Was she? Part of Skulduggery was suddenly intensely curious about whether or not it was possible for timelines to shift even before they'd been dragged onto the turtle's back. The rest of him was a good bit more reasonable, and reminded him that goading China never remained funny for very long.

So, after a brief pause, he nodded. "The world is called Konryu - or perhaps the continent. I was never very clear on that. It's a world that straddles a Life Realm, Death Realm, and a Dreaming Realm all at once, which is probably why one of the groups on the mainland decided it would be fun to experiment with merging them. Malicant was the result. He was a powerful force of darkness bent on swallowing this world, and then using it as a stepping stone to swallow every other world as well. A few of the sorcerers here fought back by kidnapping us. There was a very dramatic final battle underneath the shell, during which practically everyone who was both native and useful was killed, and that left most of us stranded in the Dreaming Realm for a year. Now we're back, and new people like you are still arriving each week, and no one seems to know why. Speaking of that, do you have on a piece of jewelry you didn't have before?"