No.

No one was like that. Not in real life. Barney had his wallet out down in front of the doors for a few seconds - enough to see a picture of a little girl, maybe, but a tiny black printed date?

There was something else going on here.

Barney had promised the girl - Valkrie - that he wouldn't ask questions, but that was before the man she'd been helping received proper medical attention. And Barney had made no such promise here, to these people. "That's not it," he disagreed with a shake of his head, the uncertainty in his tone more from trepidation than any real belief that he was wrong. "You knew Allie." And not from any picture, either. "You knew the people downstairs. Who are you?"



"Ghastly is a name I came up with over four hundred years ago," Ghastly told her after a moment of quiet. "It's been my name for so long that I doubt anyone remembers what it used to be anymore."

That wasn't, strictly speaking, true. Skulduggery probably remembered, just as Ghastly remembered Skulduggery's given name. But that wasn't the point here. The point was to keep talking, keep Allie entertained and off her guard, so that maybe she wouldn't see just how deeply her words had affected Ghastly.

She was a child. A very mature child, wise beyond her years, but still. A child. A child whose mother may or may not have been a sorcerer, if she'd known that names were important. If she was, she hadn't told Barney.

And yet. Ghastly had a sudden idea that if Allie did see the scars, once she was over her initial shock, her opinion of him wouldn't change one bit.

"All manner of names suit all manner of people," Ghastly added quietly. "You'll find that a lot of my friends have weird names, too."