"But I think the context is different if you make the offer in a context where I've already accepted it once, and established it as a thing we do, and in that context I'd want to have another conversation.  And in all likelihood that conversation would end with me being okay with it, if you were!  But there's more I'd want to process if it were to become a regular thing, between us, rather than just accepting the original offer in the context it was made."

He nods seriously.  "I think that makes sense.  You're a good gal, Kaylee."

Grin.

Grin.

"So, you outlined three possibilities.  Either you can resurrect anyone, or you can create a soul catcher that'll let you resurrect people who die after it exists, or you can't resurrect anyone.  I figure we make two more of me, one dies, you try to wish him back, then you try to make a soul-catcher if that doesn't work.  ...Though come to think of it we might be able to do some of those things with - curses, if we can't with hexes."

"Are you - up for curses?"

"If I hadn't thrown the kill switch on the pesto I probably would've coughed up a couple curses."  He looks speculative.  "Give me ten minutes."

She does.

He returns to her room looking sweaty and harrowed, panting a little, but triumphantly holding up two scab-colored seven-pointed stars.

"I'm gonna have to veto doing that again for a while," he says.  "Til I build up my tolerance some more."

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," he says.  "I've got a killswitch, I can stop anything whenever, don't worry about me."

She takes the coins, when he hands them over.

"Do you - need a minute?"

" - yeah," he says.  "Yeah, actually."

He rather collapses into a chair, and stairs at the ceiling for a little while.

She'll give him as long as he needs.

He perks up after twenty minutes or so.

"All right," he says.  "I'm up for this resurrection experiment and then I think I have to call it for the day."

"That's more than fair."

For this event they relocate to another room, set up a bit like a doctor's office, all in white with a raised bed.

"...Do you want to know which of me is the original?" he asks.

"I think so."

"It's gonna be one of the ones who dies," he says.  "I actually worked a lot of this out years ago, when it was just a hypothetical.  But I've got a forking protocol I'm comfortable with, and I had to decide before I forked myself that if I did it for this, the original would be the one to die, so I knew I wasn't fooling myself."  He wishes a dark red letter A onto his forehead.

She nods.  "All right.  Whenever you're ready."

A moment later, there are two more of him, lettered B and C; they all shake each other's hands.  "Pleasure to meet you."

A lies down on the bed.  C stands over him.

"All right," C says, "I'm going to use a square to wish your brain and heart into liquid, still sound good?"

"Yes," A says.

"Enjoy," says C.

"Good luck," says A.

A looks up at the ceiling, shimmies his shoulders a little in pleasant anticipation.  Then - it's hard to tell, lying prone on the raised bed, but not impossible - he goes entirely limp.

She looks at C for confirmation; when he nods, she takes out a jinx (to start) and thinks.

She wants, not just another Leo, but Leo A, the one who died, that particular chain of experiences that ended, restored to health and allowed to continue living, allowed to move from the last link in the chain to a new one and beyond, as though teleported forward in time from the moment of his death to the moment of his resurrection, losing nothing.

Once it's in words, she recites it to herself, in a whisper, twice.  She doesn't expect it to work with just a jinx but she tries it anyway, for completeness's sake.

He sits up.

He looks at B and C.

"Not gonna lie, I'm a little disappointed."

She's rather staring.

They glance at her, then between each other.

C speaks.

"You okay?  Joking aside this seems like good news."