Skulduggery Pleasant: Kingdom of the Wicked
Derek Landy
Fantasy
390/390
Summary
Skulduggery and Valkyrie leave the
Sanctuary after they’ve dealt with Strom. Valkyrie’s arm starts hurting, and
she just manages to send a text to her mother and Skulduggery calls Ghastly to
notify him. Then Valkyrie shunts, and finds herself back in the alternate
reality, except this time she has Skulduggery to back her up. They fly to a
nearby town, and there they find Anton Shudder, a member of the Resistance,
waiting for them. He tells them that Valkyrie’s reflection was taken along with
thirteen others. He then leads them to China, the leader of the Resistance. They
tell her about their plan; that they need a way into the palace. The Teleporter
was taken back, so China arranges to get them a guide. She gives them a small
black disc and then leaves. Skulduggery identifies it as a pain regulator, a
device that can either subdue pain or inflict it. A helper leads them to a cell
to meet their guide, and there they find Nefarian Serpine, the villain from the
first book and the man who killed Skulduggery’s wife and children a long time
ago. Skulduggery and Valkyrie attach the pain regulator to him and make him
lead them into the rich city, the one populated by sorcerers. He does so with
the help of a man who owes him a favor. They go inside, and quickly locate
Walden D’Essai (the other reality’s Argeddion) and ask him what his mother’s
murderer told him. D’Essai tells them that the murderer said; “I’m sorry”. That
doesn’t make sense, though. People say ‘I’m sorry’ every day, so it’s not very
traumatizing. Skulduggery and Valkyrie realize that Lament must have been lying
to them about how the caught Argeddion, because he was under Argeddion’s
control when he told Skulduggery that.
Skulduggery, Valkyrie and Serpine, after
that, go to the castle. However, they don’t know how to get in. Serpine comes
up with the idea to wait for Baron Vengous, who always uses secret passageways,
because it’s faster, and so that would reveal said passageways to the trio.
They find Eliza Scorn, Baron Vengous’s wife and devoted follower of the
Faceless Ones (the dark gods that are worshipped by Mevolent and his
followers); so devoted that she walks around in chains. Skulduggery figures out
where the passage is from Scorn’s reaction every time he passes a certain spot.
They make it through the passage and enter
the castle. When they get up to the throne room and to the case that holds the
Sceptre, Serpine makes the other two take his pain regulator off. The case is
protected by a seal, but, luckily, in Skulduggery’s reality, the way to break
that seal was revealed a long time ago. Just as he breaks it, Eliza Scorn runs
in (without her chains) hurling red light at them. Valkyrie knocks her out, and
it seems like they got away with it, until Baron Vengous shows up.
Vengous starts fighting Skulduggery, and
Serpine manages to convince Valkyrie to take off the glove that stops him from
using his power. He leaps into the fray, and Valkyrie takes off to save her
reflection. She goes down to the dungeon, finding here reflection wounded
terribly. As they try to leave, they find Remit, the Teleporter, in their way. Valkyrie
leans the reflection against the wall, and engages Remit in an argument. While
she has him distracted, the reflection attaches the pain regulator to his back,
making him fall onto the floor in agony. Valkyrie makes him teleport them to
the throne room. They arrive in the middle of the fight, and the Sceptre lay on
the floor, unnoticed. Valkyrie grabs it and throws it to Serpine to free her
hands. She then attacks Vengous, giving Skulduggery time to catch his breath.
Skulduggery jumps toward Valkyrie, and they all grab hands and Remit teleports
them away. Valkyrie’s arm starts aching, and she tells Skulduggery that they
have maybe thirty seconds. China shows up, and she takes the Sceptre to have a
look. Unfortunately, she refuses to give it back. Valkyrie then shunts with
Skulduggery and her reflection, but the Sceptre is left behind.
While they were in the other dimension,
Kitana went looking for Sean. When she got to the Sanctuary, she saw Argeddion
kill Lament and his colleagues, and she gets scared. Who’s to say Argeddion won’t
do that to them, too? When she finds that Sean has escaped with the help of
some Roarhaven mages, they formulate a plan to get rid of Argeddion so that no
one can stand in their way.
When they get back, Valkyrie goes home and
puts the reflection in the mirror for it to heal. She goes downstairs and talks
to her mom, and finds out that her mother lost her job. She says it’s not a
problem, because they have the money that was left to Valkyrie when her uncle
died. When her mother tries to protest that the money isn’t theirs -it’s
Valkyrie’s- Valkyrie insists that that’s not the case. When she’s done talking,
she returns upstairs and lets the reflection out of the mirror. She goes
outside, and Skulduggery picks her up and they drive to Roarhaven. Halfway
there, Skulduggery brakes sharply; Kitana, Doran and Sean are standing in the
middle of the road. Kitana tells Skulduggery her plan; she wants the sorcerers
to distract Argeddion while the three defeat him. Skulduggery and Valkyrie go
to see the Elders to discuss this with them, and walk in on an argument between
Ghastly and Sult (a man from the Supreme Council). Ravel comes up to them and
tells them about the deaths of Lament and his associates. Skulduggery tells him
about their attempt to get the Sceptre in turn. Sult comes up to them and
questions Skulduggery about the disappearance of Strom, Ghastly at his heels. They
insist that Strom is in a meeting. Sult then explains that, in the absence of
Strom, he is the representative, and he tells them that, now that Skulduggery has
failed to retrieve the Sceptre, that they need to use the Accelerator to
supercharge their mages. Skulduggery objects, stating the risks of using the
Accelerator on people, and tells them about the plan that Kitana, Doran and
Sean proposed. He tells them that his plan is to put the teenagers into the Accelerator to boost their powers.
Later, after much discussing, they come
back to the scientists, who have formulated a plan. They have transformed the
Tempest (the power source for the Cube) into a weapon to subdue Argeddion. It
needs people to charge it for it to work, and it can only point straight up, so
Argeddion needs to be distracted. Kitana, Doran and Sean come in then, and get
charged by the Accelerator.
They’re using Greta Dapple as bait for
Argeddion, so they go to her house with the Tempest and the magicians charging
it in a cloaking sphere. Valkyrie and Skulduggery lead Greta outside, and her
panic brought Argeddion to them. He comes and floats over the hidden Tempest,
and then they turn it on, trapping him. The Tempest explodes, and then Kitana,
Doran and Sean fly in and attack Argeddion before he has time to recover. They
beat Argeddion to the ground, and Greta Dapple comes toward them, trying to
save him. Kitana kills her. After that, they have Argeddion near death, but
they don’t kill him. They figure out that the Sanctuary wanted them to kill
him, so that would mean that they would lose their powers. Instead, they go and
take him to the Cube to imprison him.
Skulduggery takes
Valkyrie to fly her to the Sanctuary. In his hand is the case that holds Lord
Vile’s armor. They go inside the Sanctuary, where the three teenagers are
figuring the Cube out. Skulduggery puts on the armor, and starts fighting.
Kitana goes to Valkyrie and punches through Valkyrie’s chest-
-and Darquesse
takes over. She heals, and joins the fray, fighting the teenagers alongside
Vile. They struggle, until Darquesse breaks away and stumbles on Argeddion, who
has just arrived. He takes Darquesse’s arm and feels the shunt coming on, and
he speeds it up, taking the two of them to the other reality. Argeddion then disappears,
and Darquesse leaves to find the Sceptre. She locates China in the middle of a
small war between the Resistance and Mevolent’s forces. She asks her for the
Sceptre, but China won’t give it to her. Then, Remit the teleporter shows up
with Mevolent himself. Mevolent wields a sword, but Darquesse soon takes it
from him. Unfortunately, Mavolent also gets his hands on the Sceptre. They
fight, and it ends with Darquesse knocking him out with a horse. China comes
and grabs the Sceptre, but Darquesse takes it from her. Just as Darquesse is
about to shunt back, Serpine shows up and kills China, and then he hits her
with a ball of energy, sending her flying, and she shunts. Once she is on the
other side, she realizes she doesn’t have the Sceptre. She left it behind.
Darquesse flies
back to the Sanctuary, and flies at Kitana, taking apart her head, killing her.
She then sends a blast of energy towards Doran, blowing apart his face, also
killing him. Then, she pops Sean’s head off. She turns to Vile, but realizes
that it actually isn’t Vile but Skulduggery, who has managed to get a hold of
himself. She calls the armor and rips it off of him. Then, Argeddion bursts in,
along with Walden D’Essai. Argeddion’s plan is to combine his and D’Essai’s
power to gift magic to the entire human race. Unfortunately for him, D’Essai
doesn’t agree. Argeddion loses his temper and accidentally kills D’Essai.
Darquesse moves in for the kill, but symbols on the wall, meant for creating
light, flash, and Valkyrie wakes up on the floor.
When Valkyrie wakes
up, she finds out from Skulduggery that he used the symbols to create a seizure
in both Darquesse and Argeddion. The plan now, is to rewrite Argeddion’s
identity and erase all his memories of magic. They run into Strom, and he tells
them that, because of their success, he might decide to withhold, in his report
to the Supreme Council, the whole locked-in-a-cell incident.
After everything,
Valkyrie and Skulduggery go for a walk. Ghastly comes up to them and tells them
that Strom is dead. He was attacked by a woman named Tanith and her boyfriend,
Sanguine, characters from the previous books. Now, there’s no one to stand for
the Sanctuary at the Supreme Council and to stop Sult from relating all the
details.
Valkyrie’s reflection
is with her cousin, Carol (Carol learned about magic and her abilities in the
last book). The reflection gives her the spell to make her own relfection, and
Carol performs it. Then, the reflection kills Carol, using her life to charge
the Sceptre. Darquesse had, in fact, brought the Sceptre with her, but it had
slid under a truck. The reflection had found it. Valkyrie’s reflection, then,
turns to Carol’s reflection and instructs it to take over Carol’s life.
Valkyrie’s reflection, then, explains her plans. She’s going to kill Valkyrie.
She’s going to kill Skulduggery. She’s going to kill anyone who might suspect
anything because she is going to be
Valkyrie. With the help of the Sceptre, no one will stand in her way.
Response
I’ve
really enjoyed this book so much. It had a really good plot that twisted around
and had little side things going on as well. I’m really excited to read the
next book; I want to see what happens with Valkyrie’s reflection and whether
Valkyrie will be able to beat her. I think that, in the next book, someone close
to Valkyrie will die because of this (because Derek Landy has no problem with
killing off characters).
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