[Billy shakes his head again, painfully calm, unfazed by her passion.]

You can't create real people out of magic. Not even... whatever's in me right now could do that. You can make constructs, illusions, but it's all fake. The only thing you killed was the lie I created. And... that's on me, not you.

[He spent a week living in that lie, knowing how it was all falsified, never meant to last. It's why he didn't sleep. It's why he was so drained when it was finally over.

You can change reality for a while, but you can't pull life out of nothing. And magic always has a price.]