"I can always give it another try, if you like." Solomon raised a hand toward Erskine, his fingers already wisping with light, but Dexter took his wrist, patting his shoulder.

"Now, now. If you kill his paperwork then he'll just have to do it all over again, and you've never seen Erskine when he's really, really frustrated. I don't want to have to put him out of his misery. Skulduggery would have to arrest me for the murder of an Elder, and then you'd have to break another one in. You might even choose me."

"Gladly, s--Erskine. I'm just going to go ... dust the angel statues in the basement." Looking just a little green, John handed the paperwork back and wheeled his bucket out of the room.

"The angel statues." Melissa leapt on this change of subject. "Why all the angel statues?"

"They're our security force," Solomon answered, regretfully lowering his hand. Melissa was glad when the light died.

"You use angel statues as a security force?"

"Well, we did have a force of cleaver-wielding reflections, but then we decided to retire them in favour of--" He paused. "Never mind."

Reflections again. An army of them. Melissa narrowed her eyes at him. "Why did you retire them?"

Solomon didn't answer for a moment, and Melissa got the distinct impression he was trying to figure out an appropriate way to say it before he finally shrugged. "The man they belonged to was killed. It turns out having multiple reflections exerts a metaphysical gravity; he spent the past year trapped inside them. We can to destroy them to save him."

Melissa paled and reached out to grip Stephanie's hand. "Is that likely to happen to anyone who uses a reflection?"

Solomon shook his head. "It was an unusual circumstance. Most people don't even know having multiple reflections is possible. They tend to be unreliable over time, however."

"Oh. Okay. Good." She didn't let go of Stephanie's hand, and turned to her daughter. "Young lady, you are never, ever using a reflection again."