China and Merlin slid into a cooperative working interaction nearly right away, with the sort of familiarity of two people who'd worked together before and were both experts in their respective fields, each eager to learn from the other. Skulduggery watched them for all of a few seconds, but the instant it became clear he wouldn't be able to offer anything useful, he joined Erskine and Dexter over at the office's desk.

He still couldn't quite consider this Erskine's office. Erskine Ravel, Elder of Ireland. Erskine had an office in the Sanctuary. Erskine had an office. Erskine had a desk.

Erskine nodded as Skulduggery came over, and then smirked. "You really were at the beach, weren't you?"

"No. We were out in the middle of the ocean. How was your morning?"

"Oh, not nearly as interesting as yesterday afternoon. You wouldn't believe what happened, Skulduggery."

"You met God."

Erskine spluttered to a halt, and glared. "Okay, that's not fair. How do you do that?"

"Simple," Skulduggery said with a shrug. "I make connections. Who else would have been able to give you a hint about Lucifer's arrival?" He hesitated. "And why else would you be the first one to contact me after yesterday? He got Dexter to come back home, and Ghastly to apologise." To apologise. Mere hours after the discovery, to boot. Skulduggery was still half-convinced he'd imagined that apology, and he wasn't in the habit of denying fact. "What was the hint?"

Erskine shifted uncomfortably to put most of his weight on his other leg. "About yesterday..."

"You don't have to say anything. What was the hint?"

Something dark crossed Erskine's face, and he shifted to stand more evenly. "I want to say something. And it's really not your decision whether I do or not. It's that exact attitude, you know. This weird idea you have that you deserve whatever you get, and the rest of us don't have a say."

"You're right. I'm sorry. You were apologising?"

The corners of Erskine's mouth twitched. "This is serious, Skulduggery."

"Which is why, of course, you're struggling not to laugh."

"Don't do that." Erskine took a deep breath, regained control of himself, and looked Skulduggery in the eye socket. "I'm not going to apologise for what I said, because I meant it. But I'm sorry about the way I phrased it. And for bringing it up just then. It was uncalled for."

"Okay." Skulduggery opened his jaw to say that the apology was unnecessary, because it wasn't; but at a warning look from Erskine, he stopped. "Okay. Thank you."

"See? Was that so hard? Now, you don't have to worry about the hint. We figured it out all on our own. Walpurgis Night."

"Walpurgis Night?" Skulduggery turned that over in his mind. He had to agree that a night celebrating a saint being twisted into a night about witchcraft made sense. The timeframe was a little worrying, since it meant they only had a few weeks. But to be honest, it was more time than he was used to having when it came to saving the world. "Alright. And now you're warding the Sanctuary?"

"We're trying, at least. If your boyfriend could give us any pointers about something a little more offensive and a little more permanent, we're all ears."

"Ah. He has. Apparently, it's possible to create a metaphysical slingshot that would essentially yank Lucifer out of our universe and back to his. It's a matter of tracking reverberations that are unique to each dimension, apparently."

"I knew I called you for a reason."