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The night was cold, colder than it had any right to be. A year and a month since Skulduggery died, which meant they were coming up on the fierceness of winter. The cold was biting, and as if in response to Ghastly’s accusatory thoughts, a sharp breeze blew up the edges of his coat.
Descry Hopeless stood next to him, seemingly unfazed. Maybe he wasn’t. He was about to walk into a Sensitive’s version of Hell, after all. He had other things to be concerned about than the nippy weather.
Ghastly stepped closer and put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “You can always change your mind.”
“I know.” Descry sucked in a breath, and visibly swallowed against the cold.
He hadn't asked for the details, because he hadn't needed to. The moment Ghastly burst into Meritorious’s chambers, Descry had gone pale and offered his help. He wasn’t pale right now, but his face was tight, his lips drawn, his hands clasped together in front of him. Ghastly tried not to think of the details, to spare him a little of the pain, but it was impossible not to.
Everything about this was impossible. Skulduggery was back. He was back. Ghastly had spoken to him, mere hours ago. He was a ruined vessel of his former self, both physically and mentally, but he was there. Whatever else might happen, however this miracle occurred and however it ended, Ghastly knew he would be forever grateful for this chance to talk with him even once more.
But then, that was the problem. All Ghastly had to do was talk with Skulduggery, and that was painful enough. Descry would have to deal with much, much more than that; he’d be drawn into the man’s psyche, his memories, his madness. When Ghastly first stepped into the cellar where they were keeping him, Skulduggery hadn't even recognised him – and when he finally did, two visits later, he’d started and leaped forward and clung on to Ghastly like Ghastly was an anchor in a turbulent ocean. Twice in the last day alone, Ghastly had walked by the old barn to hear Skulduggery crying out, either from pain or grief – he couldn't know.
Descry would. Descry would know everything.
And the mind-reader's hands were white from where they were still gripping each other.
Ghastly hesitated, but then gently pried those hands apart and placed one of Descry's arms firmly on his shoulder. I’m here. I’ll be here every step of the way. You won’t lose yourself – not here.
Descry didn't say anything, but his hand squeezed Ghastly’s shoulder.
Slowly, they walked together into the makeshift camp. All around them, sorcerers hurried past, engrossed in their work, barely paying Descry a spare moment of attention. He faded into the background; he wasn’t well-known. His passing wasn’t marked, wasn’t noticed, and certainly wasn’t remarked upon. Of course, that might change if he collapsed on the ground and started echoing Skulduggery’s screams, but that was what Ghastly was for. Support. Backup. Coming up with a believable cover if anyone asked.
He heard Descry quietly scoffing at the mental image of him collapsing and flailing in the air. Ghastly chuckled, and offered up a quick silent apology.
The old barn on the far edge of the settlement had a stone cellar, and that was the most secure place to hold prisoners. Not that a camp this far back would have prisoners. And not that Skulduggery was a prisoner. But the Necromancers had withdrawn from the war now; if one of them had strayed towards Mevolent's side, and was capable of bringing sorcerers back from the dead, then they had to assume Skulduggery was completely under Mevolent's control.
That, or trying to break free of it.
A small frown creased Descry’s brow as they drew closer. Ghastly braced himself, his upper body tensing, but there wasn’t a stumble. Not even a pause. Descry’s steps were sure and easy, and Ghastly found himself harbouring a small flame of hope. Maybe Skulduggery wasn’t as broken as they’d thought. Maybe there was hope for recovery. If Descry could handle whatever was coming out of the animated skeleton’s mind, then so too could Skulduggery.
The frown grew until they were inside the barn, and then right outside the cellar door. It was then that Ghastly knew something was wrong. His suspicions were confirmed when Descry turned to him, worry shining in his eyes. “The cellar is bound?”
“Just in case.” Ghastly raised an eyebrow. “But when has that ever stopped you?”
“It hasn't.”
A chill crept down Ghastly’s spine. “But it’s hampering you now?”
“Hampering.” Descry shook his head. “I can’t hear anything, Ghastly. If it weren't for your memories, I wouldn't believe there was anyone in the cellar.”
Ghastly's shock was only an echo of Descry’s, and it probably didn't sit well on top of how thrown Descry himself already was. Ghastly couldn't help the shock, but there were other things he could help. Things like not needing to ask to know nothing like this had ever happened to Descry before. He had to wonder – would Descry’s power work on something that didn't have a brain? Wasn't this the first time Descry had encountered a human being without one?
“Yes,” Descry confirmed for him, his voice tight. “It is.”
Ghastly waited a moment longer, but when the mind-reader didn't add anything else, he opened the door and went down the steps.
Skulduggery looked the same as when Ghastly left him earlier. Slumped over on the floor, barely aware of his surroundings, and nothing more than the most basic of skeletal frames to make up his body. He had no face, no eyes, no expression – nothing to indicate there was any life to the skeleton at all but for the haunted cries and screams of torture earlier. They’d chained him at first, just to be safe, but quickly stopped bothering when he showed absolutely no inclination towards leaving the cellar. Either he didn't care, he didn't have anywhere else to go, or he simply didn't want to be anywhere else. Ghastly didn't know which option depressed him the most.
He took a step forward. “Skulduggery?”
The skeletal frame shifted, and groaned. Ghastly felt Descry freeze behind him.
“Skulduggery?" Ghastly asked again. "Do you remember me?”
It felt like an unnecessary echo of all the questions he’d asked hours ago. Do you know who I am? Do you know where you are? Do you know who you are? Skulduggery had stayed distressingly quiet after the last question, and Ghastly didn't want to hold out much hope that things would be any different. It had only been a day, after all. He didn't want to build up hope that would only be dashed on freezing rocks.
He was rewarded for his restraint with another groan. Well, at least it was better than screaming.
“Do you remember Descry?”
The skull lifted a fraction off the stone floor, but otherwise didn't react. Even so, Ghastly’s heart leaped; it was the most cognizant reaction he’d seen from Skulduggery yet. He glanced back behind him in time to see Descry walk forward, slowly, and sink into a cross-legged position in the middle of the stone floor. He didn't take his eyes off Skulduggery once, but his hands clenched unhappily on his knees once he was seated.
Skulduggery made a noise, and Ghastly turned back around. The skeleton stopped, stayed silent for a second, and tried again. “You shouldn't be here.”
Ghastly’s breath caught in his throat. Words – words that formed a whole sentence. “Why shouldn't he be here?”
Skulduggery laughed. It was a bitterly broken laugh, but it was still a laugh. “I’m on the brink. He won’t be able to handle it.”
“He’s here, isn't he?” Ghastly joined Descry on the floor, slowly, hardly daring to breathe. “He’s here, and still sane. I wouldn't be too sure of how over the brink you are.”
Skulduggery didn't answer, but he didn't sink back down to the floor, either, so Ghastly decided to take that as a step in the right direction. “What happened to you, Skulduggery? How did you manage to come back?”
His skull moved slightly to the side. Without a face to go by, it was impossible to know what he was thinking. The tilt of his head was achingly familiar, but Ghastly had never before paid attention to what particular tilts accompanied which particular feelings. “I don’t know.”
“Are you being controlled?”
“I –“ Skulduggery faltered. “I don’t… no.”
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
Another tilt. “You, asking me if I was being controlled.”
Ghastly looked at Skulduggery. Skulduggery looked at him – or at least, his empty eye sockets were turned towards him. The skull itself was grinning, but Ghastly had no idea if Skulduggery was echoing the sentiment. He decided not to laugh, in case he wasn’t. “How about the first thing you remember after dying?”
Skulduggery’s head dipped lower, and he didn't answer. Ghastly didn't try to press. He was considering himself lucky to be getting any answers at all, and this was progress. This was definite and measurable progress.
Descry, as it turned out, had different ideas. He leaned forward, his eyes and voice both painfully gentle. “Skulduggery, do you remember when you let yourself into your house and realised it was empty?" Skulduggery remained perfectly still and silent, but Descry didn't give up. “Can you tell us what happened to you, from that moment on? Ghastly and I went to Meritorious for reinforcements, but you went directly to Serpine’s castle, didn't you?”
Not directly. He’d gone to the more likely place first, just like Ghastly and Descry had when they tried to follow in his footsteps and track him down. From there, they’d worked out what Skulduggery must have – that the trail leading there was a mislead, and his family had instead been taken to Serpine’s castle.
They hadn't even known where the castle was before then. Leave it to Skulduggery to go finding it before anyone else could. Rage, Ghastly knew, could be a hell of a motivator.
But Skulduggery still didn't answer, and Descry tilted his head to the side in an imitation of Skulduggery’s old habit. “You need to tell us the story, Skulduggery. You need to understand what happened to you. Just close your eyes and imagine you’re talking into thin air.”
The silence stretched on for so long that Ghastly was about to give up hope; but just as he was tensing to get to his feet, he noticed two of Skulduggery’s skeletal fingers tapping against each other. He relaxed without a word; and, a moment later, Skulduggery spoke.
“I went inside,” he started quietly. He was hampered by false starts, slow words, and long pauses in between some of the sentences, as if he was just remembering most of this for himself. But he was talking. “I went inside and nothing was lit. I checked every room, and the house was empty. I went to Serpine’s castle, but… I was alone.”
Ghastly fought down a small surge of guilt. He couldn't have prevented this, and he knew it. Skulduggery knew it. That didn't make the story any easier to hear. It probably didn't make the story any easier to tell.
“I found Liliya on the floor in one of the older rooms in the back. She was alive, but there was a ward on the wall. I couldn't get to her. She could have canceled it out on her end, but she didn't, because Serpine… did something to her. She was confused. She didn't know who I was, didn't trust me. Serpine came in beyond the ward, and he was –“ Skulduggery trailed off to a painful halt with a noise containing such grief that it nearly broke Ghastly’s heart. Ghastly was about to say he didn't have to finish, but Descry reached out and wordlessly touched him on the shoulder. He may not have been able to read Skulduggery’s mind, but he still knew how Skulduggery processed trauma. Ghastly didn't mind deferring to his judgement.
Less than a moment later, and Skulduggery kept going. But his voice was different this time – flat. Steady and understandable, normal and casual, but eerily flat. As though he were telling a story that had happened to someone else, a story he had no emotional connection with.
“He was carrying my daughter, and he had a dagger at her throat. My wife attacked him, and he killed her with his red hand. Then he slit my daughter’s throat.”
Ghastly didn't let himself think. He’d known Skulduggery’s family was killed. He hadn't known Skulduggery – and his daughter – were made to watch.
“The ward dissolved once they were both dead and I picked up the dagger, but I realised too late he’d laced the handle with poison. He tortured me after that, for weeks, for fun –" Another falter, another pause, and then his skull tilted up. With almost a childlike innocence, he said, “I can’t blink.”
Descry frowned. “Can you close your eyes?”
Skulduggery hesitated. “Yes. But no. I don’t have eyes.” He reached up and put one hand underneath his jaw, slowly pushing up until his teeth were pressed together. When he took his hand away again, his jaw fell slowly open to where it had been before, where it rested whenever he wasn’t speaking. When he spoke, it moved up and down, as though it were still attached to a mouth. “Do I still have my jaw?”
“Yes, Skulduggery. You’re not missing anything.” Descry’s mouth, interestingly, twisted. “Apart from the obvious, I mean.”
Skulduggery nodded as he digested that, and then his voice went back to normal. “Then he killed me. With his red right hand. I died.”
Ghastly shoved the rest of the story from his mind, set all of his doubts and his fears and his sympathies aside, and leaned forward. “What happened then?”
“Then… I’m not sure. I drifted.”
“You drifted?”
“I don’t know how long. I tried to move on, but – something. Something blocked me.”
Ghastly instinctively looked toward Descry. Descry, without looking away from Skulduggery, shrugged one shoulder. Skulduggery didn't know, but they’d both been at Serpine’s castle when he was killed. They were the reason he'd been killed. And Descry had felt that death, from five corridors away, crippling enough that if Ghastly hadn't been there to support him he might have been killed himself.
That was all Descry felt, apparently. The death. If he knew what Skulduggery was talking about now, he was keeping the information to himself.
“Do you know what was blocking you?” the mind-reader asked after a moment.
“No. I fought it. It wouldn't budge.”
“Then what did you do?”
For the first time, Skulduggery’s voice came confused. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“I looked toward the war, because there was nowhere else to look. We were losing, because of me. I grew… angry. And then I was pulled into something that... crashed, over and over again.” His voice turned sour. “It hurt.”
His body, Ghastly knew – and revisited in his mind, for Descry’s sake. Serpine's men had dumped the pieces of his skeleton in a bag and thrown the bag in the river. The sorcerer who found him said he’d already put half of himself together by the time he was found. Ghastly couldn't imagine what that must have been like – trying to figure out what was happening while in constant crippling pain, having to wait until the river itself deposited you on a bank before you could even move.
He watched Descry blink. “You… put yourself back together?”
Skulduggery looked up to meet his gaze, held it for three seconds, and then shrugged his bony shoulders – first one, and then the other, like he was reminding himself how they worked. “There wasn’t anyone else.”
There should have been. Ghastly wished to God there had been someone else there. Anyone, a friend, a stranger, someone who could have alerted Meritorious immediately and gotten help right away – anything to prevent Skulduggery from wandering half-crazed through the woods for days.
Skulduggery, he realised belatedly, hadn't broken Descry’s gaze just yet. The skeleton’s head tilted. “You can’t read my mind anymore, can you?”
Ghastly stared at him, stunned. Descry, though just as surprised, managed to overcome it long enough to shake his head. “No. I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps because you don’t have a brain, or maybe because you've been through so much that your thoughts are shattered in a way I can’t read them.” Descry shifted forward off his legs and crawled over to where Skulduggery lay. “But I’m sorry you've been through so much, my friend. No one should be forced to endure even a piece of what you did, and you must juggle them all.” When Descry was close enough, he shifted Skulduggery’s lightweight frame onto his shoulder and wrapped his arms around Skulduggery’s ribcage in a hug. “You should be home with us, not chained in a cellar. I am truly sorry."
Skulduggery didn't even seem to notice the offered comfort. “I was dangerous.”
“No, you weren't. We thought you might be. We were wrong.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being cautious.”
Descry smiled softly. “Then we no longer have a need to be. Or do you want to stay here?”
Skulduggery was silent for the longest time, and then he rested his head against Descry’s shoulder. “Not particularly."
Ghastly rose up onto his knees. “Then it’s a very good thing we’re dragging you out by force, isn't it? Give me a few minutes to talk to the guard, and then –"
“Ghastly.”
It was Descry who spoke, his tone almost reproachful, and he held a welcoming arm out. “He may be a skeleton, but hugs still work wonders. Or have you grown allergic to them?”
Ghastly blinked. “Really?”
“Really.”
“I could be talking to the guard right now. I could be arranging a Teleporter for transport. I could be doing something productive and making sure he isn't alone again.”
“Ghastly, for the love of God, get over here.”
For the love of God. Ghastly nearly laughed. As it was, he reluctantly relented and bent back over to sit down next to them, and Descry pulled him into a one-armed embrace against them both.
It wasn’t the most comfortable of hugs, but Ghastly felt Skulduggery’s exposed bones shift almost gratefully against his shoulders. He clung to that, and closed his eyes to revel – even for a few seconds – in that love of God. His best friend was back from the dead. Business could wait.