"Yes, emotional breakdowns are notoriously inconvenient that way."

"So annoying," she agrees, with a ghost of a smile.

She considers him, and the smile loses its phantasm to become more fond.

"Thanks. I'm - I'm not okay, precisely. I'm not going to be okay for a while, I think. But that helped, and you're wonderful, and thank you."

"You're welcome. I'm glad I could help."

I love you, she thinks, with absolute certainty. And - doesn't say out loud, because she's known him for less than a week and that strikes her as taking things a little bit too fast.

"You're..." she trails off. "How are you real."

"A question I am asked with flattering frequency," he says, "and yet I still don't have a good answer."

"Well, whatever it is you do to paradoxically exist, please keep doing it."

"I have no intention of stopping, promise."

"Good." Smile.

She takes a deep breath. "Okay, I think I'd like to handle the - questionably-ex-quasi-boyfriend problem sooner rather than later, want to go find Liesel and explain everything?"

"Yeah, sounds like a plan."

She takes his hand and squeezes it, then extracts herself from hugs (and her laptop) to go wash her face and give herself plausible deniability for the crying.

Then: time to find Liesel.

Liesel can be found in the living room, doing math!

"Hi, what's up?"

"Hi, so. There has been a - slight complication."

"Go on."

"My - my questionably-ex-quasi-boyfriend that I acquired while soulless called. I didn't answer, but if I don't call him in a week or two he will notice something is up. Less slight complication: he's a several hundred year old vampire prince who has found a magical niche that is based around torturing innocent victims. So. That's fun."

"That's a complication all right," says Liesel. "How likely is he to go to your sister? What's your preferred approach? Do you think he can potentially be talked out of the torture of innocent victims?"

"He hates my sister and will avoid her unless given some very nice incentives to stop, and even then he'd do it very begrudgingly. Not so much a security risk by him directly working with her, more likely he'd investigate himself and she'd figure out something was off on her own from his visit. I think talking to him is better than just waiting to see if he shows up, but I haven't decided whether I want to try to get his help or just trick him into thinking I've left for Tibet and he shouldn't come after me."

She considers. "... He really likes the torture of innocent victims. Maybe he could be talked out of it anyway, but. He did not stumble upon his niche by accident. Aside from that he's a pretty decent guy. I have some taste, even without my soul."

The last part was kind of wry.

"Is the 'innocent victims' part mandatory, or could he be appeased with volunteers?"

"He could be appeased with volunteers, I think," she says, looking - slightly queasy. "But I am not sure anyone would be willing to."

"I'll see what I can dig up. If you're willing to talk about it I might ask you for a list of criteria, magically and personally speaking, but if not don't worry about it. How powerful is he?"

"In a magic fight I'd definitely lose unless I had time for preparation. If I had time for preparation and the element of surprise, I'd only probably lose. Strong emotions from his victims is part of it, it's not just the pain itself, it's the reaction to it. A negative reaction is not necessarily required, but for obvious reasons it's easier to horrify and terrify your victims than just about anything else." She hesitates. ".... I can get you a list of how he conducts the torture. It might be out of date, it was a few years ago, but I got the impression he'd refined his craft very well and a few more years wouldn't change it much."

"I'd appreciate that, if you're okay to handle it," she says. "But if we do end up bringing him in on this, I'll be fine asking him about it directly."

Slight smile.

"It's on my laptop somewhere, it wouldn't be hard to dig up and print, if you have a printer."

"Yeah, we do."

"Okay, then I can get that to you. Is there anything else you need to know before I go off to do that?"

She shakes her head. "Just let me know when you decide whether or not you're bringing him in, and if there's anything else I can do to help."