During the second day, the girl had marched quietly, consumed by her thoughts. When they’d struck camp she had still collapsed, if not quite as immediately as on the first. Roderick made sure she was asleep before actually speaking.

“How much longer will we be in the woods?” the knight then asked.

“If I remember, we should reach the edge in two or three days,” Rhys nodded thoughtfully.

“And how long ago have you gone through here?”

“Now that I don’t recall,” the necromancer admitted. “But forests rarely ever change too much.”

“And the capital?”

“A week away... probably closer to two actually.”

“Then we will need supplies,” Rod nodded. “The girl will starve with nothing for me to hunt in the open.”

“Didn’t we have hardtack?” the necromancer frowned.

“Rotten through,” Rod shrugged helplessly. “I checked just this morning.”

“Town it is,” Rhys sighed. “I will need you to gather a few herbs on the way then.”

“Which?”

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They continued their hard march the following day. And while the girl still looked somewhat exhausted, it appeared she was much more tired of being with just her own thoughts and the path. Rhys noticed she wanted to talk to him about an hour before she actually mustered the courage to do so, just as they set down for lunch. Venison over campfire, which Rhys was honestly getting a bit sick of.

“Will you teach me?” Beatrice asked, hope filling her eyes.

“No,” the necromancer simply shook his head and moved to sit further away before she could sputter a response. She definitely would have argued given the chance, which was why it had been denied. The newt looked truly pitiable afterward, just sitting there, maybe a tear or two glistening in her eyes. Whether those were real or an act would make little actual difference to Rhys. If the worst it cost was some effort he might have helped her. But the long years had taught him many lessons when it came to sharing knowledge and its dangers.

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“You should tutor her,” Roderick said in the night’s quiet. He chose the moment well too. Just as Rhys had thrown the last of the pre-cut herbs into the cauldron and began mixing it over the campfire. It would be a few more minutes before the whole concoction began to boil and needed a bit of magic.

“No,” that did not mean it would change the necromancer’s answer.

“What would it cost you?”

“That is a much more complex question than you understand,” Rhys sighed.

“Let’s trade for it then,” the knight decided, voice determined. And right then the necromancer knew the war was already lost for him. He would either teach the girl or lose the knight's heart. There was no way to steer the conversation towards a different outcome. What a conundrum.

“For her?” Rhys inclined his head. “A girl you have met two days ago and never even spoken to?”

“Does that surprise you?”

“No,” Rhys shook his head. The knight was hardly the only selfless fool with too much kindness for their own good to ever serve him. And the necromancer was not yet ready to let good Roderick go. “I just find it curious. A full story for every day I teach her.”

“Starting tomorrow,” was the counteroffer.

“Deal,” the necromancer agreed immediately. Then he went back to his brew. It would last a month so it was best to have some ready for when they left the woods.

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“Fine,” he said before Beatrice could even actually ask the question just as they were setting out in the morning.

“Really?” she almost couldn’t believe it herself. No doubt the newt had spent most of the prior day contemplating how to possibly convince him, only to have victory handed over far too easily.

“Dear Rod is more fond of you than he shows,” Rhys nodded towards his wench of a knight. He had heard much about just what opinions Roderick had once held towards redheaded maidens in distress after all. “His heart is surprisingly soft, given it had been removed.”

“Thank you,” she said with a great dose of that youthful sincerity.

“Well, first I should ascertain what you already do know,” he nodded, pretending to think. He had obviously figured out what to say well ahead.

“I have not been studying as long as some but my master said I was exceptional for my age,” she said, back straightening with pride.

“Then show me,” Rhys looked around, spotting a lone little hummingbird building the start of a nest on a nearby tree. He took a few strides beneath its branch, then willed its tiny heart to stop. A small carcass fell onto his already outstretched hand a moment later. “Raise this.”

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“You just killed it like that!?” Beatrice cried out in surprise and outrage.

“It’s a bird,” Rhys inclined his head.

“They still have souls!”

“So does the grass,” the older necromancer pointed out.

“Really?” that seemed to give the girl a pause.

“It seems the gaps to fill are plentiful,” Rhys sighed. But he had already promised. “If I am to teach you, it will be done right. So, show me your work.”

For a moment the girl’s offense with the little avian’s demise warred with her desire to learn, but the latter won out in the end. She walked up to receive the corpse, gingerly taking it into her palm. Then closed her eyes and concentrated, losing any trace of reluctance that might have been there. The older necromancer also focused on feeling what she was doing. How she tugged at the powers of the world like a singer trying to serenade over the orchestra rather than alongside it.

“Wrong,” Rhys sighed. Yes, a lot of holes.

“I haven’t done anything yet,” she frowned.

“You are trying to wrest the Change instead of letting it follow your will.”

“Change?”

“First lesson then, it is called the Change, not ‘weave’ as you have used,” Rhys nodded. “And as the name might suggest it wants to alter reality. You don’t need to force it to do your bidding. No need to drag along, just direct.”

“This is how I have always done it,” she defended the atrocious crutch.

“Just because you are in a habit of jumping out of a window doesn’t mean the door is not the better method. Focus and then guide, not force.”

To her credit, the girl did not make any more complaints, refocusing at doing as he instructed. Five more times she reverted to old bad pattern which Rhys immediately stopped and corrected. But she gradually made the shift. The needed mindset seemed to come to her quickly. Then the Change flowed alongside her will rather than being dragged behind. It surged into the little bird’s bones, filling them with defiance of the recent death, altering it into a semblance of what had been. Right after she harnessed the tiny soul, making it bind itself once again to what had been its body and in doing so letting the avian remember how to move.

“Good, that was quicker than I have anticipated,” Rhys nodded, allowing the tiny minion to jump onto his outstretched finger. It was twitchy and clearly couldn’t control its legs that well, but he had to admit the girl had successfully animated it. There were naturally major issues to point out though, “You raised just the bones.”

“It’s much faster and easier. And it will keep together even after the flesh decays away.”

“How will it fly then?” the older necromancer naturally asked.

“Undead birds don’t fly unless you make them magical,” she rolled her eyes. With the confidence of a blind man describing colors to boot. That wouldn’t do.

“Is that so?” Rhys undid the animation, then remade it properly. For a moment the hummingbird stopped moving, then it chirped.

Beatrice was so startled by it that she half flinched, giving the small undead all the time it needed to take flight. With the same dexterity it had held in life, it began to circle around her head, chirping almost angrily at the newt that had failed to return to it that singular most defining feature.

“It… looks almost like it’s alive,” she stared at it, wide-eyed, then tried to poke the fluttering bird. It dodged and gave her two very unimpressed chirps for the effort.

“It had died mere minutes ago,” Rhys nodded. “With a few nudges, the metabolism could be restarted and maintained for a good chunk of the original lifespan. Why waste perfectly fine working muscle when animating? If you revive just the bones like you had, you will lose most of the body’s natural functions. That should be a deliberate trade-off, not the default option.”

“What even makes it different from being still alive then?” she questioned, uncomprehending.

“It has undergone the Change of Death,” Rhys began to explain but cut himself off. Not too much at once. “Ah, but that should be well enough for now. Contemplate what you have already learned and practice naturally calling onto the Change rather than forcing it as we march today. It is still a long way to Florencia.”

And she followed that dutifully, improving with every attempt. Rhys did not comment on any other mistakes, just watching through the day as calling upon the Change the right way became as natural as breathing to Beatrice… And drawing some mild amusement from the many times the newt stumbled or walked into a tree because of her intense focus.

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“She has talent,” Rhys reluctantly admitted by the smoldering remnants of the campfire once the girl was well asleep. She had already asked several insightful questions he had to deflect until the morrow.

“Heaven-shattering, era-rending talent?” Roderick would have smiled if he still had lips.

“Let’s not put words in my mouth,” the necromancer scoffed. “But enough she could probably grasp all the five Changes in her natural lifespan with a slight nudge or two.”

“I have not the slightest clue what that means,” the knight inclined his head.

“Fair enough,” Rhys sighed. Not much point talking magic with a knight, was there? “I am just pondering the morality of teaching her.”

“You are helping a young lady out in her time of need. Where is the harm in that?”

“Ah, she is a newt now, but what in twenty years? Sixty?” Rhys hummed. “Will I have raised a tyrant? Perhaps she will be a folk hero instead. Maybe Beatrice will teach either instead of becoming one herself. Alternatively, she could die in complete obscurity too, inconsequential to the world at large.”

“And which do you think will happen?” Roderick tensed, his head infinitesimally turning towards Beatrices’ prone form. Ah, how pleasant that had to be for the knight - so scarcely ever aware of the consequences that often followed even the most well-meant actions.

“Either is neither likely nor impossible,” Rhys sighed again. “But there will be no way to know for decades. You might see why I dislike taking disciples. Consequences, consequences. What I tell her over the next week could well doom or save too many people to count.”

“You have taught someone before, I presume?” the knight asked curiously.

“Certainly,” the necromancer nodded. “But that was well before you have entered my service. And they all got themselves killed long ago.”

“Did they change history like that then?” he followed up. “Any of them?”

And to that, Rhys had no good answer. At least not any he was willing to speak out loud before good Roderick. If only the knight knew…