"How about we never ever do that again?" Nuce asked, staring emptily at the floor by his feet.

"Agreed." Diamond said numbly.

They sat in on the couch of her living room as the adrenaline seceded and reality kicked in.

"I mean… his face…" He said dreadfully.

"I have never seen anyone that horrified before, in my life." Diamond added.

"But… she seemed so… normal." Nuce argued, distraught. "Why would she give us that? Why!?"

She sniffed in sad disbelief and let her head hang.

"We need a break." He decided.

Diamond nodded quietly.

"Cordial?" He suggested.

"Yeah," she breathed, "sounds good."

Nuce got up and steered towards the hallway and she took a moment to collect herself, before following him out the living room and to the door. About halfway, her phone started ringing and she pulled it out of her pants pocket, while Nuce turned at the door and waited expectantly.

Diamond glanced at the call screen and sighed, looking back up apologetically. "I need to take this. Might take a while."

He sighed and rolled his eyes lightly but headed out anyway, on his own. When the door fell into the lock, she picked up and raised the phone to her ear.

"Good afternoon." She said.

"Good afternoon." Skulduggery replied. "How are you?"

Diamond blew air into her cheeks. "A bit jumpy, currently."

"What from?" Came back.

She started walking in circles in the entrance area, one arm around her midsection. "Well, I can't discuss details, of course. But let's say… if you ever happen to smuggle a package of an angry ex-wife, look inside before you deliver it to the divorcee."

There was a sniff. "I shall remember that."

"How are you?" She asked back.

"Also jumpy," Skulduggery replied cheerfully, "in the way that I would like to jump up and punch someone in the face."

Diamond chuckled and walked herself to the door, opening it and deactivating the lock. "Someone specific or someone in general?"

There was a short silence that sounded like a quick reconsideration. "Always a very unspecific, and yet, very goal-driven mixture of both."

She made her way outside, putting one foot in front of the other with slow, extensive leg movements, watching the path go by, underneath her. "For example?"

"For example, these board room meetings, lately. I just came out of one, where they took off the pants of a Brazilian spokesperson."

"Figuratively." She clarified.

"Figuratively, in the furthest stretch of the word." Skulduggery agreed uncomfortably. "His clothes stayed on him. His dignity surely did not."

Diamond frowned, as she walked down her pathway, onto the public sidewalk. "What did they want from him?"

"I cannot tell you that." He admitted. "But I can tell you that they got it. As they usually do. China just turns on her 'charms', as if she were still in her library, talking to book collectors, and her little minions cluster around her. And, together, they just talk everyone into what they want. And that is all, because that is, apparently, the way politics work now."

"How did they work before?" She asked curiously and a bit tauntingly.

"As far as I am concerned," Skulduggery replied, adapting her brazen tone, "it should be a complex game of negotiation, tailored to each player, and their views, and personalities, and strategies; of connecting clusters and alliances of value. And some manipulation can never hurt. But nowadays, it seems, we are just making people do things."

At this point, Diamond could tell that, whatever this was really about, had not entered this conversation yet. But even if he definitely had not actually called to complain about Sanctuary business, she was willing to follow his lead.

"Sounds to me like the rules are being abused, rather than that the system itself is changing." She said, walking back and forth on the street. "Which, usually, leads to the abuser falling flat on their face."

He sniffed. "And that would be reassuring, if we weren't talking about the future of the magical world."

Diamond sighed dramatically. "Aren't we always?"

The other side of the line went quiet. She slowed her step even more, then leisurely halted, waiting for his response. She could tell, whatever he was thinking was something he did not feel comfortable mentioning.

"Do you think there is any prospect of peace?" Skulduggery then asked. "Of a magical world without war and constant devastation?"

"Blimey," she coughed, "that is quite the question. I mean, we aren't even close to world-peace in the mortal world. And the magical world, in my opinion, is just an enhancement of the same thing. So… I really wouldn't presume to know. But we have been doing pretty well, so far, I think."

He snorted. "Is that so."

Diamond grinned. "It is. Otherwise, we wouldn't be talking, right now. Otherwise, I would currently be a peasant serving under Mevolent. Or I'd be fighting mortals. Or I'd be dead, since, you know… everyone would be. Yet, I'm here, going about my business freely. Doesn't seem like the worst tradeoff."

Another pensive silence fell over them through the phone and Diamond felt that, not knowing what was going on, on the other side, was not really allowing her to react comfortably to sensitive topics like these.

She struck on a casual tone. "Here is an idea; Next week, Thursday, I'll be in Roarhaven for a job. It'll mostly be just walking around, but if you'd like, you could just come along, and we can have an actual conversation."

For a second, she thought he was staying quiet in order to look for an excuse to refuse the offer, but then there was a nod in his voice. "Sounds like a plan."

They arranged for a meeting spot and, a couple of days later, Diamond was walking up to a strip of water in Roarhaven. She was still a bit woozy from the Teleport here, something that she had not been able to get used to quite yet. But the cold, humid air slowly cleared her head. The city was not too close but could be seen clearly in the distance and gusts of wind made the grey water shape into thin waves.

She had given Nuce the day and night off, and he had taken the break gladly, had not asked too many questions, which Diamond had quietly appreciated. It was not like she way trying to make a secret out of it, but she rather did not discuss it, either.

Diamond sighed and tried to prepare herself for a tricky conversation. Now, not tricky in the way of topics, but rather of execution. She did not take Skulduggery for the kind of man to pour his heart out to perfect strangers. But she breathed off the tension, forcing a casual calm over herself, to try and go about this situation as she would with any other.

A couple of minutes later, Skulduggery stepped up next to her, turning to look at her from the side.

Diamond looked up at him and she had to admit that seeing a skull as someone's head was still a tiny bit of a shock, in the first moment. But she decided to move on from that immediately and, instead, checked out his clothes. He was wearing a suit and vest that looked black, but were presumably blue, looking darker in the night. His hat was the same color, but with a lighter band that matched his lighter tie, which she guessed to be somewhere in the beige range.

"Good evening." Skulduggery said.

"Good… night?" She suggested.

"How was the trip here?"

"Oh, convenient," Diamond nodded contently. "Our Sanctuary has Teleporters now, imagine that. So, I can actually come here for work and not waste hours of time on rides and flights."

"Innovational." Skulduggery commented with something that sounded like a smirk in his voice. Then he mustered her and extended a finger at her jaw. "What happened there?"

"Hm?" She frowned and touched the spot, which immediately complained about being sore. Ah, she remembered, the bruise. Since the day was over, her make-up had probably faded to the point that the leftover purple and brown spots were peeking out from underneath. "Oh." Diamond realized and snorted, waving it away with a lazy hand. "Training with Nuce. You know how it is."

She could not tell whether he believed her or not, but then Skulduggery looked around as if he were checking out the workspace. "So, how do we go about this?"

Diamond padded on her inner jacket pocket. "I already have the package. Now, we walk to the delivery spot and then back; in random patterns that make sure no one can trace back either location."

"And then?" He prodded.

She felt a small smirk enter her features. "And then, nothing. Then, we're done."

"That is… indeed, incredibly boring." Skulduggery pointed out.

Diamond gave him a half-serious glare. "It can be. Until someone attacks, or follows us, or tries to manipulate the pick-ups, or a client throws a fit. Or until we turn a corner and see Lord Vile. Not that something like that would ever happen."

"Alright, Sparkles." He said, still somewhat bemused. "Let's go, then."

She smirked and led the way into a close ally, slowly cutting out the light that was coming from the city, blocked off by walls and houses. The occasional streetlamp lit the points where they crossed other streets.

"Did you actually just turn a corner?" Skulduggery asked eventually, sounding skeptical and maybe uncomfortable at that.

"Not actually." She replied. "We were following Valkyrie."

He mustered her. "Why?"

Diamond sighed. "Because she was alone and stressed to the point of not hearing her own name."

Skulduggery's head moved in a way that suggested a raised brow or some other skeptical expression. "Do you do that often? Follow stressed people?"

She snorted. "Only if they are Dead Men."

He nodded comprehendingly. "Ah."

It was quiet for a moment, as they walked along.

"So, you just… decided to jump in?" Skulduggery asked hesitantly.

"Yeah," Diamond shrugged, "why not?"

He gave an incredulous sound. "I could think of a couple of reasons."

"Necromancy can't harm me, as long as I'm shifted." She said. "Doesn't matter who is using it."

Skulduggery hesitated at his question, probably slowly picking up on her purposefully vague mentions of other Necromancers. "How long, exactly, did you train with Necromancy?"

Diamond looked up briefly to the dark, overcast sky, that was lightly reflecting the orange glow of town. "Several years."

"Coincidentally or purposefully?" He wanted to know.

She smirked. "A bit of both. But mostly, former."

"At a temple?" He asked.

Diamond shook her head, but said nothing in return, signalizing that this was all he was going to get out of her, on that topic.

Skulduggery looked at her directly from the side. "I could… hear your thoughts."

Diamond snickered, out of amusement but partly to hide the fact that she had now an answer to her question, how much he still remembered after donning the armor. "That does tend to happen when you're inside of someone's head."

"I… wasn't…" He argued unsurely.

"You were accessing the muscular layer. Which includes the brain because it's a muscle." She disagreed, then grinned. "Which also makes it just a great way to unwind."

Skulduggery shook his head disbelievingly at her but did not seem intent on arguing any more. "Is there anything that can harm you?" He asked after a moment.

She turned a corner, before replying. "Well, anything that manages to surprise me, or force me out of a shift. And other things made of diamond, of course. Drill, bullet, etc. Other than that, I have yet to find a kind of magic or weapon that could get through, at least, a full-body-shift."

"That is very practical." Skulduggery noted.

"Nyeh," she said, "it's useful. It isn't at all practical because I cannot move in that state. This is something I'm definitely noticing, the more I work with Nuce. Previously, I could just go in and out of a shift and, basically, just stand there, until the danger had passed. Now, I need to both protect myself and move around to help him."

They started getting closer to the target location and she led them along a crossing alley to throw off any potential followers, even though she was sure no one else was around.

"Is he your first partner?" Skulduggery asked.

Diamond shook her head slightly. "My first partner with a lower training level than me."

"And what happened to his predecessor?"

She shrugged. "It didn't work out."

And since they were now heading into a territory that she was not remotely comfortable with, Diamond was glad when they were approaching the address she had been given.

"Here we are." She said and steered towards the house that was a typical, smaller city home, with a front lawn, but no visible garden. She pulled an envelope out of her jacket pocket and inserted it into the mailbox. When it clacked lightly at the bottom of the box, Diamond turned and walked back to Skulduggery, who was waiting at a distance.

Quietly, they made their way back towards the city, again walking irregular paths, away from any area of larger population or public gathering. Diamond assumed that he was thinking through whatever he had initially called her about. But she did not ask anything, letting the atmosphere be flexible, allowing for both conversation and comfortable silence.

"Did you ever meet any of the other Dead Men?" Skulduggery finally asked.

"Just Saracen." Diamond said, keeping her eyes front as they filled with some dread, when she spoke the name aloud for the first time in quite a while.

He looked at her from the side. "Did you know him well?"

She shook her head, staring on ahead. "Not really."

Skulduggery kept looking at her, probably seeing some of the sadness she was trying to ignore. "You still seem very upset."

Diamond breathed in and out, still looking and walking ahead. "I found him."

Skulduggery continued watching her. "You were there."

She shook her head, feeling her brows furrow slightly and involuntarily. "I was too late." When he did not say anything, she tried to blank out the memory and mustered him back. "Why do you ask?"

He exhaled an empty breath. "Well… I go to work, I watch the way the Sanctuary operates now, and all I can think is that they would have hated every bit of it."

"I can imagine." Diamond said.

"And I just… It just irks me that I cannot fix it."

"Why is it yours to fix?" She asked.

Skulduggery turned lightly while walking, directing a hand at her. "Because there is only three of us left. And if we don't honor their memory, then no one will. Because, just as you said; everyone else just sees them as characters in a bonfire story. You think Konelius Slay gives a damn about what Ghastly Bespoke might have had to say, a decade ago?"

"But they're gone." Diamond said gently. "You aren't. So, if you have an issue with the Sanctuary, it is because you do and that makes you the one capable of changing it."

He barked a single, quiet laugh. "That is not going to happen."

They arrived by a spot along a strip of water again, but another one than before. Here, a small peer had been set up, with wooden railings along the side, looking like it was still a remnant of the former Roarhaven. They stepped onto the wooden flooring and stopped by the edge of the water, leaning sideways against the railing.

"Why not?" Diamond asked on.

"Because it's futile. Because my attempts at 'change' have always been futile", Skulduggery replied bitterly. "It is just a circle of repeating circumstances. And no matter how I am involved or not involved, it will just go back to the same point eventually, anyway. Winning the war just leads to the next war and that one leads to the next."

Diamond mustered him, trying to read between the lines. "Redemption isn't a scratching card, you know?" She then said. "You can't just replace a bad deed for a good one and call it a deal."

He seemed surprised by her choice of reply, but then nodded to her almost bitterly. "Then, what do you think it is? What do you think is the right amount of punishment for this?"

Diamond sighed with a sympathetic half-smile. "I don't know, Skulduggery."

He regarded her quietly.

"I'm a bodyguard, not a judge", she added, "but what I do know is that there needs to be some sort of relation. I mean, did you destroy the entire world?"

"Not… entirely…" Skulduggery slowly replied.

"Alright, so then why are you responsible for saving the entire world?" Diamond asked.

He looked onto the water, avoiding her eyes. "It's not about that."

She didn't let it sway her, keeping her attentive gaze on the profile of his skull. "What is it about, then?"

"It's about the point." Skulduggery said, sounding irritated now. "It's about the pointlessness."

"Pointlessness of what?" Diamond probed calmly on.

He sniffed sourly, turning around to lean onto the fence with both arms, yet moving his hands along to the rant. "This entire time I haven't done anything other than trying to make this right. And yet, I'm probably only a few years away from this becoming public, and nothing has actually led to anything good. And every time I think anything good might come from something, it just turns on its head within months."

"You mean Valkyrie." She suggested gently.

He hesitated. "Amongst other things…"

Diamond sighed and adjusted her stance to lean a bit sideways over the railing, moving herself into his peripheral. "Are you talking to her, or not?"

Skulduggery was quiet for a while, probably not to think of an answer, rather than saying the answer out loud. "Not really."

"Why not?"

He turned Diamond's direction again, leaning on the railing with one arm and raising the other with a flat hand, to circle around the frustrated statements. "Because anything to do with myself is somewhat interconnected with her. I address any topic, it is not just mine, it is hers, too. What will I say? What will she say, when I tell her that my entire four-hundred-and-fifty years on this earth have brought nothing truly positive?"

"She would probably say 'wow, thanks.'" Diamond replied with a bit of a smile.

He snapped his fingers at her. "Precisely."

"But it's not about her." She replied, adjusting her own stance to face him properly. "It's about you and about you needing some sort of positive outcome to this mess. Which is understandable." Diamond wore her sympathy on her sleeve. "But it's also not very unusual, is it? Everyone wants to make the world a better place. You are not responsible to make it some sort of utopia."

Skulduggery looked out onto the water to the side, then down at the ground, then back at the water again. "I suppose, I was always just hoping that there was some sort of solution. Some sort of a point. That maybe, just maybe, this wouldn't be all I am. And yet, it started with him and now it is ending with him."

She mustered him. "How do you know that this is the ending?"

He did not reply. She continued watching him, trying to find some sort of hidden demeaner, but he simply looked tired. It made her feel uneasy and heavy.

Diamond took a breath and stepped closer, resting a hand on his wrist, keeping her eyes on him perpetually. "What can I do?"

Skulduggery turned his sights back onto her, examining her face. "This is already more than I would dare to hope for." He then said quietly.

She tried a smile and moved her fingers down to take his hand, checking her watch on the other wrist and then pulling them both into a walking pace again.

They continued their way through the alleys for a while, just strolling along. The different darkened textures and colors of walls and gardens went past in a fairly quick pace, making the environment blurry.

His hand was much larger than hers, covering it, so that it almost felt like he was the one holding hers. And underneath the leather she could feel his finger bones between her regular fingers and the gaps between his knuckles, where the fabric gave in slightly. But she noticed; none of it bothered her, rather than just being something that she was unused to.

So, she went on to focus back on their path, looking out for any potential sightings or dangers. But it seemed, the night would stay quiet and empty.

"Diamond?" Skulduggery asked after quite a while.

"Hm?"

"Why are you doing this?"

She glanced at him, then shrugged. "The way Nuce and I see it; we have two options. We can either turn you in, or we can help."

"There are two more options." Skulduggery said.

She raised a brow at the path before them. "And those would be…?"

"You could try to kill us. Or you could turn a blind eye."

Diamond nodded slightly, feeling her brow twitch with some snark. "Well, looks like those aren't options for us."

"And then, why not turn us in?" He asked.

Since they had arrived, out of instinct, Diamond straightened her arm to make Skulduggery stop walking, and stood in front him. "Because I don't want to." She said squarely. Before he could ask anything else, she nodded at an empty spot behind him. "Unfortunately, I have to send you away, now. My lift arrives in a couple of minutes and they can't see me here with anyone, but Nuce."

Skulduggery nodded and took his hand back. He inclined his head at her. "Thank you, for your time."

She smiled and stepped up for a hug. He embraced her back properly, rather than with just his hands, but they separated again quickly and Skulduggery raised a hand in greeting, before turning and heading in the direction of the Sanctuary.

Diamond moved her head down, took a deep breath and held it there for a while, watching him walk off. When she eventually exhaled slowly, she turned as well and went over to a wall, to lean against it. Looking quietly at the ground, she crossed her arms, letting herself walk through her thoughts and the various statements of the past moments.

There was a nagging feeling of something in the background. A worry, but the kind of worry that left her with a blanket feeling of unease, ungrounded to anything clear.

Of course, there was a part of her that wanted to just go to Dexter and talk to him about this. Most of all because he had more knowledge of the people they were dealing with. But it was not actually a wish she intended to pursue in any way. She knew, at least, Dexter well enough, to know that this would not only be a break of Skulduggery's trust, but generally a truly terrible idea.

Generally, she felt like had a vaguely accurate idea of the issue at hand, or rather, the issues, and therefore, a presumably good hold of the current situation. Diamond doubted though, that she would be able to do more than just be someone to talk to. That would have to do, for her part.

After some time, her thoughts were interrupted by a little pop and the Teleporter, who lifted her hand as she walked towards her. "Ready to go back?"

Diamond sniffed with a muted smile. "Not really." She said, but held out her arm anyway.