"Hey," he says back. There's something oddly quiet about him, not the stress or strain of some of the previous times, nothing like the anguish of trying to talk about what had happened leading up to Emet-Selch's death. Phillip has already been told that Elidibus is dead and while surely Gustavain is conflicted about that (after all, he was conflicted even before it happened) it's very clearly not that that Phillip can see under the surface.

There's a long pause where Gustavain clearly struggles with something, trying to find the words for the things he wants to say, but eventually he just gives up and crosses to the desk and sits a small object down on it's surface.

It's immediately apparent what it is, of course. What's not immediately apparent is why it is here, why Gustavain is the one showing it to him.

"Emet-Sel--Hades left this in his recreation of Amaurot," well, he thinks, anyway. It's possible this is somehow entirely Hythalodaeus's doing, but he's not sure how much actual intelligence the ghostly recreation had. "He made sure I would find it," he clarifies, "He left it for me." Along with the others, but that's another conversation, another topic, and while it's perhaps of more importance in the wider world, in this room, only one soul crystal he has in his possession matters, and it's lying on the table between them.