Erskine eyed the cake and the tea, though not with quite so much suspicion as Skulduggery. After a moment or two of deliberation he sat his thermos aside and picked up the tea Anton had poured, simply because it would be a shame to waste a good cup (and because the thermos would keep his coffee warm in the meantime). The cake was delicious, and not nearly as offensive as Skulduggery seemed to think either, although Erskine had never claimed much of a sweet tooth and worked through the piece slowly.

"What, to make Anton senile?" he asked blithely, without looking up from where he was poking at his cake with his fork. "And then you'll be stuck with a senile gist-user and me. Cheers."

Alright, so they needed to start this thing before someone snapped. Or maybe they just needed to snap and get it over with. He wasn't really sure which would be more constructive at this point.

"I want to tell Valdis about Rue." Erskine looked up from his cake to gaze at each of them in turn, without moving his head, to judge their reactions.