"How old are you?"

Thirteen.

"That's really young to be on your own, like, even if you were a regular person."

She curls up a little tighter, tense.

She's not dumb. They think she's dumb, because they hurt her less when she made them think that, so she did. (And there's a sense in the background that she's been doing that kind of strategic masterminding for most of her life; that it's one of the primary tools she's used to survive.) But she's not dumb. She can figure this out.

"I didn't say you were dumb, just, like, not regular. And thirteen. So you need somebody helping you but maybe not those same people. I can get the others to say we never found you but you gotta have some plan that isn't stealing food and hiding in banks."

Oh.

She's still figuring it out. She only hid in the bank because they were about to find her. She doesn't know how else to get food but she can work on it.

"I could suggest some places to go? Some of 'em won't try too hard to find out where you came from if you just show up and say you ran away from home and you had a good reason."

But what if they're worse - she doesn't send that. If they're bad she can leave. If they don't know about the phasing they won't know to stop her from being able to. Maybe even if they do know they won't have a way.

Okay, she sends.

"So there's - are you a religion at all -"

She tenses up a little at that, for some reason.

No.

"...well, there's people who like, kind of worship whatever thing is judging how pretty we are all the time? And they have some charities but you have to listen to their spiel. My next idea is Magicals International."

That might be okay if it's, like, once. She is not a fan of church.

"I don't know how many times it would be. Uh, the Church of Thaumatology would probably try to get you adopted by some nice magical couple and they'd probably try to bring you up in the Church, so probably more than once. Magicals International would probably put you in a dorm and powers-test you and have you kinda working for your dinner but like you'd still have time for school so they wouldn't work you too hard."

She curls up tight as the girl finishes speaking. The mention of being worked too hard, maybe, or of going to school.

"Do they not have school at the Institute?"

Bad. Dreadful. The most insidious danger.

"...they have it but it's bad school?"

She doesn't have a concept of school that's not a horrible painful degrading tactical nightmare. If that's bad, yes, it was bad.

"I think they'd send you to like... normal... school? Where you would learn... math and science and English and stuff."

She doesn't trust this girl - this adult - enough for her calm about it to be reassuring. She doesn't send that; she just sits.

"I think anywhere responsible I could send you would send you to school but maybe if you got adopted by Church of Thaumatology people you could get ones who'd homeschool you?"

Okay.

(She'll play along, and as soon as she has a chance, she'll leave. She can do that. It's fine.)

"There's not a Church in this town but if you want to go that way a few miles," she points, "you can get into the next town, and there's one at Main and... thirty-third, thirty-fourth, around there."

Thank you.

"I could show you the way and let Bailey report in."