Ajuoga gave Fletcher that smile. God, she was so beautiful. She reclined, Devoted scattered about like support columns. Devoted held these women up. Princess sat nearby, feet folded under her, head down.
Fletcher had called her a princess when he had first seen her. He had been lost for words, at half of himself, at the blue eyes. The name had stuck, even when Fletcher had grown to hate her. His little princess, obedient and superior; it was a joke now.
"Last time you visited," Ajuoga said, smile so, so nice, "your friends tried to keep you away from us."
Fletcher gave a little shrug. A smile would work on some of the others, but not her.
"They did."
"And we threatened to kill your favorite daughter, and that was the only thing that brought you back."
Fletcher hesitated, then gave another shrug. "It was."
"Then why should I?"
And then, Fletcher slumped. His arrogance burned away and it was just him, shackled, tired, standing there in front of her. Because he was done pretending. He did that so much now. Because Ajuoga needed to see him broken, and he just couldn't—
"Because I miss my friends," Fletcher finally answered, voice still disinterested.
Something in Ajuoga softened. Princess, next to her, looked at Fletcher in the eye. Deemed him worthy enough of eye contact. His gaze held no warmth for his first child.
"Oh, my love," Ajuoga said. She raised a hand, like Fletcher's sadness had finally raised her to sympathy. "Of course. Of course you may visit."
Suhailah was summoned, and Fletcher's chains were placed on her. Fletcher had to inflate himself again, and he knelt down to her level, grin there and hair styled and back in his—
"You're leaving?" she asked, eyes wide.
"Just for a little bit. I can't stay here all the time, can I?"
And she looked at him, confusion written across her features.
"Why not?"
And Fletcher faltered, smiled, reached out to touch her and stopped himself, stood. He nodded at Ajuoga, hefted his backpack he had brought back last time. He needed a new one; this one was falling apart.
Fletcher teleported.
London. It hit him like a shock. Cars and people and rain, sweet, sweet rain. Fletcher stood on the roof and just let it drench him. Rain. It was still filthy, and Fletcher laughed, and then he was in China.
Then Russia. He teleported to the top of the Eifel Tower and jumped, screaming and he flicked through—cold, hot, rain, wind—and then he was in the middle of the ocean, the Australian coast there.
Fletcher did this over and over again. One mountain, another, towers, planes, over and over again, jumping and flicking through everywhere he had missed. He couldn't see it enough. He gorged himself on pizza from Italy and America and got mochi from Japan and then he was jumping again.
He wasn't sure how long it took, but eventually he was in Ireland.
Nowhere in particular. Just a field, somewhere that was really... Irish. Fletcher sat down, listened to the wind in the grass. He had sat and listened to the waves in Australia, the rain in his hometown. What sweetness sound was.
It took him longer than he would have expected to find them. But he did. Trailing after, like always.
Fletcher knocked on the door. Rang the doorbell. Waited around.
Valkyrie opened the door, scowl already set.
"I thought..." She stared at him. "Fletcher?"
Valkyrie looked different. She was stronger, solid, like she was always going to be. Hair still long, pulled back into a bun. And she seemed... tight. Like if he pushed her, said the wrong word, her whole façade would snap and she would cave in on herself.
Valkyrie's eye twitched, and her mouth tightened, and then she was grinning. Hugging him, so strong she knocked him back a few steps. Fletcher laughed, and she pulled away.
"You're wet."
Fletcher raised an eyebrow, and Valkyrie punched his shoulder. He held up his hands.
"I went swimming, sue me."
Skuduggery returned, and Fletcher shook his hand. Valkyrie was trying so hard to make everything okay. But Fletcher caught her staring off into space, and then she would shake her head violently, force her attention back onto him.
Skulduggery started, too, if anything to make it easier for her.
"The usual," Skulduggery said, standing near the armchair Valkyrie was sprawled in. "Saving the world, wearing nice suits, being all together charming and fantastic. Valkyrie?"
Valkyrie blinked, looking at Skulduggery then Fletcher. "Humble," she said after a moment.
"Did you defeat Darquesse?"
Skulduggery adjusted his cufflinks. "She's gone. Disappeared off of the Sensitives' maps. Whatever they saw, it was averted somehow. I doubt she was even real, more a manifestation of the war. Blackness spreading across the countryside."
Fletcher nodded. "How is... everyone?"
Skulduggery was still, and Valkyrie was gazing off into space. It's like they weren't even there. Like their minds were somewhere else, and eventually Valkyrie looked at them.
"Alice is good," she forced. "Mum, Dad, good. Steph..."
Fletcher's stomach dropped.
"Steph's around," Valkyrie said, looking away. "She asks about you, sometimes. When her husband isn't about."
Skulduggery looked at her, and she was mortified, Fletcher could see it on her face. Tension wracked her frame, and Valkyrie looked at him.
A year. It took them a year to return to the pyramid. By that point, Fletcher had stopped pouting. The chains were a part of him now as he climbed the bridges, high in the air. He didn't even feel them, but he hated raged when they had put them on.
Now, what could he do?
Wails of babies filled the nights. Fletcher listened to them. Night by night, the number of screaming inscreased. He had went to the first few births, but he had seemed out of place. The other Brides looked at him, smiled with a forced politeness, let him hold the child.
Princess had been the most beautiful, the first. So, so beautiful, and even as she screamed in his arms, Fletcher had grinned like an idiot and looked around. He met stony stares. Ajuoga had laughed like something was desperately funny, and Fletcher felt a little lost.
All daughters. He didn't ask what happened to the sons.
And Fletcher paced around. Every corner of the pyramid. Where the Devoted dwelled, the streams that ran without source, the shops, the corners, even the sand for miles and miles around.
Most times, he would just sit, gazing out. Waiting. Waiting.
But there had always been her. She smiled at him, genuine smiles, and when the sand had baked away Fletcher's resolve, it was to her tent he would retreat. She would hold him and smile. No one commented on their relationship.
It wasn't one. He didn't even know her name. Most Brides didn't think it was important. Maybe she didn't, either, but she would hold him.
A year, and she was pregnant. How could he leave?
And then Valkyrie and Skulduggery came back. Fletcher had been sent out to meet them. Valkyrie had started crying, shaking her head. It had been hot. Fletcher was used to it, nothing but a light pair of pants on. Valkyrie was red as a lobster, covered in sand.
"Who won?" Fletcher asked, the first word to friends in a long year.
"We did," Skulduggery said.
"Then where the hell have you been?" Fletcher asked.
Skulduggery paused. "It was a long war."
Fletcher laughed. "Rich. You probably didn't even remember me. I've been stuck here. Where the hell have you been? Why didn't Gracious or Donegan or... What?"
Valkyrie closed her eyes. "They're dead. So many people, Fletch, they're all... We had to clean up. We were... Without us, it would have been..."
"You left me here." Fletcher shook his head. "You said you would come back."
Valkyrie gritted her teeth and opened her eyes. "We are back."
"I can't leave. Not... They'll kill her. They'll kill everyone. They don't even care. They'll kill the Devoted just because they know it'll mess with me. They don't—"
Skulduggery tilted his head. "We'll stop them."
Fletcher laughed in his face. "You and what army?"
Valkyrie looked sick. "I could."
Ajuoga ran at Valkyrie. Valkyrie looking sick and torn, hand pressed against her ear, and finally Fletcher—
"Just stop!" he yelled. "Keep me! Let them go! I won't run away!"
Valkyrie took a breath and fell to her knees, and Ajuoga looked over at him.
"You keep me, Skulduggery and Valkyrie leave, and you don't help the warlocks."
Ajuoga smiled. Fletcher still loved her smile. "And you'll breed with us?"
"Yes."
And maybe, deep down, Fletcher had thought Skulduggery would protest. Wouldn't let Fletcher go like that. But Skulduggery had looked at him with those eye sockets, and then he took Valkyrie and ran away.
But what was Fletcher to Skulduggery? Valkyrie looked close to breaking, so close to doing something. Of course had chosen her.
And they had run away.
But they would be back. They had to.