Disclaimer, for my dear long-term readers: This chapter contains important references to Chapter 15: "Muddled"

Chapter 46: Un-Muddled

Valkyrie jolted awake from a violent nightmare.

She frantically glanced around and realised that she was still at the safehouse in South America, in her assigned bed. It was the dead of night, and she was alone. She sagged and took a moment to catch her breath.

The nightmare had been about Alison. All of Valkyrie's nightmares were about her lately. Alice dancing in Carry's club; Alice tied up in a warehouse; Alice dying from poisonous foam flowing from her mouth; Alice being flung around in the back of a crashing van... And oddly enough, the worst one of all; Alice using magic again.

All of these made sense, Valkyrie gathered. Her gut wrenched at the thought of how long it had been, since she had spent time with her little sister. It hadn't been that long, but it felt really long.

A part of her felt apprehensive at the idea of checking in on her family, but she accepted that it was inevitable. If she didn't do it now, she wouldn't be able to focus on the mission, and all the other girls soon to be in her care.

Valkyrie took a deep breath, got out of bed, and jumped into her pants. She fumbled for her phone and selected a familiar contact. Based on the time zone difference, she estimated that it was broad daylight in Europe. Yet, she hesitated once more, before tapping the dial symbol on her phone screen.

"Hey, mum, how are you doing?" Valkyrie asked, or rather, blurted out the second her call was picked up.

"Hi, sweetie!" Melissa excitedly chirped, "how nice to hear your lovely voice! I'm good, I'm weeding the front lawn, just having a little lemonade break. How are you?"

"I'm okay, how is Alice?"

"Oh, Alice is just grand! They offer self-defense classes for her grade now, and she immediately signed up! Said, she wants to be big and strong when she grows up, just like her sister." She giggled to herself, "can you imagine? Those babies, doing wrestling moves? They look so cute, and so utterly ridiculous!"

"Sounds hilarious, mum," Valkyrie politely chuckled, and hoped that her fading anxiety wasn't all too obvious in her voice. "Is she still getting along with the other kids at school? Is she happy there? Have there been any... incidents?"

"Well, of course there is girl drama here and there... But I'd say, she's about as happy as any kid her age! Can't say that she's having any troubles at school, if that's what you meant?"

It wasn't what Valkyrie had meant, but it answered her question regardless. She relaxed a little bit. "That's good to hear. How's dad?"

"Your dad is at work. All he talks about lately is this new project he's working on...? At this point I sort of blank it out, but he's not a fan of it, that much I can tell you!"

Valkyrie kept up the fake smile on her face. "That's too bad..."

Naturally, her mother knew her too well. Melissa's voice suddenly carried something weary, probably a sense of rising concern. "Everything okay, Steph? You sound a bit... winded."

"Yep, I'm grand!" Valkyrie quickly insisted and put more effort into keeping her voice even. "I guess I just wanted to check in with you. I've been feeling bad about our fight, you know...? We should probably talk that out sometime..."

A moment of silence. Followed by; "what do you mean? Which fight?"

Valkyrie faltered with utter bewilderment. "What do you mean? The fight. The fight we had, about how you and dad don't want Skulduggery training Alison in magic! The fight!"

Melissa sounded just as confounded as her. "Steph, I... I really don't know what you're talking about... We never had a conversation about that, let alone a fight! And yes, I admit, we know that we should probably have the Alice-magic-talk with you, and we've been stalling on that... But I promise you, that never happened."

Valkyrie paused. "Wait... So, we didn't fight? Alice never used magic on her teddy bears?"

"No... There was no fighting..." Melissa slowly insisted, as though she was rightfully doubting her daughter's sanity. "There was also no magic, and no magical teddy bears. Only... regular teddy bears."

Valkyrie quickly tried to collect herself and find a good explanation for all this. She could have sworn she had seen Alison use magic in her bedroom. She could have sworn she'd had a fight over it with her parents.

"Huh, that's weird..." Valkyrie confusedly murmured. "I guess, I don't know all that my magic is capable of yet... Maybe, I was seeing the future?"

"As cool as it would be, if you could see the future... I don't see how we would ever fight over that, Steph. We like Skulduggery! And in either case, if anyone is going to train Alice in magic, of course we would want it to be you!"

Valkyrie's face dropped, as that logic immediately made alot of sense. "Right," she said, in disbelief at herself, "of course you'd want it to be me... I'm her big sister..."

The worry was clear to hear in her mother's voice at her next question. "Stephanie, dear... Are you alright? You know that I try not to pry; your life is your life, and I respect your choices. But first, I don't hear from you for weeks, and now this? During Christmas, things seemed so normal... What makes you so worried about Alice, all of the sudden? You know that you can talk to me about anything, right?"

Valkyrie rubbed her face and sighed. "Yeah mum, I'm okay... Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you like this. I'm abroad, and it's late over here. It was probably just a really vivid nightmare."

"Have you been sleeping enough? Should I bring you some of that camomile and sweet grain tea that your nanny used to make? That should whisk the nightmares away in no time!"

She found herself sniffing with vague bemusement at the offer, "yeah. Yeah, that sounds nice. I'm not home at the moment, but I'll call you when I get back from work, okay?"

"Please at least try to stay safe?"

Valkyrie sniffed again, this time with endearment. "Of course, mum, Skul and I always keep each other safe. Also, we've got lots of other clever people working with us this time. It's a whole team really!"

Melissa sighed with an overt mixture of relief and skepticism. "Okay, good. Tell that man, we still have a dinner to catch up on. See you both real soon?"

"See you soon, mum, love you."

Valkyrie hung up and stared at the floor for a little while. She waited for her thoughts and emotions to come flooding over her at these revelations. When they didn't come, Valkyrie gathered, she would go talk to Skulduggery. Whenever she talked to him, the connections in her brain seemed to click quite automatically.

As she left her bedroom, Valkyrie didn't expect anyone else to be awake in the common area of the cabin. Fletcher had texted her to let her know that he would be sleeping at home, considering their lack of space. Diamond and Ninja were sharing a bedroom, thus, Valkyrie had one all to herself. These acts of generosity were probably a waste now, she gathered.

Valkyrie imagined that Skulduggery was circling the property and guarding the house, or maybe, standing around at the beach and pondering over the dark sea. Yet, as she steered towards the door that led out to the patio, and the stairs that led down to the sand, a bright light caught her eye.

She turned and spotted a lonely screen by the sofa, which was illuminating Nuce's face from below. He was curled up on the cushions, with a pair of big headphones on his ears, sunken into some brand new portable gaming device. He was like a little island of light, in the center of the darkness; a little island of light that was playing video games.

The light of his screen likely made it hard for Nuce to see Valkyrie approach in the minimal glow of the moonlight. He therefore didn't notice her, until she carefully tapped his shoulder.

Nuce hissed and jumped in shock, swirled around to her, and pulled his headphones down to his shoulders.

"Blimey, Valkyrie!" He groaned when he recognized her, "give me a heart attack, why don't you?"

"Sorry," she whispered.

As the shock faded, Nuce curiously mustered her up and down. "What are you doing out of bed, then?"

"I could ask you the same thing."

He shrugged and briefly focused on his console, in order to pause the game he had been playing. "I don't really sleep when I'm away from home," he explained meanwhile, "other than the occasional nap in the car, maybe..."

Valkyrie raised a brow at him, "okay? Why not?"

"Meh," Nuce nonchalantly shrugged again and fiddled around with his console, it seemed, mostly in order to avoid her gaze. "True name stuff."

"Right... So, what are you going to do if this mission drags out? For how long can you keep this up?"

Nuce slimly smirked, "I guess we'll find out." He set his device aside and looked up at her. Now, the only thing illuminating the room was the full moon outside. "How about you? What's your excuse?"

Valkyrie glanced in the direction she believed Skulduggery to be. Then, she walked around the sofa and sat down next to Nuce.

"I had a fight with my parents... Been wrecking my brain over it for months...? Turns out, nope! I dreamed it all. And now that I just found out that I'm apparently crazy, and my mum now also thinks I'm crazy, it's sorta tricky to go back to sleep."

Nuce's brows had risen more at each statement, and all he had to say in the end was; "gotcha..."

Valkyrie deeply sighed and got more comfortable by tucking her legs in beneath herself. "Yeah so... I guess I don't know how to feel about it."

"Well, umm..." Nuce hesitantly said, "you've been through some pretty horrible stuff, yeah? This mission isn't for the faintest of hearts either... So my guess is, you're just... processing things?"

Valkyrie nodded along to the logic. "Makes sense. That makes me think, though... Do the girls have time for me to process things? Earlier today, I let Ninja run in front of a van. I froze up while I processed things, and she got hit, and another girl died."

She expected Nuce to reassure her, about who was to blame or not to blame for the events of today. Instead, he looked outright horrified, as he concluded something entirely different. "Wait... What are you saying? Are you saying you want to go home?"

She faltered. "Well, I mean... It might be in everyone's best interest for me to reevaluate-"

"No, no!" Nuce frantically interrupted, "you can't give up, that's not an option!"

Valkyrie first flinched as his sharp voice cut through the quiet in the old cabin, then she confusedly frowned. "What's that supposed to mean? Sure it's an option."

"No, it's not! Ninja needs you, all of the girls need you! I'm pretty sure that Skulduggery needs you, and I'm absolutely sure that I need you!"

Her frown deepened further, as her head nudged backwards in surprise. "What do you mean, you need me?"

Nuce remembered to lower his voice, but his demeanor only grew more intense with each sharp hand movement. "Are you kidding? Valkyrie, do you understand that you're the only person I've ever heard of, let alone I've worked alongside of, who has literally defeated their true name? You're the main reason why I agreed to work with Diamond in the first place!"

Valkyrie wanted to argue with him about the specifics of that summary. More so, however, she was highly interested in hearing his point. "How so?"

"I could have easily gone back to my old life," Nuce willingly elaborated; "hide behind Nobody's pantleg, stay safe until I'm not, and watch my life pass me by in the meantime. Or I could take a page from your book, accept that I'm screwed anyway, and do something productive while I can."

Valkyrie disagreeably hesitated, "I don't know if I've accepted that, per se..."

"Look, you've seen more evil and traumatizing crap than almost anyone, and that's bound to make you go a little nuts. Really, if you ask me, you've always been nuts. I mean... How old were you when you met Skulduggery?"

Valkyrie felt an involuntary smile play at the corners of her lips. "I was thirteen."

Nuce snorted ironically. "Right, so, you met a spooky-goofy skeleton when you were thirteen, and your first instinct was... Yeah, let's go and get beaten up by criminals together!"

She couldn't help but snicker awkwardly, "yup, pretty much."

He nodded and demonstrably gestured his hand at her, "see? Totally nuts. But here you are, despite everything, doing your job and following your calling. I don't even know what my calling is yet! My problems have barely even started! Seeing you keep fighting, that's what made me want to start fighting! If giving up is all that awaits me anyway, at the other end of this, then what the hell is the point of trying now?!"

Valkyrie quietly mustered him, as well as she could in the darkness.

"I couldn't agree more," Skulduggery said.

She surprisedly glanced in his direction. Skulduggery was standing by the open door to the beach, leaning against a nearby wall, and he had clearly been listening to their conversation for quite a while.

Nuce jumped and gasped in shock again, as his head snapped in the direction of the unexpected voice. "Dammit, you lot! You've got to stop doing that!"

"My sincerest apologies," Skulduggery said, although he sounded far too amused to be truly sorry. "I suppose it's just an unfortunate side-effect of being a spooky-goofy skeleton."

It was hard to see in the dark, but Valkyrie thought to see Nuce blush. This was confirmed to her when, having no trouble detecting this, Skulduggery cheekily chuckled at his reaction.

"So, what, you need me to be your role model too?" Valkyrie bitterly asked him.

Skulduggery curiously tilted his skull at her. "I've always needed you to be my role model. I might have taught you how to fight and investigate and be smart about it, but you taught me how not to be alone. You remind me, every day, of how to care. And I need you to care about these girls, because otherwise, I would have to admit that I've failed you in every aspect of your training."

"I do care about the girls," Valkyrie argued, "but I also care about my little sister. I also care about my parents. And everything that's happened has been pushing me away from them."

Skulduggery slowly shook his head. "No, Valkyrie. I'm sorry, you know that I will always try to take responsibility where I can, and I have done more than my fair share of damage to your life. But this job isn't what has been pushing away your family. You are what's pushing away your family."

Suddenly, Valkyrie felt like crying. Her throat closed up, she could feel the tears shoot up into her eyes, but they didn't flow. "That's not true..."

"Isn't it? In that case, tell me one thing... Why did you suggest that we leave?"

Valkyrie confusedly frowned. "Leave, where? When?"

"When you and I went away to Asia and Alaska."

She shook her head in bewilderment, "because you had business to do there! Because you needed to get away from civilization!"

"I did," Skulduggery partly confirmed, "but you did not. You had just come back from years of exile in the USA, I'm sure you missed your family a lot during that time? Why would you want to turn right round and go away again, for months at a time?"

"Of course I missed them, of course I was happy to be back, but..." Valkyrie began to argue again, "but then...!" She faltered as she realized that she didn't have anything to say that wouldn't be insulting to either of the two men in the room.

"But then, I lost my mind over a miniscule argument and went haywire in the mortal world...?" Skulduggery suggested, "and you realised that you're still needed, sometimes in ways that you don't want to be needed anymore?"

"But then, you met me?" Nuce casually added, "and realised, this true name crap is going to haunt you forever?"

Valkyrie made a face, and still couldn't come up with an inoffensive response.

"Believe me, I understand," Skulduggery gently said. "That's what I used to do, as well. I thought, keeping my family away from the dangers of my work would keep them safe. And all it did, was to keep them away from me, until the day that I lost them for good."

"So, how do I keep them safe?" She helplessly asked, "how do I prevent all my chaos from spilling over into their lives?"

"To the best of your ability." He curtly summarised. "You can stop your sister from being abducted and hurt again, as much as you can stop her from getting hit by a bus on the way home from school. Life is full of unexpected dangers, and you can't control everything. Cutting yourself off from your family, your work, your friends, changing who you are, does not make the world a safer place. As a matter of fact, a world without you by my side would be a much more dangerous place."

Valkyrie thought about it for a moment. Then she mustered up a vaguely teasing smirk, "and also... You need me, and you love me?"

Skulduggery regarded her quietly for a moment. He glanced at Nuce. Mustered her again.

"Also, I need you," Skulduggery then said. "And I love you, Valkyrie."

Valkyrie brightly beamed, "love you too!" She meaningfully looked at Nuce, "you should be honored; you've just witnessed history being made!"

Nuce looked confused, "huh?"

She waved it away, "nevermind." Her smile faded as she made her decision. It soon returned, but only at half its previous strength. "Okay, fine. I'll stay."

Skulduggery's jaw opened for a positive response, but Valkyrie raised a finger to interrupt him. His jaw shut again.

"I'll stay for this mission," she clarified. "We'll free the girls, and afterwards I'm going to spend some quality time with my family. Then, and only then, I'll think about whether I should be joining the next mission."

"I suppose, that's an acceptable course of action..." Skulduggery said.

"Cool," Nuce said.

Valkyrie stood up. "As for right now, I'm going to give sleeping another try," she announced. "See you tomorrow morning."

The two men wished her a good night and, as Valkyrie walked to the door of her room, she saw them silently nod to each other. As she shut the door behind herself, Skulduggery went back to the beach, and Nuce went back to playing his video game.

Come hold me down, I've gone too far. These heavy words, your open heart

Somebody hold my head up

Ayayaya... Is the world we're saving getting in our ways?

Ayayaya... Is the world we make hidden in our ways?

Come hold my breath and cross my heart. I won't come back and steal your guard

Somebody hold my head up

- "Yayaya", RY X (2019)

Valkyrie and Skulduggery stood in a large warehouse and supervised the preparations.

They were the only two stationary people in an ever-growing group of busy sanctuary employees. The warehouse was an otherwise bland and lifeless place. It was made of concrete and grey, magically-reinforced, tempered steel.

This secret location was, as Valkyrie had wisely suggested, somewhere in the United States. By the hot temperatures and low humidity, she could tell that they were somewhere in the Southern half of the country. This made sense to her, as a lot of the South-Western States had some exceedingly rural areas, where endless and perfectly straight roads cut through miles and miles of barren desert.

Diamond was whisking around the place, weaving between medical tables and equipment, as it was being set up for the upcoming operation. Alongside her, six healers from three different countries worked to prepare and clean up the surgery space. A pair of Irish healers, two Americans, and two Romanians. Soon, seventeen girls would line up to have the tracking devices cut out of their legs.

One of these healers was Reverie Synecdoche, who had naturally been supplied by China. She seemed to have specifically tasked herself with instructing her new shadow. An unusually happy-looking Ninja was following her around, intently watched her work, and confidently took on any task she was entrusted with. In a moment, Ninja would volunteer as a Guinea pig, and be the first girl to have her killer-device removed via improvised surgery.

Behind the medical area, an inconspicuous door led to a staircase. A large parking garage was hidden beneath their feet, where three vans were waiting to take the girls to their next secret destination. Nuce and Fletcher had disappeared through that door a while ago, and Valkyrie was inclined to go downstairs and join them there.

She was feeling quite useless, merely standing around and watching everyone else work. Even Skulduggery was busy, as he had helped with determining the setup. Then, he had instructed their ten guards and three cleavers for the case of an emergency. Now, he was standing next to her, attentively keeping track of everything, and occasionally calling something helpful over to Diamond. Only Valkyrie was standing around and doing nothing of note.

She was therefore glad when her inactivity soon turned into availability, as the opportunity for an intriguing conversation presented itself.

"Hi, Skulduggery!" A soft but cheerful voice said, right beside them.

They turned their heads and spotted an unfamiliar young woman.

She had straight brown hair, which barely reached down to her shoulders. Her body was of about average height, and it was fit but slender and gently curved. Her face wasn't exactly remarkable or especially memorable, but it had something soft and dainty to it. Her brown eyes sparkled with something like sheer enjoyment of life itself.

She was cute.

"Ah, hello," Skulduggery said in recognition, "glad you could join us."

"Happy to be here!" The cute brunette said, with a cheerful smile that proved her point.

"Hi, I'm Valkyrie." Valkyrie said.

The brunette's smile grew a little shy, when she was adressed by her. "Yeah, I know..."

"And you are?" Valkyrie asked and held out her hand for a proper greeting.

She blushed as she accepted her hand, "oh I'm nobody..."

Valkyrie confusedly frowned, as their hands parted, "okay...? I'd still like to know your name, if we're going to be working together."

"You could choose one," the brunette shrugged, "I'm not picky."

"What, no? I'm not going to choose a name for you," Valkyrie said with growing bewilderment.

"Why not? You're name is cool! I'd love to have one like yours!"

"Umm... You're around my age right?" Valkyrie inferred, "how have you been operating without a chosen name?"

"You're right, we are close in age," the brunette replied.

"That's not what I asked."

"All you need to know is that she's a nobody," Skulduggery amusedly said, knowing full well that this would only add to Valkyrie's confusion.

"That's pretty rude, Skul," Valkyrie told him.

"Oh it's quite alright," the cute brunette smiled. "I've gotten used to it by now."

Valkyrie stood there for a moment and tried to wrap her head around the nonsensical conversation she was having. Then an idea finally clicked in her mind.

"Oh!" She realized, "now I get it! You're Code-Nobody!"

The cute brunette approvingly smiled, "heyya."

"Awww, I had hoped we could drag this out a little longer," Skulduggery half-heartedly complained, "who'd have thought that you becoming smarter would make things less interesting for me...?"

Valkyrie rolled her eyes at him, and then curiously mustered the woman called Nobody. "Didn't we talk on the phone? You're the one that got us the intel on Nuce and Haugert Wells, right? The day we met him and Diamond?"

"Uh-huh," Nobody confirmed, clearly happy about her various conclusions.

Valkyrie pulled an uncertain grimace. "This might be a weird question to ask a stranger, but..."

The cute brunette didn't seem to mind answering more questions, "yeah?"

"When we talked on the phone, you had, umm... A different voice?"

"You mean, this one?" Nobody asked but, suddenly, they had a completely different voice than a moment earlier.

As though their vocal cords had briefly been swapped out, they now spoke with a distinctively masculine voice. It was the exact same voice from the phone, Valkyrie quickly realized; the one that spoke nondescript English, without any accent.

Valkyrie blinked at Nobody with a mixture of clear surprise and vague unease. "Umm, yeah... That one."

Thankfully, the cute brunette continued speaking with her previous, suiting voice. "Yes, I spoke to you with my original voice that day. But I have many voices," she added with a smile, "and I have many faces."

The blink of an eye later, Nobody was no longer a cute brunette. Where the girl had previously stood, there was now a guy.

He was tall and fit, and he had crystal clear blue eyes, blonde hair, and blonde beard stubble. He had an attractive smirk, and he vaguely reminded Valkyrie of Dexter Vex.

"Some of them are brand new, like this one," the blonde guy smoothly told her.

Valkyrie merely blinked once, and during the split second that it took for her eyelids to shut and spring open, Nobody had changed their form again. The man had turned back into the woman from before, and Valkyrie found that she was happy to see her again.

"And some of them I've worn before," the cute brunette concluded.

After a second of processing what she had just heard and seen, Valkyrie's eyes widened. "Wait... Are you a Shapeshifter?"

Nobody giggled at the mere suggestion, "oh, no. As far as anyone knows, Diamond is the only Shapeshifter. I guess, at the very most, I'm something of a... mind-shifter?"

"That's a discipline?"

"Nope, it's not."

Valkyrie shook her head, in order to ignore that nonsensical reply and stay on track. "So, what is your discipline? How are you changing your body like that?"

"I'm not changing my body. I am, what they call, an Illusionist," she clarified. "What you see and hear isn't entirely real. It's light and energy, projected onto a blank canvas."

Valkyrie found herself frowning in confusion again. "A blank canvas?"

Skulduggery, who had been watching the exchange with obvious entertainment until now, decided to speak up at the topic. "We've just recently encountered another powerful Illusionist. Any guess, as to whom?"

Valkyrie raised a brow at him. "You mean... Bax Hench?"

He contentedly nodded at her quick insight. "Nobody and Bax Hench both practice the adept discipline of Illusionism. However, they occupy different branches of the discipline. Hench specializes in tricking one's perception, which can be used on any creature with sensory capabilities. Which is, I suppose... all creatures, including myself."

"Hench wields illusions of invisibility, so he can make real things disappear and reappear like an off-and-on switch," Nobody agreeably filled in the explanation, "I wield kinetic illusions, so my magic works a bit more like sensitive magic or healing magic. I can make you see and feel all kinds of elaborate, made-up things. But to an extent, they only exist in your mind, they aren't really there."

This time around, Valkyrie nodded along to their logic, "makes sense."

"That gives my magic a bit more range than Hench's, I guess..." The brunette humbly noted, "but on the flipside, my illusions only work on people with a living brain. So, for example, I can't trick someone like Skulduggery."

"I can always see their real face, and hear their original voice," Skulduggery proudly declared.

Valkyrie was careful as ever, as she phrased her next question. "And your real face is... A blank canvas?"

"Yep," Nobody nodded.

"Imagine my surprise," Skulduggery cheerfully recalled, "when I walked into Diamond's living room and spotted, sitting right there on the sofa, another faceless man."

"Imagine my surprise," Nobody amusedly countered, "when I realised, half an hour into the conversation, that he had been staring at my real faceless face the entire time."

Skulduggery tilted his head at her. "I was trying to be polite."

She gifted him a lovely smile. "You were very polite."

"Umm..." Valkyrie awkwardly asked, "so, what does a blank-canvas-face even... Look like?"

The cute brunette hesitated by rubbing the back of her neck and lightly swinging her upper body side-to-side. "Well, that particular show-and-tell might have to wait until another day."

"You have to buy her dinner first," Skulduggery knowingly informed her.

"Oh," Valkyrie said. Then, she shrugged and smiled at Nobody, "sure. I'll buy you dinner."

Nobody happily giggled.

"Just make sure you wear the same persona," Skulduggery expertly advised. "This one seems to be working out well for you."

The cute brunette beamed at him, "duly noted!"

Once again, Valkyrie felt as though she was three steps behind on the conversation. "Persona?"

"Well... I'm nobody. I can be anybody," Nobody vaguely explained, "that goes for my mind the same as yours. So, right now, I'm this person. And in a day, or in an hour, or in a minute... I might decide to be someone else. You might call it a personality as well, but persona sounds better, wouldn't you say?"

Valkyrie nodded and tried not to look too creeped out, at the concept of someone who didn't have their own personality. "Sure... yeah..." she said, "persona sounds good..."

Before she could ask anything else about that mind-shifting aspect of their magic, the conversation was interrupted by Diamond.

"Hey Nobody," she said as she walked up to them from the hospital beds. She looked happy to see them, and yet too serious about her job to gift them her usual smile. "Thanks for coming."

The brunette greeted Diamond with a peck on the cheek. "Hi, sweetie. Where's Nukey-boy?"

"Nuce's downstairs in the car park, checking on the vans," she informed them. "Do you have the keys?"

"They do," Skulduggery knowingly confirmed.

Nobody shot him a bemused and mildly flirtatious smile, and handed Diamond a thin black leather briefcase.

Valkyrie stared at the briefcase in awe. She had no idea where it had suddenly come from!

Diamond didn't look fazed by its abrupt appearance. She cradled the case with one arm, and unlocked the clasps with the other hand. She lifted the lid and revealed seventeen black fob keys, which had been neatly fastened to the inside lining of the case.

Three gaps stood out like a sore thumb. This was where the keys for Ninja, Nora, and Girl Eighteen should have been.

Valkyrie felt her lips thin automatically, as the reality of the coming mission heavily settled in with her. She might have battled gods and literally saved the world several times in her lifetime, but saving these seventeen girls now felt just as important. And as she was reminded of what they were about to fight for, she felt her determination reinvigorate tenfold.

Diamond approvingly nodded to Nobody and shut the briefcase. "Nice work. How was your meeting with Bax Hench?"

"Oh, it was just positively thrilling!" Nobody replied, and she seemed to mean it. "What a charming guy, and a tough cookie to crack too! I made up some story about how Skulduggery and Nuce - aka. my client and his nephew - were unimpressed by Carry's performance, and that they want to buy her club. And, well... Hench sold it to me."

"Do you think he bought your performance?" Skulduggery wanted to know, "could he suspect that you're at all connected to us?"

Her smile thinned significantly, and she sighed before admitting; "to be completely honest with you...? I have no idea. You probably won't be surprised to hear; Hench wasn't exactly easy to read, even for me."

"Sounds like one hell of a negotiation," Valkyrie commented.

Nobody's mildly flirtatious smile returned as it was directed at her. "Wanna watch, next time?"

She returned the smile. "I just might."

Nobody blushed.

Diamond looked like she wasn't in the mood for any more banter or exchanges of pleasantries. "Ninja and the healers are all ready on their end. How about you lot?"

"Born ready," Valkyrie and Nobody both said.