Rose tilted her head. "Gray lady?...No...no no no no no, it wasn't Lady Grey you saw! She's called a hermit for a reason. Did this lady have silver hair? I think I saw her right before she knocked me out. That was Lady Erudessa Durvain herself! You should have gotten her autograph. She's the Last Immortal, the pioneer of Semi-Resurrection and the mother of modern healing arts. She doesn't know how to perform a True Resurrection, but she can do everything else."

She finished work on her leg and tested it with some bending exercises. "When you lose bodily integrity, like when you're beheaded or your heart is destroyed, you die. It takes your spirit about seven seconds to detach, after which your soul flies to the afteelife and death is permanent. Lady Durvain figured out how to save people during those seven seconds."

Rose braced on the ground and got to her feet. "True Resurrection is a momumental task. One would first have to bridge the great gulf between the our side of the spiritual realm and the after-side, then infiltrate Hades, the holding cell where all departed souls are kept, steal away the souls you want, guide them back, and reattach them. That's like going to another continent on the other side of the world, finding an exact location there without a map, breaking into a foreign prison, and doing it all with only your leg and blindfolded. It may be within the realm of possibility, but it's generally better to prevent loss of the soul in the first place."

She brushed back a few hairs and stared up at the night sky. "I'm not convinced it was all worth it. I want to believe it was, or else I can never undo the damage I've done. How else can I go back?"