"They're through the door on the right," Gabe told Valkyrie helpfully, resting his weight on the wall instead of on her shoulder and deeply regretting the need to send her away while leaving him alone with Sanguine. Those images he hadn't quite managed to shake, at second remove now he'd had some time, flashed through his mind again.

Only then did he turned toward Sanguine, standing straight in spite of the pain and weariness which radiated from every line of his body, from the fist resting on the wall to the way his bare feet were parted to brace himself in remaining upright.

"Now you're just bein' insultin'," he said flatly. Although it wasn't precisely inaccurate. He was closer to being a Faceless One than anyone, even Skulduggery, knew. Or rather, the Faceless Ones were close to being--had once been--what Gabriel was. "You set a mind-controller on a mind-reader and expected it to work." He made a disdainful sound and shook his head just once, slowly. "Those ladies ain't hard to find, and when Val gets back, she's got the edge on you. Tick tock, Billy-Ray. Tick-tock."

Maybe it would keep the man from asking questions, to distract him with his closing escape window.