Dexter may not have admitted in a million years that he'd missed the closeness of the Dead Men, but Erskine would. And had, several times. The sentiment was clear on Dexter's face, and Erskine shared it one hundred percent. There were only so many suicide missions you could go on with a group of powerful sorcerers before you were closer to them than family, and there were several missions Erskine would have loved to experience again. Like when they first used the name Saracen Rue. When Skulduggery managed to convince a mortal nobleman to wear his wife's clothes at a house party. Saracen's first mission with them, when they cut the estimated time of completion in half because of the sorcerer's unique and highly irritating ability of knowing exactly where their target was and what secret passage to use to get there.

Erskine would have joined in the hug, if he thought he could. He was technically still reeling from his own discoveries, when all of this was first told to him and no one had been around to give him a hug. But no; there was probably some rule against it. It probably made Elders look weak.

It was, however, because Erskine was watching their hug so closely that he noticed Saracen's head jerk up, in a manner very reminiscent of when his magic warned him about an imminent danger or trap. The sorcerer didn't immediately cry out, however, and it left Erskine watching him with a puzzled expression and a furrowed brow.

"Apparently," Tanith was saying behind him. "She was a nurse, she said."

"I... don't know." Fletcher sighed. "Probably, if you gave me a day with Rafe. But he's not around right now. Also, I really don't like the idea of being attacked by a Necromancer."