It was occurring to Paddy, little by little, as he slowly learned more about the hidden and impossibly arrogant world of magic, just how much right they had to be arrogant - that was, how powerful sorcerers were. He'd always known that, ever since the moment he first saw Solomon drawing shadows towards himself in the church to prove his control over them. But it was very different when you actually began to comprehend how powerful they were. War wasn't just war, and war was bad enough; war between sorcerers in the past almost brought immense beings of unspeakable evil into the world. Skulduggery, who in the world of mundanity would have been arresting criminals capable of killing no more than a few people, was constantly shouldered with the burden of saving the entire world. Which he did, and admirably well according to the stories Paddy had been told, but... that was part of it. How powerful did someone have to be to handle that sort of thing in their everyday work?

War between Sanctuaries and the Necromancers' Temple. That was the last thing they needed.

But, Paddy reflected grimly, something close to an inevitability. From what he'd heard of the Irish Sanctuary, at least, they weren't going to let Necromancers go that easily. And Necromancers weren't about to give up their so-called messiah.

"Is that likely?" he finally worked up the courage to ask. For the first time since the beginning of their conversation, Paddy could hear the fear in his own voice. "All-out war?"

He didn't know what he'd do, in a situation like that. He couldn't, in all good conscience, claim blissful ignorance again. But aside from that, Paddy just didn't know. He couldn't compete against power like this.