The 'you're an idiot' sentiment had been genuinely shared by every single Dead Man throughout the war, and probably by Ghastly most of all. This was, of course, before finding out Skulduggery had a perfectly valid reason for wanting to end his own existence, but... as it turned out, Ghastly's feelings toward that idea hadn't changed. That surprised him. The fact that it surprised him disgusted him. His mind was a tangled mess right now and, all things considered, maybe it would just be easier to focus on disentangling his fist from the tangled mess of wires in the wall before he tackled his own mindset.

Skulduggery didn't have that luxury. He'd gone quiet again, and he had nothing but his own thoughts to focus on. Maybe that was deliberately done, and why he hadn't moved forward to help.

"Can you uncurl your fist for a minute?" asked Tanith, peering into the darkness of the wall as best she could. "I think we could get it out if you sort of... uncurl it and then turn it. Like you're opening a door."

Ghastly did as she asked, slowly, flinching every time something sharp jabbed up against his skin. Tanith guided him with a hand on his wrist, changing her mind a couple more times about the positioning before Skulduggery spoke up behind them once again.

"Why did you both assume I had any control over it?" It was the exact same tone as before, still carefully under the guise of polite curiosity towards an acquaintance. "There was a reason Corrival had those orders. I was dead. I could easily have been manipulated by anyone who knew how that happened. Any moment, I could have turned against you. You had no way of knowing. And still, you said nothing?"

That last word was the only one that gave away even a hint of how Skulduggery was really feeling. An image of those Necromantic shadows popped back into Ghastly's mind, and he instinctively tensed. It pushed something sharp into the skin on his right hand, and with a sharp intake of breath, he forced himself to relax.