Are you hurt? Are you injured?" / "No, just a bruise or two. I'm fine, really. You don't have to worry about me." / "Stephanie, you jumped off a building." / "Yes, but the branches broke my fall. Every one of them." / "And how were the branches?" / "A lot unlike pillows.

Sanguine chuckled. "I like you, boy. You got optimism in these bones. I like you so much that I ain't gonna tell you what I did to poor old Jethro, the first Jethro, may he rest in peace, may they someday find his head.

We're not robbing him," Skulduggery said." But I'm afraid I have some bad news." "Is it Deacon?" Francine asked, her eyes wide. "It is." "Is he sick?" "It's a little worse than that." She gasped. "He's dying?" "He was briefly dying," said Skulduggery. "Now he's dead.

Of course I want to kill you," said Skulduggery. "I want to kill most people. But then where would I be? In a field of dead people with no one to talk to.

I mean you ACRES of harm,' Dalrymple growled. 'Untold QUANTITIES of harm. I will visit a whole CONTINENT of harm upon you before we are through.

Her parents wanted her to find her own way in life. That’s what they’d said countless times in the past. Of course, they’d been referring to school subjects and college applications and job prospects. Presumably, at no stage did they factor living skeletons and magic underworlds into their considerations. If they had, their advice would probably have been very different.

So what does that actually mean?' 'To be honest, Ghastly, I haven't a bull's notion.' 'Elder Bespoke should be addressed by his full title,' Tipstaff said. 'Of course,' Skulduggery said. 'To be honest, Your Highness, I haven't a bull's notion.