"I don't." Recall, of course. The answer was an evasion, too, which made it as good as an admission, and Solomon wasn't sure what to do with that. "What I do recall is that you didn't have any idea who I was, the day I sheltered Serpine." At the time it felt like it shouldn't have been surprising, and yet it had been; and then in retrospect Solomon could only accept it, if bitterly. It hadn't done anything to prove his opinion wrong--the opposite, in fact.

"I keep people like you on their toes," Solomon said lightly. "For the record, I was trying to save the world myself. It's difficult to save it if it gets destroyed beforehand."

He took a drink and turned the half-empty glass, and said suddenly, "If you'd been a few seconds quicker I'd have let you kill him. That was part of the agreement. We gave him a guide, but we weren't willing to expend more resources than that. It would have suggested the Temple had allied itself with Mevolent's forces, which was untrue. He had to make it to the Temple on his own terms. He knew that. That's why he was so afraid."

The Necromancer looked at Skulduggery past the glass, though it didn't really do much to hide his impassive expression. "It's a pity you weren't a few seconds quicker. That would have solved a lot."