"I mean on the bright side I didn't make a terrible soulless vampire. I don't think I even killed anyone."

"Oh, congratulations. Neither have I, but then I've only had a few days. And I'm motivated to avoid being disappointed in myself forever."

"I don't really know what you're like with a soul, but I don't think you've disappointed yourself." After all, mostly what he did during those few days was oh right they did do that didn't they. She glances at him, opens her mouth, fails to form words, and closes it, instead opting to turn slightly pink. She looks away.

"I'm going to - start checking to reassure myself that my soul's stuck on well enough for putting your soul back. If it isn't, I bet we can find a non-vampire witch powerful enough to cast it on you and that will definitely work," she says, because that is easier than talking about - any of that other thing.

Ah.

"Sounds good," he says.

"I - should probably hold off on casting it tonight, though. Unless you particularly want to deal with an incredibly incoherent and mumbly witch high out of her mind on magic."

Though that wouldn't really be a huge difference from the other ways he's seen her incoherent and mumbly okay no shutting down this line of thought right now.

"I don't particularly object, but I'll understand if you don't want to get high out of your mind in front of a near-stranger."

"I mean, honestly I think I've already been in all sorts of compromising positions in front of the aforementioned near-stranger," she says, deadpan. "But it might be incredibly awkward to have your soul back and immediately have to deal with me being high out of my mind."

"I'll roll with it, trust me."

She considers.

".... I'll see if it's safely castable, and if I'm very sure that it is, it's better that you have it back sooner rather than later."

"All right."

"And luckily," she says, lightly, "I don't have to go shopping for more materials, because I had been planning to subtly extort you and Zeke by buying extra supplies and footing the both of you with the bill."

...he laughs. "I wouldn't have complained."

She giggles.

"I'll pretend I was definitely being preparatory and thoughtful, and not self serving and greedy, then!"

"I feel like the absence of your soul gives you a pretty ironclad excuse for dubious motivations."

"Yeah, fair enough. But my motivations are less dubious now."

"Oh good."

She smiles at him, and then gets to checking over how sturdy her soul is and how much her records of the spell's effect would disturb it.

In about two hours she concludes that her soul is not coming off for anything less than someone trying very hard with a spell specifically designed to rip her soul off, and that her soul-sticking spell wouldn't disturb it at all. It's just trying to find and fill the first available vessel, and it just so happens that the caster will always come up first there. Which makes sense, really.

"So," she says, once she's very, very sure of this, "Time to try this again?"

"Yes please."

Smile. ... Then the smile fades.

".... If my sister comes by while I'm high out of my mind," she says, hesitantly, "tell her that I botched a large spell and stubbornly cast it again, shortly after, to get it right. And that she can ask me about the details later when I'm less incapacitated."

"...understood," he says. "Should I not ask?"

"Depends. How good are you at lying?"

"Extremely."

"My sister turned me, and will be very unhappy about the state of my re-ensouling. This is because she knows that while I have one and she doesn't, I will absolutely stop at nothing to kill her or put it back. She's by far the most terrifying soulless vampire I have ever met and is making a very good bid for world domination."

"...can you adapt your spell to target her at a distance? Because for that I will absolutely wait on mine."

"Probably, but it will take long enough that it's honestly better for me to just put your soul back now, and then try to figure out how to make the spell work at a distance."