[All right, we are definitely going to come back to the whole ‘shrimp colors’ thing, but for now, Palamedes is honing in like a laser on this lei business.]
Give me ten minutes.
[It’s probably closer to 20 minutes later when Pal messages Skulduggery again. When he does, he’s breathless with excitement, he’s got tissues stuffed up both his nostrils to stop a nosebleed, and a handkerchief wrapped around a cut on his arm.
Technically, there is no way for Skulduggery to know any of this, though the number of unnecessary exclamation marks in Palamedes’ next few texts probably helps paint a picture.]
Mr. Skulduggery!!!
I must begin by apologizing for my complete and utter idiocy!! Camilla is always warning me not to get cocky, and I’m afraid that’s exactly what I did. Naturally, I conducted a cursory examination of my lei when I first arrived, but I found nothing particularly unusual about it, so I discarded it as irrelevant. AMATEUR mistake.
[side note: the presence of human bones? Pal doesn’t find it worth remarking on! Doesn’t most jewelry involve some amount of human bone?]
One could argue that I didn’t know what I was looking for, but that’s a poor and petty excuse. The cold, hard truth is this: I missed the forest in the trees, and it has taken your prompting for me to see what has been staring me in the face this entire time.
My lei is WARDED.
Yours in shame,
Palamedes.
[As one might guess, this response takes more than one text message to convey. After signing his message, Pal sends one more]
Please bring yours to me at your earliest convenience so that I can conduct a comparative examination.
no subject
Give me ten minutes.
[It’s probably closer to 20 minutes later when Pal messages Skulduggery again. When he does, he’s breathless with excitement, he’s got tissues stuffed up both his nostrils to stop a nosebleed, and a handkerchief wrapped around a cut on his arm.
Technically, there is no way for Skulduggery to know any of this, though the number of unnecessary exclamation marks in Palamedes’ next few texts probably helps paint a picture.]
Mr. Skulduggery!!!
I must begin by apologizing for my complete and utter idiocy!! Camilla is always warning me not to get cocky, and I’m afraid that’s exactly what I did. Naturally, I conducted a cursory examination of my lei when I first arrived, but I found nothing particularly unusual about it, so I discarded it as irrelevant. AMATEUR mistake.
[side note: the presence of human bones? Pal doesn’t find it worth remarking on! Doesn’t most jewelry involve some amount of human bone?]
One could argue that I didn’t know what I was looking for, but that’s a poor and petty excuse. The cold, hard truth is this: I missed the forest in the trees, and it has taken your prompting for me to see what has been staring me in the face this entire time.
My lei is WARDED.
Yours in shame,
Palamedes.
[As one might guess, this response takes more than one text message to convey. After signing his message, Pal sends one more]
Please bring yours to me at your earliest convenience so that I can conduct a comparative examination.