"Do you think he knows what he is doing, right now?" Irie asked.

Valkyrie shrugged, while keeping her hands on the steering wheel. "Can't know for sure, but I'd say so."

She sighed and sunk a bit deeper into the passenger's seat.

About two hours ago, they had received a call from the English Sanctuary that Nuce had been spotted by the roadside patrol. They had quickly agreed on a plan, and Skulduggery had gone ahead to Ireland, in order to prepare the Sanctuary for the incoming attack.

Now, Valkyrie and Irie were following Nuce, by car. First, it had taken some time to decide on which route he would take, based on Wells' and Nuce's own presumed knowledge of the routes from Brighton to Roarhaven. Once that had been settled, they started allowing a good number of cars drive between them, making sure there was no way Nuce could spot them through his rearview mirrors.

Irie had tied her hair back and put on a hat, in order to hide the conspicuous color. She seemed as calm and collected as the entire time beforehand and finally looked at Valkyrie almost casually from the side. Now that Valkyrie had a chance to look at Irie's face closer, it showed itself to have soft features with gentle eyes. For some reason, her smile made Valkyrie feel like she was just meeting a long-lost acquaintance.

"So… What have you been up to, then, for the past… six years?" Irie asked eventually.

Valkyrie sighed a bit.

Irie made a bit of a face. "Is that private information?"

She made herself relax at that question and threw her a halfway amicable side-glance. "Not really. Was just taking a break from… everything, really. But for the same reason, I do like to keep my time then and my time now mostly separate."

She nodded understandingly. "Fair enough. So, what is it like to be back here, then?"

Valkyrie tipped her head side-to-side. "Oddly normal. And, also, oddly different."

Irie nodded again. "Anyone try anything yet?"

She frowned lightly, keeping her eyes on the road. "What do you mean?"

She gave a little sigh of her own. "Well, I would expect there to be many angry people, wanting to take their grief out on you. I could imagine quite a lot of uncomfortable confrontations."

Valkyrie mustered her, taken off-guard by that evaluation. "Well, yeah. There have been some snide comments and conversations. Nothing too extreme, yet. I guess that is still coming."

Irie smiled lightly. "Either way, I am sure you can kick their arses, when it comes down to it." When she did not immediately reply, she mustered her from the side. "Right?"

Valkyrie kept still her eyes on the road. This was not necessarily something she would like to discuss with a perfect stranger. However, it didn't seem like Irie was asking these questions out of spite. In fact, when she didn't reply after that, she just waited patiently, building no pressure, and that gave her the last incentive to get over her own reticence.

"I could," she slowly agreed. "I don't know if I would want to."

Irie did not reply, just watched her from the side and when Valkyrie caught her gaze, it was perfectly neutral.

She watched her for a bit, then sighed quietly. "Mis…" She paused and sighed again. "Could we do this on a first name basis?"

"Sure," Valkyrie shrugged.

"Alright. Hey, I'm Diamond."

It made her smile a bit. "Hi, Diamond."

"So, Valkyrie, you do know that there are systems in place for reconciliation, yeah? You should know, it's sort of your job."

"Our job is to stop bad guys. We're not the one punishing them..." Valkyrie faltered, then veered, "most of the time."

"People may have the freedom to express their grief," Irie continued unimpressively, "but that doesn't give them the right to take the law into their own hands."

Valkyrie mustered her from the side. "So?"

"So…" Diamond hesitatingly replied. "If anyone does attack you, it isn't a righteous act. You are allowed to protect yourself."

She sniffed. "Those systems have failed those people. I'm still here, aren't I? The only reason I'm not in prison, is, really, because I'm friends with Skulduggery and China Sorrows."

"Or maybe, that's because they understand concepts of causality and effect," she suggested.

Valkyrie raised a brow at her. "I don't think you have the information, to judge that."

She expected Diamond to react defensively over her defensive statement, but she just smiled again. "You're right, I don't."

They fell into silence, when she didn't add anything else. But it didn't last long enough to build tension or be awkward, before Diamond exhaled amusedly. "So, that was the great Skulduggery Pleasant then, yeah?"

Valkyrie snorted. "Yep."

"How is it, working with him?" She wanted to know.

"Currently, or in general?"

"In general."

She exhaled very slowly with raised eyebrows. "Well… that is a very long list of points."

Diamond smirked a bit. "Pick three."

Valkyrie sniffed amusedly. "Fine. So… Exciting… horrifying… annoying."

She barked a quiet laugh at the last one. "That sounds about fairly close to what Dexter tells me."

She threw her a bemused glance. "How do you know him, anyway?"

Diamond shrugged one shoulder. "He trained me, for the first couple of years after my Surge. There wasn't an actual Shapeshifter for that, of course, so an ancient Sorcerer was the next best thing, I suppose."

She snickered. "Gotcha."

"Not that he ever behaves like an ancient Sorcerer."

That made Valkyrie laugh a bit. "That seems to be a trend."

"It does," Diamond chuckled, "but then, it would be boring if everyone was just a wise old man, talking about the hardship of life, wouldn't it?"

"I guess so," she replied. "It might also make this world a bit less… repetitious."

She shrugged. "Who knows. Recollection of past mistakes doesn't necessarily lead to avoiding new ones."

Valkyrie mustered her out of the corner of her eye. "Agreed. It should, though, if we are being honest."

"Hm," Diamond made nonchalantly, with her light voice. "Maybe. But humans are inhibited by their protection mechanisms. And the older you get, the harder those are to break through."

"For example?" She probed interestingly.

"For example…" She thought, tilting her head a bit. "Well, for example, if you are scared of someone, you might become hostile towards them, out of self-protection. And even if you find out that they aren't actually dangerous, the hostility is already established. So, you will just continue hating them, because, if you accept that it wasn't the right reaction, you would have to admit that you were wrong. And if you realize that two hundred years after the fact, accepting that you have been wrong for two hundred years is, understandably, not an easy task."

"That is…" Valkyrie replied slowly, "a good point."

Diamond snorted, somewhat unfazed. "It's just psychology, really. We people are very good at self-preservation."

"Sometimes, too good."

She nodded. "Exactly."

That seemed to have ended the conversation, because they grew quiet again. Valkyrie wanted to think of something else to ask her on this topic, but she noticed that Diamond's eyes were pinned onto the cars, that sped and conversed ahead of them.

"Did you get to talk to him?" Valkyrie therefore asked.

"Hm?" Diamond made and looked at her with slightly glazed eyes.

"Nuce," She clarified.

"Oh," Diamond nodded, but then shook her head. "Not really. That will have to wait until after this, I'd say. But he seems like a good kid."

Valkyrie nodded agreeingly as well.

"Couldn't imagine that," she continued on softly, "being controlled like that."

Valkyrie, first, was a bit overwhelmed at that broach of topic, even though she knew Diamond had no idea what she was addressing. It took her a moment, before she opted for an, "it is hard to imagine."

That did not seem to evict any more response from her, and Valkyrie was glad for it. She did not fancy going into detail on this topic. After all, the majority of the magic world believed that Darquesse had been nothing but a defective reflection gone rogue. And even though it was not the truth, and even though they all deserved to know the truth much more than she deserved to be protected from it, Valkyrie had decided to be content with that. It saved her, most of all, from having to give a lot of explanations.

They did fall in and out of conversation, mostly on only partly related topics. She assumed, Diamond was trying to distract herself from this, as much as Valkyrie was. And so, the drive went by in relative comfort, as they followed Nuce over the highways, to the ferry, over the water and over more highways, always keeping sufficient to excessive amounts of distance.

Valkyrie realized that she felt comfortable, almost serene, the entire time. It was, as if the calm was radiating from Diamond, like heat waves, trickling over Valkyrie's body and filling the car. And she settled herself into that feeling, letting it carry her through the rest of the ride to Roarhaven.

Nuce walked into the entrance hall of the Irish Sanctuary. He could feel himself shaking, his eyes watering, his breath growing flat, but none of it was actually happening. It was being suppressed by a wall of orders, made him look and move like any other bloke that was walking into the Sanctuary for business.

His eyes hopped over the assembled people here. Nuce tried not to pay too much attention to their faces, or clothes, or anything about them at all, really. He avoided finding any kind of personality in them. Whoever they were, it wouldn't matter soon enough.

But inside of his head, Nuce was screaming at them. Screaming at them to stop him, to knock him out, to kill him, if necessary. Anything but this again. Yet, no one seemed to notice him.

Nuce's hands were still hurting majorly from the last explosion. He might have been a bomb, but no regular human was designed to detonate entire government buildings. The only way he could possibly access that much energy, was under the influence of his True Name.

Nuce had felt it, as he had blown up the first Sanctuary; he had felt the point where he connected to the Source of all magic. He had faced the unthinkable amount of power behind that point; it had been ready for him, waiting, bubbling to burst out and destroy anything in its path. Burst out of him, that was, ravaging through his body before escaping into the world.

And there had been a moment, just a second; a moment of insane enjoyment, as Nuce had first touched that enormous power.

He had liked it, for only that moment, and then, he had stopped liking it, immediately.

Nuce had realized that he was not designed to do this; that he was not a God, or a descendend of one. He was just a regular bloke; designed to never use anything more than the magic he was meant to access since birth. And the power had ripped into Nuce, had overloaded his body, had overwhelmed his brain. It had terrified him, had paralyzed his mind, had trapped him in the process, and he had only been left to watch himself, as his hands had erupted with blasts of flame, which had scorched them until he had smelt his own burning skin.

Besides the general dislike of killing hundreds of people, maybe thousands, this was what Nuce was dreading the most. And yet, he walked on.

Nuce entered one of the hallways that lead to the center of the building. Wells had told him there was a large commune hall, similar to the entrance. He was to blow up there. Just the thought of Wells' voice, alone, made him want to gag.

People passed him in the hallway and Nuce tried to make eye-contact with some of them, but they seemed distracted by phones and files, or just returned his look uninterestedly and walked on. At some point, he inhaled to say something to one of them and regretted it, immediately. A wall of pain hit him, made his stomach curl and his body wanting to bend. But Nuce didn't writhe, or make a noise, or even move his face. He just walked on, while the world turned white, and black, and white, and black, in quick succession, then slowly became clearer again, as the pain seceded.

When he could see properly, Nuce noticed that the amount of people around seemed to decrease slowly. He had no idea why. Theoretically, the further he would get to the main hall, the more people he should see. He frowned without frowning and walked on, keeping an ear and eye out for anything else suspicious.

Nuce walked the last steps in the current hallway, then steered towards the main hall, which came into view slowly, through the entrance. He slowed his steps. There was no one here. The hall was completely empty. Except for one person.

Diamond was sitting on the ground, cross-legged, right in the center of the hall. She looked tiny inside the large room with the tall marble pillars but she smiled, as if she was just really happy to see him.

"Hey, love."

Haugert Wells considered himself a simple man. Educated, yes. Smart, definitely. But not one for high expectations.

For a long time, he had thought those low expectations were a way of unintentional self-protection. After all, that way, he couldn't be disappointed. But Wells had soon learned that even the lowest of expectations could lead to the lowest of disappointments.

So, simple was what he was, he had decided. He wanted a job he liked. Help some people. A decent salary. A warm living room and hot dinner. A bed and a woman to whisper soft words into his ear, until he fell asleep.

Wells had not considered that too much to ask. And still, he had not been allowed any of that. The job had led to betrayal. The living room had become a cell. The lunch, a pile of mud on a metal tray. The bed had become a bunk, and the woman had become his cell mate muttering in his sleep about all of the things he wanted to do to his murder victims, once he was free. Hopefully, Ronny would never go free.

Wells was. He was free now. And yet, he was not. His clunky feet stood on warm pavement. His crooked nose breathed in the city air of Roarhaven. His squinty, brown eyes were set on a fire escape that belonged to the Irish Sanctuary. His small ears were listening to the hustle and bustle inside. And yet, he was not free. In some way, he was still in his cell, staring at the walls; planning. Plotting. Daydreaming. Hoping.

His hopes would come true today. He had made his expectations just right; realistic with a hint of megalomania. And that had paid off big-time.

Well's thin lips grimaced into a grin, when he heard the first explosions echo through the lavish building of the Sanctuary. He slowly backed up, brought some distance between himself and the walls, which were going to be blown up in a minute.

He barely kept himself from excitedly clapping his clunky hands and, instead, kept still and waited.

There was another explosion. And then, another. And another. They were loud, the building gave little quakes, but nothing collapsed.

Wells frowned. What on earth was that idiot doing? He was supposed to blow up the entire thing at once, just like the English Sanctuary, not mess around. That was what happened when one had to rely on a kid; Wells told himself.

Then, he realized that there were no screams. A walking bomb blowing up the Sanctuary? There should be screams.

Unsurely, Wells turned back and forth between the Sanctuary and the area around. But even here, no one was making a fuss. In fact, now that he thought about it, he hadn't seen anyone in a while.

Wells gave a frustrated and slightly scared growl and stomped to the emergency exit. He burst through it and walked into the hallway. At a fork, he looked around. Still no people. His frustration only grew, as he was forced to stomp up a number of staircases on his way.

There was another explosion. Then, two more. He followed the sounds towards the center of the building. At least, the idiot had gotten that much right. Nervously looking around in more empty hallways, Wells eventually reached one of the large double doors that led to the center hall of the Irish Sanctuary. Taking a shaky breath, he pushed through with both arms and burst into the hall.

Wells paused abruptly.

There was the idiot; clapping his hands and causing detonations. But not big ones. Not Sanctuary-destroying ones. Just small ones. His hands were pointed towards a woman that Wells had never seen before.

She had red hair and wore silky pants and blouse that flowed, as she walked calmly in between the massive, three-story-tall, white marble pillars. When she spotted Wells, a smile spread over her face, which made him feel like they knew each other from somwhere.

"Hello there, Haugert," she said with a Brighton dialect.

The only thing he could think of to do was to yell, "what the hell!?"

"We're just having a bit of a match," the woman informed him cheerfully. She shortly disappeared when Evans clapped his hands, and she was covered in flames and rubble that blew up from the ground. When the explosion seceded, she just stood there, perfectly untouched, with that same familiar smile. "I hope you don't mind."

"I do mi…!" Wells started, raging, but soon stopped himself. "What are you doing!?" He snapped at the idiot. "I told you…!"

"You said, kill everyone in the building," Evans replied with back turned to him as he followed the woman, and she continued to walk in snake-lines between the pillars.

"And see there, it's just the three of us. How cozy," she commented.

"Who the hell are you!?" Wells yapped. "You're not even from here! Did Skulduggery Pleasant and his little runt put you up to this? Don't the Irish do their own dirty work anymore?"

"Oh, how silly of me," the woman snickered embarrassedly and fell quiet for a moment, as Evans blew her up again. This time, he hit one of the pillars. It cracked. "My name is Diamond Irie," she introduced herself. "I have been tasked… well, if we're being honest here, I have tasked myself... I suppose, that's what happens when you see your friends be evaporated into ashes in front of your eyes. You task yourself with finding the fool that thought it was a good idea to commit genocide."

"Get to the bloody point!" Wells furiously demanded.

"I'm terribly sorry, I tend to go off on tangents…" Irie continued her tangent, pausing for a moment for herself, and the pillar beside her, to be blown up. Evans was starting to pant a bit under the effort.

"It's really an awful habit but what can I say? Sometimes, there are a lot of things going on, at the same time. And then, this story has this backstory, and the backstory has a backstory, and so forth…" she was covered in flames, and the burst of hot air that followed the pressure wave blew a couple of ginger hair strands into her face. She flicked them back, as if all of this was merely a minor incovenience to her.

"You know what I'm talking about, yeah? You have a backstory too, Haugert, isn't that right? I'm sure you didn't just wake up one morning and decide to kill a whole bunch of Sanctuary employees."

Wells snorted derogatively. "Don't sell me for stupid, Lady. You know exactly why I'm here."

Irie nodded understandingly, disappearing behind a pillar for a moment before coming back into view. "You were robbed of your freedom, is that it? They stuck you in a cell, just for taking a look into the book that you, yourself, had worked so hard to protect."

Finally, someone got it. "Exactly!" Wells hissed. "I was promised access! That's the reason I even got on board with the project!"

"And they screwed you over," Irie nodded empathetically.

"Yes! And they tortured me! But I never told them anything! Anything! I always kept the names safe!"

Evans and Irie exchanged a glance. She grinned, and he grinned and blew her up.

"What!?" Wells barked. "What are you laughing at!?"

Irie sighed, as if she was dreading a serious conversation. "See, Haugert, we're still waiting for the moment where you tell us the reason you are justified to use a kid… no offense, Nuce."

"None taken," he replied and clapped his hands, pressured flames erupting from his palms onto a pillar that Irie was currently walking behind.

"...To use a kid to commit genocide," she finished.

A pang of rage shot up in him, all the way from his feet into his chest and his throat, making his head feel pressurized and hot. "I could have saved millions of lives!"

"Riiight." Evans dragged and blew Irie up. She still emerged with a sturdy step from the flames, untouched and unharmed.

"Look, Haugert," Irie said. "I'm just trying to understand you. If I can understand, maybe, others can understand too. Maybe, we can make a deal. What do you think of that?"

Wells has had enough of this show. "I think you're talking out of your arse! Luminous! Kill her!"

Evans froze, and his eyes grew wide in the way that made him look like a child. It gave Wells the chills every time. He hated children.

Evans turned to Irie and now, his explosions were no longer held-back. His steps quickened, as he followed the ginger around the pillars, slowly hunting her, the explosions following one after another.

"Wells!" Irie called in between the bangs. "The ceiling will collapse!"

He frowned and started looking around. And indeed, almost every one of the pillars were now somehow damaged or cracked. Even if the ceiling could hold on its own, the weight of two thirds of the structure pulling down itself would be enough to cause everything connected to drop along with it.

In the background, the explosions sounded in quick succession.

"Surrender!" Irie yelled before being covered in flames again. "Now!"

"Never!" Wells yelled back at her. And if he was going to die, then rather while fighting the good fight.

There was a crack. It was so loud, Wells could hear it over the sound of the explosions. He looked up and spotted the piece of pillar, which was hanging sideways off its second half. He jogged away from underneath it.

"There don't need to…! Be any more deaths…!" Irie yelled through the sound of Evan's aggressive attacks. "We can resolve this…! Peacefully…!"

"NEVER!" He shouted.

Another crack. Then a pang. More explosions. And then, everything happened very fast. He saw Evans lunge forward and grab for Irie. She was also reaching for him.

When Wells looked up, the pillar split in two, and so did another one, and another one, and with the moans of tons of stone and metal, they collapsed and tipped over. Directly towards him.

Angrily, he looked over at Evans, who had now arrived with Irie. "Luminous!" He screamed over the noise "At least, hit Pleasant when I'm done!"

Then, the ceiling fell on his head and squeezed his body to death like a meat accordion.