If Skulduggery had been about to respond - Valkyrie was pretty sure he wouldn't, but if he'd been about to - she cut him off before he could. "He doesn't explain things to me if I don't ask. Isn't that something we should be worried about anyway? Scarab's not going to come quietly, and..." Magic would be most convenient, if he was going to resist. Magic always was. But Valkyrie suddenly realised she had absolutely no idea whether Scarab was an Adept or an Elemental.

She glanced back at Skulduggery. His disguise was still firmly in place, which made it impossible to tell how he was feeling - until he reached up and slowly adjusted his hat.

Slowly. Cautiously. Going through the motions of acting like nothing was wrong, and probably consciously or he wouldn't be doing it so slowly. He didn't try to defend himself, even after Valkyrie's voice trailed off. Not even with the dry humour she'd come to love him for.

Valkyrie had only just met Corrival, but the fact that he intimidated Skulduggery into a cautious silence, she didn't like. It made her think, again, about what was going to happen to Skulduggery now. There was no way his friends could know about what he'd done during the war and just let it slide. Valkyrie was still trying to work her way back to trusting Skulduggery again, and she hadn't even been there. She'd never seen Lord Vile.

Mentally, she shook herself. Skulduggery did too much good in the world for him to just be locked up, and it wasn't fair. It wasn't right, and it wasn't fair. But she couldn't worry about any of that right now with so many lives at stake. "If he uses magic," she finished her earlier question, "and we can't, does that mean he'll just get away?"

"Not if we have anything to say about it," Ghastly answered.