Skulduggery Pleasant: Dark Days Read Free

themselves around the cane in his hand.
    The door hit the bed and it moved sharply. Wreath followed Crux out of the window and Valkyrie shoved her bed aside. Her parents barged in, her mother wrapping her in a hug while her dad searched the room for an intruder.
    “Where is he?” he yelled.
    Valkyrie looked at him from over her mother’s shoulder. “Where’s who?” she asked, not having to act a whole lot in order to sound shaken.
    Her father spun to her. “Who was here?”
    “No one.”
    Her mum gripped her shoulders and took a step back so as to look at her properly. “What happened, Steph?”
    Valkyrie scanned the room. “A bat,” she decided.
    Her dad froze. “What?”
    “A bat. It flew through the window.”
    “A…bat? It sounded like you were being attacked in here.”
    “Wait,” her mum said. “No, we heard the window break after everything else.”
    Damn.
    Valkyrie nodded. “It was already in here. I think it was in the corner. It must have flown in a few days ago and, I don’t know, hibernated or something.”
    “Stephanie,” her dad said, “this room is a war zone.”
    “I panicked. Dad, it was a bat. A massive one. I woke up and it was fluttering around the room, and I fell against my desk. It landed on the floor and I tried to push the bed over it. Then it flew straight through the window.”
    Valkyrie hoped it wouldn’t register with her parents that all the broken glass was on the inside.
    Her father sagged as relief spread through him. “I thought something awful was happening.”
    She frowned. “Something awful was happening. It could have got stuck in my hair. ”
    After enduring another few minutes of her parents worrying about her, and checking her feet to make sure she hadn’t cut herself, her mother helped her set up the bed in the spare room and finally said goodnight.
    Valkyrie waited until she was sure they were back in their own bed before she sneaked out of the window. She let herself drop, using the air to slow her descent. Her bare feet touched wet grass and she hugged herself against the freezing cold.
    “He’s gone,” Wreath said from behind her.
    She turned. Wreath stood, tall and handsome in a pale kind of way, dressed in black. He was as tall as Skulduggery, and as calm, but they shared other traits too. They were both excellent teachers. Skulduggery had taught her Elemental magic and Wreath was teaching her Necromancy, but they both treated her as an equal. Not every mage she met did that. Another one of Skulduggery’s talents that Wreath shared was the knack of arriving in the nick of time, for which Valkyrie was particularly grateful. “What are you doing here?” she asked. She didn’t thank him. Wreath didn’t believe in thanks.
    His eyes gleamed when he looked at her. “I heard Remus Crux had been sighted in the area,” he said. “Naturally, I assumed he was coming after you. It seems I was right.”
    “And why didn’t you tell me this?” Valkyrie asked, her teeth chattering.
    “Bait doesn’t needs to know it’s bait. Crux might have sensed a trap and that would have sent him scurrying back into the shadows.”
    “I don’t appreciate being bait, Solomon. He could have gone after my family.”
    “He doesn’t want to hurt your family. We don’t know why he’s after you, but at least we now know that he is. ”
    Wreath wasn’t offering her his coat. Skulduggery would have done that by now.
    “I don’t want this happening again,” she said. “My town is off-limits to this stuff. China Sorrows can put up symbols and sigils to make sure he can’t get into Haggard. Tomorrow that’s what I’m asking her to do.”
    “Very well.”
    “Solomon, next time something like this comes up, I’m expecting you to tell me about it before I’m attacked.”
    He smiled. “I’ll try to remember that. It’s quite safe for you to return to your house. I’ll keep watch until morning.”
    Valkyrie nodded and positioned herself beneath the spare room