"I know," she agrees, softly. It's funny, in a way, to be being told this by a girl who could only be half her age, tops. Maybe more like a third, but she tries not to think too hard about how old she was exactly when the curse hit and how long she lived under it, because does anyone really want to look in the mirror and go huh, I'm in my sixties? without expecting to?

And maybe it's less that she wants to perform or embrace dark magic herself, and more that she just understands how Regina got so desperate, even if she doesn't know her that well, and even if she doesn't particularly like her. Understanding someone makes it a lot harder to judge them, no matter how much you'd like to.

"Believe me, I know all of that. I just... I still wish things could be different sometimes. Like I'll wake up one day and all the terrible things will be a bad dream I can keep from happening."