For a moment Erskine was caught up in watching Skulduggery's odd little movements, moving the cake and then fetching it back again. The skeleton almost had him mesmerized it would seem, though whether out of the sheer oddity of his actions or due to Ravel's own unique state of mind was anyone's guess.

After that moment, however, he shook his head as if to clear it and turned back to Anton.

"The alibi," he replied. "We don't have enough of us here to keep up the misdirection like we did. There's too few Foreigners and we're all too close. And we're not dealing with the whole of Europe here, we're dealing with one city on the back of a turtle. I'm either going to have to shelve Rue for a while or I'm going to need a serious alibi to use him. Valdis can do that."

He paused. "Plus she's a friend, and I think she'd get a kick out of it."