"Pleasant," Bliss said, inclining his head. He hadn't said much, and simply remained standing against on wall, his arms crossed, while using the opportunity to catch up. "You look remarkably alive for someone who was burned on a pike."

"Did you find her?" Corrival asked, sitting up.

"No," Gabe said with a shrug, sidling in after Skulduggery once the skeleton had given him enough room to do so. "But Myron put us onto someone she's probably talked to in order to disappear so completely. He wasn't home, so we'll try again later." He shot Skulduggery a puzzled glance at the sudden worry.

Nor was he the only one. Solomon raised his head to look at the detective's soul and the startled skating darkness of uncertainty and concern across his panes. There was something odd about it, too. Some of the panes had darkened, not as if there was a cloud behind them or dust on them, but more as if they were simply in shadow. As if hiding themselves.

A chill trickled down his spine. "What is it?" he asked sharply, more sharply than he meant to, except that those shadows looked like aversion. Not an embarrassed kind of aversion, such as he displayed when they were teasing him about his relationship with Gabe, but something else.