He watches the exhaustion, and watches the pain. It isn't surprising; he has spent his share of time alongside the Blood Ministers, easing crystals out of fingers and wrists. If anything, it's the boy's poker face that merits interest. He hasn't yet encountered a Sleeper this successfully stoic.

Or this paranoid, or this desperate for answers. Not outside the one he tends to keep at his right hand, anyway.

"A welcome," he repeats, more softly to suit to Paul's murmur. "An embrace that's getting to be a bit much, if you ask me."

Paul looks up to him, and he resettles, resumes tapping his fingers now along the wooden arm of his chair. The God of Necromancers tips his head in thought.

"Blood magic is the breath of this world," he says. "And we've arrived with an innate knack for it. But it's still a young world." Tap-tap, tap-tap. "Have you read up on the history? We're only a few millennia into the rebirth, a few centuries into the discovery of the art. All the nitty-gritty theory is ahead of us. Bit exciting, if you ask me, but a hell of a learning curve too."

His tone doesn't vary from something mild, thoughtfully level. It's all true, after all. He has lived it all before; just not from the role of a disciple.

"Maybe it's considered gauche to ask why of our hosts," he acknowledges. "But it's for the advancement of the art, the science, to ask how."