Valkyrie was getting all sorts of weird new thoughts today. The one passing through her mind right now, for example, would be how the priest from earlier might react if she and Fletcher reappeared and tried to explain that God wasn't really all that mysterious. In fact, He enjoyed watching Lord of the Rings with His angels at midnight screenings. Maybe people needed to take the whole Created-in-God's-own-image with a lot less salt and metaphor.

And on an equally amusing note, her dad would have flipped if he'd known who he was talking to. And if he was able to get over the shock in less than a second.

"Have you watched Lord of the Rings yet?" Des asked her suddenly.

Valkyrie turned to frown at him. "Of course I have. Who hasn't? It's a classic."

"So is Star Wars," Des pointed out, "and I still haven't been able to get you to watch that."

Valkyrie froze. "Ah. Right." She decided not to mention that Tanith had sat her down and made her watch the whole thing over the course of a weekend. "I'll get to that soon, I promise."

"I hate to interrupt," Skulduggery interrupted, tossing Valkyrie her phone back. "But remember how we've been dodging your principal most of this afternoon?"

Valkyrie tried not to shudder at the thought of Guild being her principal. She knew the deception was more for Gabe and Fletcher's benefit, anyway. "Yeah."

"We need to go back and meet with him. Well, I say 'we.' I really mean me. It's a school night for you."

One of the problems with Valkyrie's earlier gleeful realization that she would finally be able to tell when Skulduggery was joking turned out to have one major flaw. She had no idea what a joking expression looked like on him. He was smiling, but it was a polite smile, and there was so much she couldn't ask with her parents in the room. First and foremost being, didn't Guild want each and every single one of them in prison? And wasn't Davina Marr out for Skulduggery's head? ... Figuratively speaking.