Quintus takes Akito all the way out of the city, moving gently over the slope of its much larger brethren, guided by the setting sun and later by the natural bio-luminescence of the shell. It takes him a few hours, but eventually he reaches the water's edge, where Skulduggery has been standing and staring out at the ocean for the past several hours.

Skulduggery feels Quintus coming, both through the strange new mind connection they seem to have, and through the disturbance of the air currents. Long before the large turtle actually comes into view, Skulduggery's already resigning himself to the peace that usually cuts off his thoughts in their infancy. What he isn't expecting to find is a small child napping on Quintus's shell.

Once Quintus is close enough, Skulduggery reaches out and taps the turtle's beak with two fingers. It was his original version of stroking the head, and it still seems to have a calming effect on Quintus. The turtle's eyes half-close, and he sinks to the ground.

"Ensnared a new friend, have you?" Skulduggery asks him quietly. "We need to teach you how to stop doing that. Bad turtle. Bad."

He doesn't mean it, and Quintus knows. The turtle instead looks up at him and communicates a certain smugness. New friend. Ours.