The advantage China had at the beginning of the conversation seemed to slip a little further away from her grasp with each word. She tried to tell herself it was only because she wasn't quite used to her abilities not taking immediate effect, but it probably had more to do with Gabe suddenly being from the deep American south. She'd raised an eyebrow at the cowboy hat, but now his new accent was also flawless.

She was going to need to tread carefully.

"Rumour has it," she answered him evenly, "that Scarab is out to get revenge on the Sanctuary. He seems to think they've wronged him somehow. If that's the case, Mr. Sanguine has more than enough reason to help for free. He doesn't have the best history with certain Sanctuary operatives."

Skulduggery's head was cocked to the side. "Myself and Valkyrie? He still hasn't gotten over the whole business with the razor?"

"That," China nodded, "and the small fact that Scarab is Sanguine's father."

"Excuse me?" Skulduggery asked, dumbfounded. "Scarab had a son?"

China's smile grew wider. "It certainly seems that way. No love lost there, as you can imagine."

China paused here to let the two of them mull that over. If she was going to get a genuine reaction, she needed to sound like this was the most important tidbit of information she had. And technically, it was. She didn't know exactly what Scarab was planning, which would be Skulduggery's next question, and she didn't have any feasible ideas about why they would need the Desolation Engine as opposed to any run-of-the-mill nuclear bomb. Although she could guess at a common denominator, when she remembered Crux's seemingly random attack last night - Valkyrie.