Oh, yeah, like Skulduggery's going to believe any rumors Max repeats. The guy doesn't believe in magic and he's about to lose his dignity to a talking skeleton! Come on.

"Everybody dies, one way or another," Skulduggery replies, oddly chipper for a guy who's living proof of the opposite. "It's probably some kind of trick." Magic or otherwise. "At any rate, I'd rather things not get messier than they are. If a gun's out of the question, it's fireballs all the way."