Of course they were written in blood. Skulduggery would have been more surprised if someone took the time to go and find a piece of chalk during any of the arcane rituals taking place here. Still, it was a fact he filed away for another time.

"I've seen these symbols before," he murmured quietly, bending down to examine them more closely. But he couldn't, for the life of him, remember where. The problem was that even if he could, he wouldn't be able to read them, and since these symbols probably detailed exactly where the portal went, that was highly inconvenient.

"Best-case scenario," he said as he rose to his feet. "This portal takes us somewhere else on the turtle, and takes us back again. Worst-case scenario, it takes us to the death plane, and closes behind us. Unfortunately, we don't know nearly enough to risk that."