“We're not really intruding," he called down. "This is all a big misunderstanding.""Stop right there!" shouted one of them.Skulduggery held his hand to an ear he didn't have."What's that?""Stop!""Keep going?""STOP!""OK, we'll keep going.”

“Valkyrie Cain got out of the passenger side. She zipped upher black jacket against the cold, and joined Skulduggery as hewalked up to the front door. She glanced at him, and saw that he was smiling."Stop doing that,” she sighed.“Stop doing what?” Skulduggery responded in that gloriously velvet voice of his.“Stop smiling. The person we want to talk to lives in the only dark house on a bright street. That’s not a good sign.”“I didn’t realise I was smiling,” he said. They stopped at the door, and Skulduggery made a concerted effort to shift his features. His mouth twitcheddownwards. “Am I smiling now?”“No.”“Excellent,” he said, and the smile immediately sprang back up.”

“The workshop door opened and Skulduggery emerged. "Ryan," he said, "stop leaning on my car.”

“We may need to focus here.' 'Right. Yes. OK. Turn around.' 'Are you going to throw something at me?''What? No, I'm getting out of bed.”

“Emergency Valve Regulators," she repeated. "So you do know what your doing?"Not really," he said yanking another wire. 'I made up that term to keep you happy. I'm just pulling all the red wires because they're the pretty ones.”

“You're in a bad mood,' Skulduggery said. 'I understand. I do. You're saying things that you don't really mean. It's OK.''I'll kill you both.''Hurtful things said in the heat of the moment. We're not going to hold it against you, Bison. We're all friends here.'Valkyrie nodded. 'We love you Bison.' 'We do,' Skulduggery agreed. 'You're our favourite Necromancer. You're the cuddly one.''Shut up,' Dragonclaw said. 'Both of you just shut up.”

“I was wondering how you were going to punish me for not confiding in you. Punishment, actually, is something I've thought about for a long time. What form of punishment would be enough for what I did? Imprisonment? Death? Something else? Something scarier? I could only think of so many horrible tortures before they stopped having meaning. But you' you've come up with a punishment I never considered. You're going to sulk me to death.”