"Around," Fletcher said.

Ghastly nodded, but the floodgates of conversation didn't burst open. This in itself was unusual. For as long as Ghastly had known him, Fletcher had never known when to shut up. To see him standing there in the corridor, hands in his pockets, eyes cast to the floor and giving one-word answers, was more than a little unsettling.

"Come inside," Ghastly said, unlocking the office door and walking in. He removed his robe, hung it on a hook on the wall and loosened his tie. He went to the side table and plugged in the kettle. "Cup of tea?" he asked.

"Sure."

"Fletcher," he said, "I'm not one of life's great conversationalists, so you're really going to have to help me out here. Start talking about something."

Fletcher looked at him. "Have you found a cure for Tanith yet?"

"Start talking about something else."

"Why?"

"Because I said so."

"You're mad that you don't know how to help her," Fletcher said, "and you're mad that you haven't found her yet, aren't you?"

"Is that what you wanted to talk about? Because I don't see what this conversation will lead to, other than annoying me."

"You asked her out."

"Fletcher, I have things to do."

"You asked her out, finally, and she said yes. She kissed you, then went away. And that's the last you saw of her before the Remnant got into her. And now she's out there somewhere, no one knows where, but she's out there with Billy-Ray Sanguine."

Ghastly looked at the kid and said nothing while he waited for the flash of anger to fade. He saw the hurt in Fletcher's eyes. "This is about Valkyrie?" he asked.

The boy looked at the floor again. "We broke up. She broke up with me. I'm sorry. I know it's different. I know Valkyrie hasn't been possessed and she's not gone, not like Tanith is. But... you loved Tanith, and then all that happened. You had her, you finally had her, and you lost her. How do you deal with that?"

"I drink a lot of tea. Fletcher, I've been around for a long time. I've been in love too many times to count. I'd like to say it gets easier, but it doesn't. The pain you're feeling now is the pain you're going to feel again and again. The advantage of having lived through this is that I do know I'll come out the other side. The pain lessens. You manage to distract yourself until the distractions become more important than the thing you're distracting yourself from."

"Do you think she loved you?"

"I don't know. I don't know if I want to know. If she did love me, then I wasted a lot of time thinking about it instead of doing something."

"I don't think Valkyrie loved me," Fletcher said, and suddenly laughed. "I'm sorry, this is so stupid. You probably think I'm just a stupid kid. I don't know anything about love or any of that."

"You know enough for it hurt."

The smile faded. "Yeah. She said she loved me. She made a joke, said something and then said 'and that's why I love you' and I latched on to it. Like an idiot. I decided to believe that this was her way of telling me how she felt. But she was making a joke. And I knew she was making a joke. But I wanted to believe it so much."

The kettle boiled. Ghastly made two mugs of tea while Fletcher talked on.

"It's pathetic," Fletcher said. "I went from thinking I was top geezer, the last Teleporter in the world, to someone who followed her around like a puppy. All she had to do was call, and I'd be there. The last two years of my life, of my life, have revolved round her. That's two years of me living for someone else. How sad is that? Nothing was more important than her. I offered her everything because I could give her everything. I could take her anywhere. There was nothing I wouldn't do for her and she knew that. She accepted it. I'd become, like, a part of her life, but not in a good way. Not in a healthy, happy, boyfriend kind of way. She knew she had me, faithful old Fletcher, and she knew that all she had to do was click her fingers and she'd get whatever it was she needed. I made her life easier.

"And whenever she or Skulduggery, or even Tanith, was in danger of taking something too seriously, they turned to the easy target. They turned to me and made a joke. I was OK with it, actually. It meant something, at the time. It meant I was part of the group, I was one of the gang."

"And it meant you could spend more time around her," Ghastly said, sitting on the edge of his desk, "which is all you really wanted."

"Yeah," Fletcher murmured. He looked at the mug of tea in his hand, but didn't drink from it. "But all that's gone now. She's with Caelan. Did you know that? She was seeing him behind my back."

Ghastly hid his surprise. "That... doesn't sound like Valkyrie."

"Well, there you go. She cheated on me with a b.l.o.o.d.y vampire. A vampire. Are... are you smiling?"

"Yes," Ghastly said sadly. "I am. I never thought we'd have so much in common, to be honest. The girl you love is in the arms of another, and that other happens to be a murderous monster. And the woman I love is in the arms of a psychopathic hitman. What a pair we make."

"I can't help it," said Fletcher. "Images of Valkyrie and that... thing, of the two of them together, keep coming into my head."

"I've been living with something like that for the past few months. It makes your insides go cold, doesn't it? It makes you want to kill someone."

"I want to kill the vampire," Fletcher said softly.

"The feeling is natural. I don't blame you for that at all. And while I know you're a good kid, and you're not a killer, I am going to say this a that's a road you don't want to go down."

Fletcher put the mug on the worktable, spilling some of his tea. "I just need to show Valkyrie that she's wrong," he said. "I just need to show her that she's made a mistake. I need to prove myself."

"You want to make her beg to take you back."

"No. No, of course not."

"You want to punish her."

"Fine," Fletcher snapped. "Yes. Is that wrong? She's the one who cheated on me."

"It's never going to happen," Ghastly said. "This is Valkyrie we're talking about. She doesn't beg. If she changes her mind, she'll come at you with a very practical reason why you're getting back together. If you put her in a position where she'd have to beg, she's going to walk away out of sheer principle."

"So... how do I get her to take me back?"

"I don't know. But my first suggestion is to take some time."

Fletcher frowned. "What? No. The longer I leave it, the more Caelan will sink his fangs into her."

"Caelan doesn't matter. He's never mattered. That's not going to last. Guys like that never do. But you'll do yourself no favours if you run up to her with tears in your eyes."

"I never mentioned tears," he said defensively.

"A friend of mine once said that a man never got a woman back by begging on his knees. Give yourself some time. Get over the pain. Man up. Then go back to her. Let her see what she's missing. I'm not saying it's going to work, but I'll be honest, it's your best shot."

Fletcher nodded. "Thanks, Ghastly. I didn't have anyone else to talk to. I'm pretty sure I don't even have any friends. Valkyrie was my only friend."

"Then you need to get yourself a life, kid."

"Yeah," said Fletcher. "Yeah, I do."

Chapter 38.

Back at the Window Again

tapping woke her.

Valkyrie groaned, turned over in bed, cracking her eyes open to look over at the window. The morning sunlight framed the curtains, and through a sliver of an opening she saw Skulduggery's gloved hand. Her parents were gone but she still lay where she was, unsure if she even wanted to talk to him. Then she got up, wrapped the sheet around herself, and walked over. She pulled the curtains apart and undid the latch, then returned to her bed. She was snuggling down again as the window opened and Skulduggery climbed in. Valkyrie turned so she was facing the wall.

"I'm in bed," she told him. "I'm having a lie-in."

"I can see that. Do you plan on rising any time soon?"

She shrugged.

"Oh," he said. "So that's it."

She waited for him to continue.

"I was wondering how you were going to punish me for not confiding in you. Punishment, actually, is something I've been thinking about for a long time. What form of punishment is enough for what I did? Imprisonment? Death? Something else? Something scarier? I could only think of so many horrible tortures before they stopped having meaning. But you, you've come up with a punishment I never considered. You're going to sulk me to death."

"I'm glad you find this amusing."

"I've had years to see the funny side."

"What do you expect me to do? It's not the... This isn't about the Vile thing. Yes, it's awful, yes, it's insane, but OK, it happened, it's in the past."

"Not as in the past as we'd like."

"Shut up."

"Of course. You were saying?"

"This is about you and me, and you not telling me the truth. It's about-"

"May I interject?"

"No."

"I'm going to interject anyway, simply to point out that you only told me about the 'Darquesse thing' after you had Nye seal your true name. You may continue."

She turned over, and glared at him. "That was different."

"Yes, it was. It was you."

"I kept it from you because I was scared and confused and I didn't know how you'd react..." She faltered. "Shut up."

"I didn't say anything."

"You didn't have to. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking the things we didn't tell each other cancel each other out. You're thinking if I keep on being angry with you, I'll eventually realise that I don't have a leg to stand on, and start to feel stupid. Well, you're wrong. I do have a leg to stand on. And I never feel stupid."

"That's good to hear."

"You should have told me about Vile."

"And you should have told me about Darquesse. And please remember that when you did, eventually, get around to telling me, I accepted it with grace and understanding."

Valkyrie narrowed her eyes. "Because you knew what it was like. That's why you took it so well! I thought you were just being really nice!"

"I'm often nice, but rarely really. I couldn't be angry with you, Valkyrie. I am many things, but I am not a hypocrite. Are you?"

"That isn't fair."

"Are you?"

She sighed, and sat up, holding the sheet against her. "OK. Fine. I forgive you. And now that we're confessing, is there anything else you'd like to tell me? Any other huge big ma.s.sive secrets you've been hiding?"

"Virtually none."

"Virtually?"

"Practically. And you?"

"Being the psycho who kills the world is the only one worth mentioning."

"Excellent. Then our consciences are clear."

"Is that it? Do we go back to being friends now?"

"I certainly hope so. Unless you were enjoying sulking?"

"I hate sulking."

"You're very good at it."

"Thank you. I didn't think it'd be this easy a going back to being friends, I mean. It's a pretty big thing that just happened, isn't it? There's a part of you that's... evil."

"Yes."

"Just like there's a part of me that's evil."