"I didn't know that," Mira says, thinking it's the kind of skill that will probably end up being useful here at some point. Maybe, anyway. She frowns. "Yeah," she acknowledges. "I mean. Me and books, too. Ugh. I'm sorry." It's one thing to think of them as sort of NPC video game characters that weren't really hurt -- and maybe they were in this stupid spell, who knows, she hasn't exactly heard of any super wealthy people showing up dead or wounded and she thinks that probably wouldn't have just gone back to normal. And steal-from-the-rich-to-feed-the-poor isn't the worst kind of person she could have been. But Raleigh still has to live with shooting people.

She nods. "Hey, I drank the hippy guy's potion too." She skips the part where, besides the very tempting idea of being a better herself, him being kinda super hot had definitely nudged the choice. Because that is idiotic. And pathetic sounding. "Apparently the better you dreams puppies, and the better me ...sings everything." She shakes her head in rueful remembrance, but the humor in it fades. "I don't get how they don't understand. I know it can't be easy for them either, but it's different feeling like you're holding someone back or that you could just have anything happen to you. Like the least special of your friends."

"Besides," she adds, "It's not like nothing ever happens to them. I can't just trust that my friends save the day, because if they're not there, I haven't learned how to protect myself."