Let someone go with him? Solomon didn't even know where he was going at all! He didn't know anything, apparently. Not nearly enough to even begin to understand his own mind or why the camaraderie of these men should make him feel such despair. Except that Skulduggery had them. He'd slaughtered millions, and he still had them.

How could Solomon top that? How could he even hope to approach it? Maybe God had given him some measure of grace, but God wasn't the people with whom Solomon would have to live and work. He'd never expected anything from anyone. Now, it hurt. It hurt because there were things in this room that he wanted, which he had no right to, which he had no idea how to get. Or if he even could. Or should.

Ghastly's soul wasn't soft, but it was warm. Solomon didn't know what it meant. He didn't have the capacity to translate what it meant right now. It didn't matter. Even when he was a child, Ghastly had only ever looked at him with the amusement of a man watching a boy.

"Move," he repeated, and his voice cracked. He needed out. He didn't even know where he'd go, but he needed out, as if he could run from everything that was currently flooring him. As if he could run from his whole life. The life he'd always clung to, which was now so suffocatingly hollow.

He was done. Skulduggery called him strong? He wasn't strong. He was done.