Skulduggery Pleasant. Derek Landy

looked up. They had arrived outside a crumbling old tenement building, its wall defaced with graffiti and its windows cracked and dirty. She followed him up the concrete steps and into the foyer, and together they ascended the sagging staircase.

      The first floor was quiet and smelled of damp. On the second floor, splintered shards of light escaped through the cracks between door and doorway into the otherwise dark corridor. They could hear the sound of a TV from one of the apartments.

      When they got to the third floor, Stephanie knew they had arrived. The third floor was clean, it didn’t smell and it was well-lit. It was like an entirely different building. She followed Skulduggery to the middle of the corridor and noticed that none of the doors were numbered. She looked at the door Skulduggery knocked on, the door that had a plaque fastened to it: ‘Library’.

      While they waited there, Skulduggery said, “One more thing. No matter how much you might want to, do not tell her your name.”

      The door opened before she could ask any more questions and a thin man with large round spectacles peered out. His nose was hooked and his wiry hair was receding. He wore a checked suit with a bow tie. He glanced at Stephanie then nodded to Skulduggery and opened the door wide for them to come through.

      Stephanie realised why none of the doors were numbered – it was because they all led into the same room. The walls between apartments had been taken away in order to accommodate the vast number of books on the shelves. Stacks and stacks of books, a labyrinth of bookshelves that stretched from one side of the building to the other. As they followed the bespectacled man through the maze she saw more people, their attention focused on their reading, people half-hidden in shadow, people who didn’t look exactly right…

      In the middle of the library was an open space, like a clearing in a forest, and in this open space stood the most beautiful woman Stephanie had ever seen. Her hair was black as raven wings, and her eyes were the palest blue. Her features were so delicate Stephanie feared they might break if she smiled, and then the lady smiled and Stephanie felt such warmth that for an instant she never wanted to be anywhere else but at this lady’s side.

      “Stop that,” said Skulduggery.

      The lady let her eyes move to him and her smile turned playful. Stephanie stared, enraptured. Her body felt so heavy, so clumsy; all she wanted to do with her life was just stand here, in this spot, and gaze at pure and true beauty.

      “Stop that,” Skulduggery said again, and the lady laughed and shrugged and looked back at Stephanie.

      “Sorry about that,” she said, and Stephanie felt a fog lift from her mind. She felt dizzy and staggered, but Skulduggery was there, a hand on the small of her back, supporting her.

      “My apologies,” the lady said, giving her a small bow. “I do forget the effect I have on people. First impressions and all that.”

      “Seems like every time you meet someone new, you forget that little fact,” Skulduggery said.

      “I’m a scatterbrain, what can I say?”

      Skulduggery grunted and turned to Stephanie. “Don’t feel self-conscious. The first time anyone sets eyes on China, they fall in love. Believe me, the effect lessens the more you get to know her.”

      “Lessens,” the woman named China said, “but never entirely goes away, does it, Skulduggery?”

      The detective took off his hat and looked at China, but ignored her question. China smiled at Stephanie and handed her a business card. It was eggshell white and bore a single telephone number, etched with delicate elegance.

      “Feel free to call me if you ever stumble across a book or an item you think I might be interested in. Skulduggery used to. He doesn’t any more. Too much water has flowed under that proverbial bridge, I’m afraid. Oh, where are my manners? My name is China Sorrows, my dear. And you are…?”

      Stephanie was about to tell China her name when Skulduggery turned his head to her sharply, and she remembered what he had said. She frowned. The urge to tell this woman everything was almost overwhelming.

      “You don’t need to know her name,” Skulduggery said. “All you need to know is that she witnessed someone breaking into Gordon Edgley’s house. He was looking for something. What would Gordon have that someone might want?”

      “You don’t know who he was?”

      “He wasn’t anyone. His master, that’s who I’m after.”

      “So who do you think his master is?”

      Skulduggery didn’t answer and China laughed. “Serpine again? My darling, you think Serpine is the culprit behind practically every crime.”

      “That’s because he is.”

      “So why come to me?”

      “You hear things.”

      “Do I?”

      “People talk to you.”

      “I am very approachable.”

      “I was wondering if you’d heard anything: rumours, whispers, anything.”

      “Nothing that would help you.”

      “But you have heard something?”

      “I’ve heard nonsense. I’ve heard something that doesn’t even deserve to be called a rumour. Apparently Serpine has been making inquiries about the Sceptre of the Ancients.”

      “What about it?”

      “He’s looking for it.”

      “What do you mean? The Sceptre’s a fairy tale.”

      “Like I said, it’s nonsense.”

      Skulduggery fell silent for a moment, as if he was storing that piece of information away for further study. When he spoke again, it was with a new line of questioning. “So what would Gordon have that he – or anyone else – might want?”

      “Probably quite a lot,” China answered. “Dear Gordon was like me: he was a collector. But I don’t think that’s the question you should be asking.”

      Skulduggery thought for a moment. “Ah.”

      Stephanie looked at the two of them. “What? What?”

      “The question,” Skulduggery said, “is not what did Gordon have that someone might want to steal, but rather what did Gordon have that someone had to wait until he was dead in order to steal it?”

      Stephanie looked at him. “There’s a difference?”

      China answered her. “There are items that cannot be taken, possessions that cannot be stolen. In such a case, the owner must be dead before anyone else can take advantage of its powers.”

      “If you hear anything that might be of use,” Skulduggery said, “will you let me know?”

      “And what do I get in return?” China responded, that smile playing on her lips again.

      “My appreciation?”

      “Tempting. That is tempting.”

      “Then how about this?” Skulduggery said. “Do it as a favour, for a friend.”

      “A friend?” China said. “After all these years, after everything that’s happened, are you saying that you’re my friend again?”

      “I was talking about Gordon.”

      China laughed and Stephanie followed Skulduggery as he walked back through the stacks. They left the library and travelled back the way they’d come.

      When they were out on the street, Stephanie spoke up at last.

      “So that was China Sorrows,” she said.

      “Yes,