The Faceless Ones. Left something behind? There was something in Skulduggery's soul which indicated this wasn't entirely accurate, but Gabriel couldn't see what it was. What he could see was that the basic assertion was true. The Faceless Ones had left something behind. Something ... something not quite as metaphysical as it should have been.

What, Gabriel wondered, had the cacophony done to his siblings beyond the obvious?

"Yes," the Archangel murmured, watching Skulduggery with a look in his eyes that seemed as if he was looking deep into the skeleton, rather than at him or through him. As if he was looking for something. "Yes, that would work perfectly."

Then he blinked and his brow furrowed, and he looked away to resume his wards. As he did he spoke, a little slowly, as if in thought. "There's only one problem." There were many problems. "And that's the possibility of multiple versions of you. They're all going to be different, but those details might be lost among the versions of you which are similar enough."

What he needed was something he could rely on to be unique to this Skul alone. It didn't have to be anything to do with the head, necessarily--it just had to be Skul. Which actually made Gabriel think of something, and he looked toward Skul again.

"Why don't you know where your head is?" he asked. "It's yours, isn't it? Why isn't your soul attached to it? How does that work?"