"Skuldug--" Solomon laughed. He'd have to remember that. "No. As a matter of fact, Skulduggery and the Temple have been on the wrong sides of one another for ... quite a while. Even before I knew him."

That had been the main source of contention between them; the fact that Skulduggery had insisted he leave the Temple, without much apparent regard for Solomon's feelings on the subject. That was his way--he was right, everyone else was wrong, and if you couldn't see that, you were an idiot. Solomon still couldn't quite figure out how he managed to get so many apparently intelligent people to remain so loyal to him.

"Most of the Temple's residents were born into it," he explained. "I wasn't. Every now and then, the Temple takes some acolytes from outside. I was one of them." There was more to it, of course. A lot more. There usually was. But those were days he hadn't thought about in years, and had become quite adept at not thinking about at all.

"I suppose that means I simply had more context than my colleagues," he continued. "For me the outside world wasn't a confusing place full of people I didn't understand. I didn't join the Temple to live in its buildings, I joined the Temple to live in its faith. It's a difference many people sadly miss."