Skulduggery simply laughs. It's nowhere near his normal dry amusement, but at least he doesn't sound like he's about to break down (literally?). "I don't know how it happened. The captain doesn't know how it happened, either. Horrifying, I know. He says that it's part of his research." As it usually comes back around to.

"I hadn't seen it in decades. Valkyrie had to track it down from the police. She... used it as a sort of magical compass to find me in that other dimension. And then she brought me home." He reaches up to pat Ava's hand. "You both would find her terribly obnoxious, but she would have done the same thing if she'd suspected I wasn't myself." And for Max, he gets a special toe-bump of Skulduggery's shoe to his knee. "And yes. I won it after some goblins stole this one while I was resting in a church."