“No. Being imprisoned was my idea,” answers Camilla Hect without so much as a flicker of an eyebrow. It’s hard to tell if she’s making a joke. But she takes Ari’s point about their current location and doesn’t ask any further questions, which is a sign that Ari has passed some sort of initial test.
She inclines her head slightly and answers with a matter-of-factness that matches the other woman’s tone. “Before the Warden’s death, he had devised what we called a contingency. In the event of his demise, he would bind his soul to his bones such that it could find its way back to them after the initial burst of thanergenic trauma.” She pauses, and then says with a slight lilt of skepticism. “He said to tell you that if you had questions, I should say, ‘like Skulduggery Pleasant did, but without the subsequent apologia for a mass murderer.’ “
That logistical matter out of the way, she returns to the explanation. “His death was more violent than we anticipated, but I was able to collect enough fragments to reconstruct approximately one-third of his skull.” For a moment her gaze goes distant, her eyes like gaping wounds as she stares at something unseen past Ari’s ear. “They kept trying to take it away from me. But I had to keep it. I needed a necromancer to be sure the plan had worked.”
She blinks and the faraway look is gone. “Blood of Eden picked up three of us. We were prisoners, but two of us were able to gain their trust in a limited capacity. Eventually I convinced them to put me in touch with…a friend. Someone who could look for the Warden. She found him, and he was able to return to his bones, or what was left of them.”
no subject
She inclines her head slightly and answers with a matter-of-factness that matches the other woman’s tone. “Before the Warden’s death, he had devised what we called a contingency. In the event of his demise, he would bind his soul to his bones such that it could find its way back to them after the initial burst of thanergenic trauma.” She pauses, and then says with a slight lilt of skepticism. “He said to tell you that if you had questions, I should say, ‘like Skulduggery Pleasant did, but without the subsequent apologia for a mass murderer.’ “
That logistical matter out of the way, she returns to the explanation. “His death was more violent than we anticipated, but I was able to collect enough fragments to reconstruct approximately one-third of his skull.” For a moment her gaze goes distant, her eyes like gaping wounds as she stares at something unseen past Ari’s ear. “They kept trying to take it away from me. But I had to keep it. I needed a necromancer to be sure the plan had worked.”
She blinks and the faraway look is gone. “Blood of Eden picked up three of us. We were prisoners, but two of us were able to gain their trust in a limited capacity. Eventually I convinced them to put me in touch with…a friend. Someone who could look for the Warden. She found him, and he was able to return to his bones, or what was left of them.”
“But we couldn’t communicate like that.”