Fletcher didn't need to be told twice. The instant everyone was linked, Valkyrie with a full bottle of holy water, Skulduggery blinked and Kenspeckle's lab had changed into the run-down, dirty hallway of the first floor in China's tenement building.

He'd forgotten that sensation, very different from the gentle rearrangement of Gabriel's instant flight through space. This was more like getting jet lag in the space of a second as reality moved under them; even the veterans were still stumbling slightly as they reappeared. Skulduggery, who was back in his comfortable skeleton form, kept his balance perfectly and felt no need to recover. In fact, he turned immediately towards Gabe, partly to make sure the Archangel was alright, and partly because of the angel's earlier insistence that he could do no wrong.

"Cheating," Skulduggery argued, "is an alternate venue. I didn't have a hope of catching up in time, and you knew that. The library is upstairs-" he hesitated, looking around, and couldn't help a small bit of pride creeping into his tone, "-whenever you all are ready."