Skulduggery had fought in a long war before being pulled into this one. It was a war that had dragged on for centuries. There had been a dearth of powerful healers and doctors, of course, as there almost always was in times of strife, and the few that existed always carried the weight of the world on their shoulders. It drove them mad. One man quite literally; he hadn't been able to save all two hundred dying sorcerers after a particularly fierce battle, so he'd stripped down and ran for the hills, babbling like an idiot.

All of which had nothing to do with anything, except that the man had left their squad with no healers at all, and hundreds more soldiers died without his help. Skulduggery remembered that event quite clearly. He didn't expect Raine to strip down and run for the hills (what hills were there, anyway? Asti's head?) babbling like an idiot, but neither did he expect her to be handling this last week very well.

If the dust had settled completely, Skulduggery would have stayed with Anton for the duration of whatever strange new effect this was. But there were other people he needed to contact, and Ryder very happily gave Skulduggery his first port of call, and so the evening of the 26th found him striding purposefully over to the suite Raine lived in.

Flying up to her window wasn't an option, unfortunately, so Skulduggery was forced to knock on the door. He didn't expect her to answer. He hadn't answered his own door all month.