Anaseverina stays up waiting for him.

He does not have an owl, skeletal or otherwise. His clothes are torn and bloody, although he's good enough at healing that there are no remaining signs of injury anywhere. He shuts the door behind him and stands there, a blank and distant look on his face.

"--Do you want a hug?"

He nods.

Hug.

He shivers and wraps his arms around her and - now he's crying, that's a thing that's happening.

Yes, yes it is. She has no idea what to do about that. Except hug. She can do hug.

Hug is good.

He lets go enough to pull her to the bed, where he curls up and wraps his arms around her and cries some more.

Okay.

...Hairpets? He does not have as much hair as her to pet, but still.

Yes those are good. She is so good.

Okay. Hugs and hairpets until he says otherwise or falls asleep or something.

He does fall asleep eventually.

The first thing he does when he wakes up in the morning is get out pen and paper and write down a list of names. The last five items on the list are numbers instead: Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve.

...Okay.

"What--what happened?"

"I understand what you mean now, about it - mattering more -"

"--Oh."

Hug.

Hug.

She looks at the list. She looks at the number of items on the list.

"Maybe if you teach me the pain spell I can help."

...he smiles a little and hugs her some more.

"Maybe," he agrees. "That'd be nice."

Hugs. "When you're ready. None of the names on this list are gonna get less hurtable in--however long."

"Can't let it go too long, though, or people will start thinking they can get away with this shit. Anyway, I've got a plan. Let's see how fast you can learn the pain spell."

She is very motivated to learn the pain spell, and Sairu is a much better teacher than Savaross.

So he catches small animals to practice on, and they work on it for the rest of the day minus time spent at lessons or meals, and he explains the plan -

- and that evening he goes out looking for whichever of the people on the list he can most easily ambush.

It's one of the ones whose names he didn't know; she's on the list as Nine. He pain-spells her and drags her back to his room, where he dumps her on the floor and sets up the pain spell to last all night, and an immobilization for good measure. Anaseverina can take first watch, just in case the spell slips or Nine manages to get free somehow.

Anaseverina can do that.