Skulduggery walked over - slowly, carefully, keeping the shadows from forming a wave under his feet to speed his tracks - and considered it an achievement that the helmet remained dispersed when he reached the other end. He wasn't right next to the mass grave, but he might as well have been. Every facet of the armour, and several facets of Skulduggery himself, were screaming to be let loose over the kedans' corpses.

Sigils. He was interested in the sigils.

He could barely see the sigils. The grave, the bodies in the cages; they kept stealing and holding the entirety of his attention.

"Yes," he managed eventually, looking up at the ceiling - or rather, through the ceiling. "On the roof. There's an identical circle directly above these, fueling a portal." Skulduggery moved just as slowly as before over to the grooves cut into the floor, and knelt down to run a hand over the jagged stone. A moment later, he changed his mind and withdrew that hand so he didn't have to look at the shadow-gauntlet encompassing it. "They collected tainted blood and poured it into Asti."