. She wasn't allowed to do any serious activities, had to sit down any time she felt tired and someone had to be with her at almost all times to make sure she wouldn't faint.

She hadn't told Valkyrie what was making her sick but had promised it wasn't important. Panda was staying with her.

Solomon didn't have any more strange drug-related epiphanies to the colour blue and healed quickly. Quickly enough to go back to his own home at the same time as Tanith, much to Crow's very vocal displeasure. They were all expecting a new family member to be living with them in the next year or so.

Almost all her brothers had gotten drunk when she pointed that out to them.

Finally, there was Fletcher.

He spent much longer in hospital, almost three whole days extra to the other two. On that third day, the one he was released on, Valkyrie had gone to visit him.

He had told her to bugger off. She had left quickly.

.*****.

Going back to work was much easier than she expected, and much more people were there than she thought would be – a heavy sum of Irish sorcerers had been killed during the fighting. But it seemed to be just the non-Sanctuary employees, though their Administrator had once again been killed.

A new man called Tipstaff, that Weasel told her had once been a woman in relation to a story he told her, was Administrator and he had stormed in on his first day and cleared up practically all the confusion and miscommunication and idiocy in the first hour of work.

Even Corrival fell prey to his cleaning up and had been ordered to organise his office immediately so Tipstaff could file his paperwork, and had actually done it too.

Meritorious was incredibly pleased he'd hired the man.

"Cain," a man called from behind her. She turned and saw Detective Bermuda Sickle, an annoying man but only in that he could only talk about his most sickening cases and cats. He was otherwise a bland and boring person. "Where's Skulduggery Pleasant?"

"He's on a call at the moment," she told him – there had been a sighting of Tesseract the day before at a bar. "What do you need?"

He tutted. "I got told to open the damned Sanctuary Puzzle Box and I can't figure out. Tell me when he's done, right, he can have his bloody go."

He went to walk off and Valkyrie glared at his back. "Let me have a go."

He stilled and turned back to her. "You? You're a kid. Look, I know you're all big and glorious with the Dead Men and all, but Puzzle Boxes are not easy things, and this is The Sanctuary one," he stressed. "I've been practising my whole life and I still haven't got the hang of them. This is no ordinary Puzzle Box to play with, it's–"

"I'll do it," she told him and pushed passed him to his desk, the annoying man following behind with his negative opinion.

She looked over it quickly, noticing all sides had puzzles and in every corner of each side was a little signal. No, not a signal, she realised, but a crest, a tiny little crest of a badger with a lit candle in its mouth and a hissing snake wrapped around its middle. One of the sides had three glowing crests. She finished the little puzzle Sickle hadn't completed and the fourth started glowing.

Moving around the box, she started completing the puzzles, noticing a pattern in how they had to be completed and that she would have to break them and redo them in a new way to get another badger lit. It was all number based, just like a dice. Or, even more accurately, a maths based game and she was pretty good at maths.

She finished the last one and the box started glowing and floated an inch from her hand, spinning gently. She poked it with her other hand and it crumbled away, leaving just the content inside. A gigantic diamond. It fell into her hand.

"It's heavy," she said quietly, inspecting it. It was a cut diamond, shaped into its traditional look, and had a slightly pink look to it. She rubbed it slightly. "It's changing colour wherever I touch it. Why's it doing that?"

She looked up at Sickle and noticed practically the whole department trying to get a look. They looked shocked.

"What?" She asked.

"You opened it," Sickle breathed, his mouth wide opened and hand over his heart. "How did you open it?"

"I completed the puzzle, obviously," she said, raising one eyebrow at him. "I told you I could, but oh no, Mr I-Know-Everything-Because-I'm-A-Grown-Man knowns better. It doesn't even matter now, it's open and it's gone. What's this rock?"

"It's not a rock," Crow said from behind her, making her jump. "It's a Dragon Diamond."

"That sounds like one of your stupid stories I'll believe and you'll call me stupid for believing."

"It's not a joke," Sickle said heatedly. "We've had that box for nearly three hundred years. Who knows how old it really is! That is the most expensive Dragon Diamond I've ever seen!"

"It's merely the biggest," Crow said, leaning in for his own inspection. "It changes colour when it's owner touches it. See, how it's turning that dark pink colour? That's the colour it's picked for you."

"So it'll change colour for other people?"

"Exactly. But only one other. These diamonds are scarce and hundreds of years ago they were used by the rich to declare their love, and I believe they're coming back into fashion. They'd send it to the person they wanted to marry in place of a ring since some people couldn't wear them depending on their magic. It would change colour for them too if the sender truly loved the one they sent it to. If the receiver equally loves them, it would change to a whole new colour so everyone knew."

"Fun," she commented, inspecting it closely. It was foggy on the inside, not quite translucent. She had a feeling that was more to do with the magic it held than the quality of the diamond.

"Just about," Crow said. "They're usually sent down the family line. See, whoever holds it first gains ownership of it. After they die, even if the partner is alive, it'll change hands. The partner can't own it, as it believes one cannot be without the other, as the saying goes. But they're expensive, so it goes to the next in line."

She glared at the pink Dragon Diamond. "Why're we all trying to open it if it connects to the first person that holds it then?"

"We didn't know what was in it until now," Sickle groaned. He kicked his desk and howled in pain, glared at Valkyrie and stormed off.

"I didn't know either," she muttered, looking back at the stupid Diamond.

"Finders keepers," a young mage grinned at her, and the group started to disperse, though they did give her the occasional glance.

She sighed and pocketed the stupid rock. What type of bad luck was that? Almost five months of having a broken heart and she gets a dumb love stone. "How was your call?" She asked Crow as they wandered back to their join office.

"Good. We have a lead," Crow said and told her he'd called the others to come over. "I'll explain it then."

"Sure," she shrugged.

They walked in silence for a moment before he spoke again. "Valkyrie, I wanted to talk to you. About Nadia."

Her heart sank again. Every time she thought of just the girl's name it would do that. "What about her?"

"About how you've been since you broke up. You haven't been yourself."

"Of course I haven't. Most of the time you've known me I've been dating her," she pointed out. "Maybe this is the real me and before was the fake me."

"I think we both know that's a lie," he said immediately. "You loved her. Truly, you loved her, just as much as I loved my wife I expect. And now she's left you."

"Gee, thanks Skul, that's really helped me," she told him sarcastically. "I'm so much better now we've had this talk."

"Valkyrie, I'm not finished."

"I don't want to listen," she muttered and rushed through a crowd of people to get away from him, or at least that conversation.

It didn't exactly work.

In the lobby, which they had to go through to get to their office upstairs, was Mr Vinay. She almost crashed into him but stopped herself at the last moment, and it felt as if that crowd suddenly dispersed and it was just the two of them and Crow. She stood up straight and put on a blank face before he could see her pain and dismay.

"Mr Vinay," she said quietly and walked past him quickly.

"Miss Cain, I need to speak with you," he said suddenly. She stopped but didn't turn, putting a hand over her stomach as her nerves and anxiety kicked in. "Valkyrie I – I wanted to apologise for my behaviour last summer."

She took a deep breath and turned around. "You've had six and a half months to apologise," she said without, she hoped, emotion. "Why now? Why here?"

He cleared his throat a little and avoided looking her in the eye. "I felt guilty for how I spoke to you. I shouldn't have acted out the way I did when I was so stressed and angry."

"But you're not sorry for what you said," she noticed. "You're just apologising for how you did it."

He hesitated. "No. I'm sorry for what I said also. I was not in the right mindset to tell you what I did."

She shook her head. "I know you pressured Nadia into breaking up with me. I know she didn't eat when she was at home, and she never wanted to be moved to India. She doesn't enjoy being around her grandmother because she gets pushed around by her. You're not sorry, Mr Vinay, or else you wouldn't have pressured your daughter to do all the things you wanted her to."

He looked angry but was holding it in, now. She knew she was right. "Nadia is ill."

"Nadia broke up with me," she said quickly, feeling her stomach turn. "I love Nadia. I always did, and I still do. But so long as she doesn't want me, I can't do anything. What do you want me to do?"

"Talk to her."

"She doesn't want me to talk to her or else I would have by now," she told him angrily.

"She can't talk to you, I took her phone away," Mr Vinay growled, storming up to Valkyrie. They were almost the same height now.

"And whose fault is that?" She spat. "Because it isn't mine. None of this is my fault. This is all on you, Mr Vinay, so when you get your fucking act together, maybe me and Nadia can work it out. Without you."

She turned and stormed up the stairs, not daring to wipe the tears bleeding down her cheeks for fear he'd know he got to her.

It's so intense! So much is happening! I hope you are all keeping up with these things, and don't you fret, that big ol' Dragon Diamond will have a little ol' part to play. Way in the future when you've all forgotten about it haha, I am good writer. I'd love more guesses on what's happening with Tanith, I have one, but I'd love another ;) We find out what happened very, very soon.