Written 2013 - December - 13.

It is with reluctance that Stephen looks up to the door as it opens to admit a young person with a face covered with scars. She'd been quite enjoying watching China's treatment of Skulduggery, though she's still a little leery of China in general.

"I feel so much better about not having skin now," Skulduggery says loftily to the newcomer from where he is once more leaning against the wall. "I was beginning to wonder if I oughtn't feel a little upset about that, but at least now I know it could be worse. I could be you."

"Skulduggery, shut up," Stephen says with a brief, glancing glare. "Hi. This is Skulduggery. He constantly begs to be hit."

"Oh, I know him," says the newcomer with a nod and a gracious smile that distorts his cicatricial skin. "You're right, he does. My name is Bespoke."

"Just call him Ghastly," Skulduggery says. "Everyone does."

"Hello, Bespoke," China says, stepping forward to shake his hand. He stands significantly taller than China does, and tilts his neck a little to look at them. "My name is China Sorrows. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Charmed," he says in answer. "I go by he - what are the pronouns you prefer?"

"They," China responds, beaming.

"And you are?" Bespoke asks of Stephen.

"Stephen," she says and shakes his hand quickly. His grip is gentle, hers tight. "Nice to meet you."

"And you, Stephen," Bespoke says with an appraising look. "Have you been stuck here with Skulduggery long?"

"He was in here first," Stephen says with a shrug. "So, yeah."

"I'm right here," Skulduggery sing-songs.

"We're aware," China tells him. With a quick laugh, Ghastly walks to Skulduggery and proffers a hand to be shaken.

"You're not going to remove one of my limbs, are you?" Skulduggery asks dolefully. "Because I'm pretty sure China's got me covered for that."

"Don't be an idiot, Skulduggery, of course I'm not," Ghastly says.

"I'm not an idiot," Skulduggery says, voice whining, but he takes Ghastly's hand and clings onto it. Stephen turns to China.

"We should probably leave them alone, huh?" she asks, one eyebrow raised.

"It's only a rather small room," China says, "but yes, I think you're right, on the whole."

So it is that when the room's door swings open a fifth time, Tanith Low walks in on nervous tiptoes only to be confronted by the sight of two boys cuddling in one corner with the room's other two occupants sitting as far away as possible.

"Well," Tanith says, a little awkwardly. "I'd apologize for the intrusion, but I'm not really sure what else I could have done. Um. Hello?"

The introductions go by at speed, with Ghastly and Skulduggery more engrossed in each other at this stage than anything else, and Tanith herself a bundle of cheerfully nervous energy that expresses itself in her quick, careless gestures and the leaping descant of her voice. She speaks with a crisp, light accent which China comments on and leads her into a conversation over that becomes steadily less stilted. Stephen tries to stay somewhat involved in it at first, but soon finds herself gravitating away, instead to contemplate how many more people the room is expected to hold. It's been uncomfortably close ever since it's needed to hold more than two.

Her question is soon answered: the sixth time the door opens, it is not to admit another youth, but to allow an unsmiling adult to peer in with unexpressive eyes.

"Skulduggery Pleasant," says this individual in an uninflected alto voice, "Stephen Cain, China Sorrows, Ty Bespoke, Tanith Low. Follow me now to be conducted to your place of future residence."

Stephen walks on the (sensible, silent, steadily-paced) heels of this person, anxious to be gone from the confines of the room. The other four trail behind, China and Tanith still engaged in some kind of nonverbal communication that darts between their eyes and the tilting of their shoulders, and Skulduggery and Ghastly holding hands like it's some kind of a talisman. Stephen glances back at how far they're trailing, and the thought worries her, makes her quicken her own step. She's no attachment to the Administrator they are all following, but she's loathe to get lost.

Looking at them also make Stephen feel desperately lonely, somehow, even more so than the sterile stone surfaces of the Administration building make her feel in the first place. It feels a little like a portent of what her next years spent being educated might be like, and the thought isn't a pleasant one, is instead something that sinks into her ankles and her wrists and the heavy beating of her heart. Still, she supposes, there's not much she can do about it, and on she walks, tapping her fingers against the sides of her legs and trying to ignore the anxiety afforded to her by the way the others seem to loiter.

They are led to a small bubble of a shuttle-compartment of a long, snaking train. The platforms are relatively open, and Stephen can see hundreds of other children being admitted to the instrument of transport. Despite this, the area is silent but for quiet footfall and the droning voices of the Administrators.

The group's Administrator waits for all the children to walk close enough to hear words delivered in an undertone, and then speaks. "You will remain in this grouping until you have reached your destination," the Administrator says. "If one of you were to go missing, the rest would be held responsible. Do you understand?"

There is an assortment of nods and murmurs of assent to that, so the Administrator gestures for them to enter the compartment. There are five seats, two paired and the last on its own at the back, and Stephen goes for the isolate automatically. Instead of staring at the others, she looks up to the gray of the ceiling as they begin their journey to the next stage of their lives.