Erskine wasn't sure what to say to that. And since he could feel himself teetering on the edge of the precipice in saying something he'd later regret, he chose not to say anything at all.

"Dex." Well, maybe something. Even if it was the last thing he ever did, Erskine wanted so badly to understand, and Dexter Vex was his only real lead right now. "You and Descry knew. From the beginning."

He wasn't there when Skulduggery found out, but Ghastly called Erskine with the details later. Out of professional courtesy, he said, though Erskine got the feeling his friend just needed someone uninvolved to talk to. And while Erskine couldn't even begin to fathom why Skulduggery never said anything, he could at least understand why Dexter, and especially Hopeless, chose to keep the possibility to themselves. That understanding was somewhere to start. "Why didn't either of you ever talk to him about it?"

Flinging accusations around wouldn't have helped anything. But talking to Skulduggery alone? Just to find out if they were right? Maybe nothing would have stopped Skulduggery's stupidity when he decided to go seek answers in Necromancy alone, but what about after that? If the Dead Men knew the truth from the beginning, would the war have gone any differently? Would their tactics have changed, as Ghastly pointed out over the phone, and let a lot of good people keep their lives?

Or would just that simple private confrontation have ended their unit - their family?