First published in the United Kingdom by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2026
HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
HarperCollinsPublishers
Macken House, 39/40 Mayor Street Upper Dublin 1, D01 C9W8, Ireland 1
Text copyright © Derek Landy 2026
Skulduggery Pleasant™ Derek Landy
Skulduggery Pleasant logo™ HarperCollinsPublishers
Cover illustrations copyright © Matt Taylor 2026
Cover design copyright © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2026
All rights reserved
hb isbn 978–0–00–858596–9 waterstones special edition isbn 978–0–00–879278–7 exp tpb isbn 978–0–00–858597–6 anz tpb isbn 978–0–00–858598–3 pb isbn 978–0–00–858601–0
Derek Landy asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
Set in Baskerville MT Std by HarperCollinsPublishers India
Printed and Bound in the UK using 100% Renewable Electricity at CPI Group (UK) Ltd
Conditions of Sale
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form, binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
Without limiting the exclusive rights of any author, contributor or the publisher of this publication, any unauthorised use of this publication to train generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies is expressly prohibited. HarperCollins also exercise their rights under Article 4(3) of the Digital Single Market Directive 2019/790 and expressly reserve this publication from the text and data mining exception.
1The scar ran from Tanith’s hairline diagonally down, almost to the hinge of her jaw. Every mirrored surface she passed, her eyes were drawn to her reflection, to the scar, to the wound that almost killed her. It was, without a doubt, the coolest thing she’d ever seen.
Cooler than a new haircut. Cooler than a dozen piercings. Cooler than a fresh tattoo. Chicks dig scars, she’d always reckoned, and as a chick, she dug the hell out of this one. Yes, it was fading, and yes, in another few months, it would probably have disappeared from view entirely, but right now it gave her something to match with the scarred man in her life. His scars, of course, were perfectly symmetrical, running all the way over his head, and she could never hope to attain that level of beauty – but she was determined to take what she could and be happy about it.
She sat up with him, in bed, and they talked about their relationship and where things were heading, and they were finally getting to the issues that mattered when the door burst open and three members of the security team swarmed into the room, rifles up.
“Grand Mage, apologies, there’s been a breach,” Sergeant Reticle said, striding in after them, his automatic weapon dangling from its shoulder strap. “We have to get you to a more secure location.”
“More secure than this?” asked Ghastly, who hadn’t even flinched when they’d entered.
“We need to get you to the safe room, sir.”
“Where’s the breach?” Tanith asked. She had flinched when they’d entered, had sprung and flipped to the ceiling where she now stood, upside down.
Reticle glanced up. “Multiple locations along the Inner Zone.”
She frowned. “The intruders bypassed the Outer Zone without setting off an alarm?”
“It would seem so, commander. Now, if you please, we need to leave.”
Ghastly sighed, got out of bed, and Tanith shifted her gravity and let herself drop and flip to the floor.
“Be ready to move in thirty seconds,” Reticle said, and at a hand signal the team gathered in the corridor outside.
They dressed quickly – Ghastly in trousers, T-shirt, work boots, and a casual grey cardigan – and Tanith in brownleather trousers and waistcoat. She pulled on her boots and grabbed her sword, slapped it on to her back where the scabbard clung in position. They left the room and the security team surrounded them, weapons up, and they moved off at a fast walk.
Tanith had only been in here twice before – once while it was being built, and once as it became operational – but she’d been a part of the design process and so she knew exactly where they were going. This entire facility was a
state-of-the-art bunker outfitted like a private hotel for, at most, half a dozen VIPs plus support staff. If they needed to, Ghastly and his fellow Elders could both run the Sanctuary and conduct a war from down here and no one –no one – would be able to get to them.
In theory.
“Do we have footage?” Tanith asked as they marched. Reticle and Elapid were beside them, Gowk was taking point, and Wanchancy covered the rear.
Reticle shook his head. “The camera feed has been corrupted.”
“How is that possible? The cameras aren’t on any other network but their own. That’s the entire point of this place.”
“I understand that, commander.”
“So we have no idea how many intruders there are?”
“As soon as we find out, we’ll pass that information on to you.”
“OK, stop,” Ghastly said. “Everyone stop.”
Everyone stopped, but Reticle did not look happy. “Grand Mage, it is not safe to remain in the open.”
“We’re not in the open,” Ghastly responded. “We’re in, supposedly, the most secure building in the world – and if we’re not safe in these corridors, we won’t be safe in the safe room. How many people are on your team?”
“Six, sir.”
“So you six, and us two, and that’s it? No other staff?”
“We couldn’t risk it, sir.”
“There’s meant to be a squad of Cleavers down here,” said Tanith.
Reticle hesitated. “The threats to the Grand Mage’s life, plus the three attempts so far, have led us to believe that
the danger might be a little closer to home than previously anticipated.”
Ghastly frowned. “You think someone on my staff is trying to kill me.”
“But why send the Cleavers away?” asked Tanith. “They’re incorruptible.”
“We have reason to believe that the threat is coming from the Cleavers.”
“I’m sorry?”
“There are, excuse me for saying this, a lot of Cleavers unhappy with the changes that you’re making to the way they train and operate. They think these changes will leave us vulnerable.”
“And they want to kill Ghastly for the changes that I’m making?”
“That does seem very unfair,” Ghastly muttered.
“Well,” said Reticle, “from what we’ve seen, Commander Low, they also want to kill you. If, uh, if that makes you feel any better.”
She folded her arms, glared, then shrugged. “It does, actually. Thank you.”
“So if we can get you both to the safe room, we can deal with whatever—”
“If they got as far as the Inner Zone before they triggered an alarm,” Ghastly said, “then they’ll be ready for the safe room. The fact is, there are eight of us and there is an unknown number of the enemy. We cannot afford to sit and wait.”
Tanith nodded. “We take the fight to them.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Reticle said. Ghastly loomed over him. “I might be the Grand Mage,
sergeant, but I’ve been a soldier for most of my life, and Commander Low here could take out your entire team before they knew they were being hit.”
“I am aware of how formidable you both are, but with all due respect, you do not know this facility or how to operate within it. This entire structure has been designed to be a deathtrap that only we can operate.”
Tanith raised an eyebrow. “It’s not much of a deathtrap if our intruders can get so close undetected.”
“Believe me, we’re going to find out what went—” He stopped, listening to something over his earpiece, and the entire team relaxed. “The intruder has been apprehended.”
“Intruder singular?” Tanith asked.
“It would appear so. My people are bringing him in now.”
“Who is it?” asked Ghastly, but Tanith already knew who it was. She could tell by the look of annoyance on Reticle’s face.
Reinforced doors slid open and Skulduggery Pleasant came through, flanked by the remaining members of the security team.
“This person shot my hat,” Skulduggery said, pointing to Izzat, the woman on his left.
“He failed to identify himself,” she growled.
His suit was a dark navy two-piece and he held his hat in his gloved hands, poking a finger through the hole in the crown. “I was in the process of identifying myself when she opened fire. I wish to lodge a complaint.”
“I’m Izzat’s commanding officer,” said Reticle. “Whatever complaints you have to make, you can make them to me.”
“Very well,” said Skulduggery. “Complaint number one: she shot my hat. Complaint number two: she has yet to
apologise. Complaint number three: if my head had been in the hat at the time of the shooting, I could have died.”
“Aren’t you already dead?”
“That’s hardly the point.”
Izzat narrowed her eyes. “I will repeat what I said a few moments ago, Detective: if you break into a secure facility and jump out at someone who has a gun in their hands, you run the risk of being shot.”
“I hardly jumped out at you.”
“You literally jumped from the shadows, screaming and waving your hat in the air.”
“I stepped gingerly from a dimly lit corner, loudly announcing my presence by calmly waving my hat in the air.”
“Skulduggery,” Ghastly said, cutting off the argument, “what are you doing here? Why did you break in?”
“I heard about the latest attempt on your life but could not contact you, so assumed that you had been transferred to a secret location for your own safety, and I thought to myself, what could be more safe than being with me? So I tracked you down to offer my assistance.”
“How?” asked Reticle. “This is a top-secret installation. Who told you where we were?”
Skulduggery’s head tilted. “Nobody. I guessed.”
“You guessed?”
“The facility could have been built anywhere in the world, absolutely, and so I divided the world into sections, divided those sections into sections and those sections into sub-sections, then eliminated the unlikeliest locations, section by section, until I was left with one hundred and eighty-four of the likeliest sections, at which point I narrowed the parameters of the search and came up with
eleven possibilities. This was the likeliest of the likely and so this was my first stop.”
Reticle stared. “And how long did this take you?”
“The drive over.”
“Sorry?”
“The drive over. It took forty minutes.”
“While you were driving? You did all this in your head while you were driving?”
“Yes. May I say, building this facility a mere forty minutes away from Roarhaven was quite unexpectedly brilliant. I would have automatically assumed it would have been built at a considerable distance, if not in an entirely different country, purely for safety reasons. I would never have guessed it would have been built so close.”
“But you did.”
“Sorry?”
“You did guess.”
“Oh,” Skulduggery said. “Yes, I suppose I did.”
“And you got down here unauthorised, which is supposed to be impossible, and got through three levels of impenetrable security before you tripped an alarm. At least tell us what alarm you tripped, just so we know which one of our security measures actually works.”
“Oh, I didn’t trip it. I started to wonder what the alarm sounded like, so I accessed the system to find out.”
“You... you only set off the alarm because you got bored?”
Skulduggery held up a finger in admonishment. “I wasn’t bored. I don’t get bored. I merely became curious.”
“Don’t suppose you’ve had time,” Tanith said, “during all of this showing off, to figure out who’s been planning to kill us, have you?”
“Actually, I have,” Skulduggery replied. “It looked, at least initially, like you were being targeted by a group opposed to the Cleaver reforms you’re bringing in. Not everyone is a fan of treating Cleavers like human beings, it seems. They’re afraid it will leave us weaker.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“At first, I thought they might try to disrupt the voting of the rank and file on whether or not to press ahead, but that went off without an issue.”
“And passed overwhelmingly,” Tanith said.
“And then I thought they might strike before the Council of Elders cast their deciding votes on Friday – but the more I pulled on that particular thread, the more the possibility unravelled.”
“So does it have anything to do with the Cleavers?” Ghastly asked.
“As far as I can tell? No. But the ruse did accomplish one very important thing: it did cast suspicion on our Cleaver friends.”
“To what end?”
Skulduggery tilted his head. “There aren’t any here tonight, are there?”
“They wanted the Cleavers pulled away from my security detail? Why?”
“Because of the path of the sparrows, I would think.”
“Sparrows?”
“Oh, you haven’t heard? The sparrows fly south for winter.”