"Skulduggery is Lord Vile." The words slipped out without Anton thinking them. Without him wanting to. Without anything but the heavy, pregnant weight of words so absurd, so impossible, that the beat after it was filled with expectant silence of a wait for confirmation of the joke.

Anton stared down at his grip on his mop, and this time when he tightened it, the tremble didn't stop. "For five years," he said with a strange sort of distance and closeness. "For five years, he worked against us. As Lord Vile. He murdered millions of people. Millions."

Millions, and yet still had an Archangel wrapped around him on the couch. "He's a murderer and a traitor, and an Archangel still saw fit to rescue him from Hell."

At that Anton turned abruptly to Erskine, but only partly, enough to see him out of the corner of his eye. Enough for Erskine to see nothing but blank, fragile control, and no insanity at all. "Angels are real, did you know? As real as Faceless Ones. The Archangel Gabriel is Skulduggery's new beau. Lord Vile's new beau."

And Anton laughed, and it wasn't insane so much as bitter, and broken, and with an edge of cold, yawning despair.