City Mage.”
“That’s right. It is indeed up to me, thank you very much. I could call them in, go through official channels, follow the rulebook to the letter... or I could let this one slide. If you were to give me your word, say, that there wouldn’t be any more shouting coming from this particular area, I could continue on with my patrol, and trust that you, or the wind, won’t be disturbing your neighbours any further. You have quiet neighbours. They notice things like loud noises.”
“I... I’ll not be shouting, City Mage. You have my word on that.”
“And the wind?”
“I don’t think it’ll be shouting, either.”
The City Mage examined him for a long time. “Have a good evening, sir,” he said, and moved down off the step.
“Thank you,” Walden said as he was closing the door. “Thank you very much.”
Skulduggery accompanied him back to the living room. He put away his gun as Serpine stood.
“Why didn’t you turn us in?” Valkyrie asked.
Walden looked at her. He was pale, but his gaze was strong. “What do you mean? Why would I turn you in? Quickly now, we don’t have much time. What do you need?”
“I told you what we need,” Skulduggery said.
“That’s it? You just want to know what the man said when he killed my mother? He said he was sorry, and then he ran off.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes. He said, I’m sorry, and then off he went.”
“You don’t seem particularly traumatised by the words.”
“People say I’m sorry every day. The words had no effect on me. Him killing my mother, on the other hand...”
“Maybe it’s different,” Skulduggery said. “Maybe the killer in our reality said something else.”
“Listen, I don’t understand any of this, but I was assured that no one from the Resistance would ever contact me. You could get me killed.”
“You work with the Resistance?” Valkyrie asked. “Doing what?”
“I don’t understand. Did China Sorrows send you or didn’t she?”
“She helped us get into the City,” Skulduggery said, “but she didn’t know we were coming to see you. What do you do for them?”
“Does it matter? You break in here, you get the Redhoods and a City Mage knocking on my door, you ask me ridiculous questions about my mother’s murder... Isn’t it time you left?”
“You sneak people out,” Serpine said. “That’s it, isn’t it? You sneak people out through the sewer pipes. I’ve been wondering about that for years. I tried it once myself, got lost down there for days. Also it didn’t smell that great.”
“Please,” Walden said stiffly. “You have to leave, all of you. Before you ruin everything.”
When they left him, he was trembling. They let Serpine walk on ahead, but Skulduggery kept the slate in his hand.
“I’m sorry,” Skulduggery said, and shook his head. “That’s not it. Lament said it was a phrase that stopped Argeddion in his tracks.”
“I don’t want to point out the obvious,” Valkyrie said, “but Lament was under Argeddion’s control when he said that. He was probably lying to us.”
Skulduggery murmured something, then said, “Is that all it is?”
“What do you mean?”
He moved closer, his voice dipping. “The fact is, thirty years ago they trapped Argeddion. Lament, under Argeddion’s control, told us that it was this traumatic phrase that allowed them to do so. The key words there being under Argeddion’s control.”
“So he lied,” said Valkyrie slowly, “which means they trapped him some other way.”
“And obviously Argeddion didn’t want us knowing what that other way was...”
“You still don’t sound convinced.”
The eyebrows on Skulduggery’s face furrowed. “It’s a bit much, that’s all. A phrase from his childhood that triggers a complete emotional shutdown? Why so elaborate? What did it achieve?”
Valkyrie didn’t say anything. She’d found it best to let Skulduggery continue on his own at times like these.
Skulduggery looked around. “It achieved this. Right here, right now. It achieved this.”
“I don’t get it.”
“We are here, in this City, in this dimension, walking down this road, because of what Lament told us.”
“No,” Valkyrie said. “We are walking down this road because Nadir did that shunt thing, and I brought you with me.”
“Nadir reached for me, too. In the prison. He tried to shunt the both of us.”
“So?”
“Mien had Nadir hooked up to the prison for fifteen years – for Nadir, that was fifteen years of being asleep.”
Valkyrie blinked. “And Argeddion was communicating through people’s dreams.”
“Nadir said he didn’t know what we were talking about when we charged him with assault. I thought he was lying. Now I don’t think he was. I don’t think he was even aware he’d done it.”
“So Argeddion got to Nadir in his dreams, talked to his subconscious, and told him to shunt the both of us over here? But how would Argeddion know we’d even want to talk to Nadir in the first place?” She frowned. “Wait. Of course he knew. Greta fed us enough information to lead us to Nadir, and from Nadir we found Argeddion. He’s been controlling Greta, too.”
“Maybe,” Skulduggery said, “or maybe she just shares his optimism about the human race. Either way, he wanted us to come here. This has been his plan all along.”
“But why? So we can get the Sceptre? He wants us to kill him?”
Skulduggery shook his head. “He may not have known about the Sceptre. He probably never even considered it. No, he sent us here for the one thing he didn’t have over there.”
“Which is...?”
“Walden. He wanted us to find Walden.”
“He wanted us to find himself? And do what?”
“He told us, even with the Accelerator he’s still not powerful enough to spread magic to every single mortal on the planet. But with two Argeddions, working together...”
Her eyes widened. “Walden is his surprise guest?”
“And we’ve found him for him. He couldn’t send one of his drones – the further away they are from him, the weaker his control becomes. He needed independent people to come over here with their own agenda.”
“So... so what do we do?”
“What do you think we should do?”
Valkyrie looked back. “The most logical thing would be to... to kill Walden.”
“Agreed.”
“But we can’t.”
“It’s not that we can’t...”
“We won’t, then. We can hide him. You can hide him, and not tell me, so Argeddion wouldn’t be able to find out where he is.”
“That’d only slow him down,” Skulduggery said. He nodded. “OK. Now that we know what Argeddion wants, we can work to make sure it doesn’t happen. The best way to do that is to take advantage of his oversight.”