“We’re taking a leaf out of Billy-Ray Sanguine’s book,” Skulduggery said as he placed both hands flat against the wall.
Stephanie frowned. “Seriously? You’re going to try to—”
The wall cracked, a thousand little fissures opening up and spreading downwards.
“Now then,” Skulduggery muttered, “this is either going to be very cool or very stupid …” He pushed one hand into the wall, and kept going until he was in up to his elbow.
“Well?” Stephanie asked.
He looked back at her. “I’m still in one piece. Grab on.”
Stephanie’s left eyebrow arched all on its own. “Uh, no, I don’t think so.”
“We don’t have time to argue.”
“Who’s arguing? I’m asking relevant questions. Is this your first time doing this?”
“I’ve actually been developing this aspect of the Elemental discipline for a while now. Sanguine’s ability is merely a focus on earth magic, after all, so I thought to myself, why couldn’t I achieve the same results with a little bit of work?”
“Yeah, that’s all very interesting, but is this the first time you’ve tried to move through a wall?”
He hesitated. “No, actually.”
“You’ve tried it before?”
“Yes.”
“Did you succeed?”
“Strictly speaking?” Another hesitation. “No. I kind of got stuck.”
“You got stuck in a wall?” she said. “For how long?”
“A few minutes. Half an hour. An hour at the most. Maybe two. Or a day. Remember that day I called Valkyrie and told her to take the afternoon off? Yeah, I was stuck in a wall. But I got out of it, and I’ve been working on it ever since. So grab on, Stephanie.”
“I’ll wait out here, thank you very much.”
“He who dares wins.”
“Fools rush in.”
“Valkyrie would trust me.”
She glared as he held out his free hand, then sighed. “If you get me stuck in a wall, I will be seriously annoyed with you.”
“Duly noted.”
She took his hand and he pulled her close. She screwed her eyes shut and then she was passing through something cold, something jagged. Sharp corners prodded her all over at once. The pain was bearable. The rumbling was loud, like great slabs of rock scraping against each other.
And then she was out, stumbling into empty space. Her eyes opened to the dim surroundings of the gallery after closing time.
“There,” Skulduggery whispered, “told you I could do it.”
“You sound surprised,” she whispered back.
“Actually, I’m astonished,” he said, and moved on.