She should not be in this lane!!! Haley course-corrects, goes over the grass, has a moment where she's driving into darkness and terrified - but she avoids accidentally taking the exit.

Maybe they should have the lights on. It would be really embarrassing after this whole thing to be captured because they got pulled over for not having the lights on.

She flicks the lever. Pale light blooms out in front of her, and suddenly the dotted lines at the edge of each lane become visible.

Where were they again? 

Right, yes, okay, family. 

"Okay. In America we don't have holy warriors. You're a child until - well, okay, I guess the closest thing is that we let seventeen year olds join the military but that's a terrible bad America thing. Usually until you're eighteen, you're a child, so you can't go from home and if you do then the government will try and find parents, to look after you, until you're eighteen. Foster parents."

"...also I think you're a great holy warrior, I think standing all alone against a whole evil conspiracy is so brave of you and I'm really really glad I met you." This is true, she realises, despite this being the worst day ever. She's just glad she finally gets to do something that really matters. 

"Brave not the hard part of being a holy warrior. The hard part is, if America make you a foster child, you have obey? What if to escape you have to steal? Or work a job that no is legal? If the Queen is evil, but no has doed a crime, what do you do? If there an evil magic conspiracy, but they want to talk, maybe to trick you, maybe there something important? If a holy warrior is wrong, hurts all holy warriors everywhere.

...America no have holy warriors. And they think fifteen is a child? So they make you a foster child, but only until eighteen?"

That does... sound like being a holy warrior would suck, now Haley thinks about it. Absolutely none of their escape would've been possible if she wasn't okay with running and lying and stealing a car and not doing anything she was told to do. She hopes there's some other way to do magic. There must be, if the evil side can also turn invisible.

"Yeah. Foster parents are like, the government gives you a new mom and dad, to make sure every child has a mom and a dad until they're eighteen. Except yours were making you work instead, which isn't supposed to happen but I bet it happens a lot, because the cops are terrible here - you know what a cop is? City guards?"

"Yes. They talked to me when I stab Martin."

"The guy you stabbed? Yeah, okay."

Haley dimly remembers a distant past (earlier today) when the news that Iomedae had stabbed someone was very distressing. She is now feeling oddly relaxed, probably because she's driving at a reasonable speed with the lights on and she's still dehydrated and tired but at least she's eaten. 

"I don't know if you have good guards in Taldor but in America the cops suck. That's why you don't know the law, probably, because the cops don't even follow it. Foster parents aren't allowed to make you work, the cops should stop them, but they probably just think you're a Mexican migrant kid", she takes her hand off the wheel to gesture angrily, "and decided not to give a shit about you. Your foster parents should be like a new mom and dad, until you're eighteen, and then you do what you want." 

"I don't want a new mom and dad. I am grown, and want to be a holy warrior. But if I was paid it would be much less bad."

"Yeah, they're not gonna pay you. But it doesn't matter, right? Because we're running away to go save the world? I think they have to let you be an adult if you save the world from an evil magic conspiracy." 

"Is that a America rule? If you a hero you not a foster child more?"

"No, but that's because nobody's ever saved America from an evil magic conspiracy before."

They are running a little low on gas. "...do you think it'll be safe if we stop for fuel?" 

"I do not see any behind us but I can't see evil until it is close."

"So long as there's no cars behind us? You can check for invisible stuff before we unlock the doors, I guess."

She starts glancing at the signs around her, trying to figure out when the next exit will be coming up.

"I don't know if booking into a hotel will make a lot of sense, we'd have to give IDs and I don't know if you even have one, but we should find somewhere to charge my phone eventually as well. Unless there's a charger in here somewhere. Can you look around and see if Katherine left a handbag or a wallet or anything?"

A wallet, she realises moments after asking, will be useful for paying for gas. Her credit card is in her car. Maybe they should withdraw as much cash as possible before Katherine thinks to cancel her card.

Except that thinking that makes it suddenly hit her, that she's doing an actual crime by stealing the car, not a fake victimless crime like underage drinking or credit card fraud or rescuing Iomedae from an abusive situation. Katherine's perhaps a bit stern and sometimes kind of annoyingly condescending and often a bit conservative for Haley's taste, but she does so much for the barony - always sitting gate or baking tarts or organising Gold Key maintenance...

Nope, those aren't useful thoughts. Katherine is part of the same group that hid the existence of evil magic from Haley. Raoulin can apparently turn invisible; for all Haley knows, Katherine can turn into a carnivorous slug monster with fifteen eyes.

"Maybe look to see if there's any, uh, clues or evidence? I don't even know what you'd be looking for." 

It's a SCAdian car, and SCAdian cars are mostly horrifically messy. The footwell under Iomedae's feet has a blue plastic bag full of sweet wrappers and empty Sprite bottles, a tiny miniature anvil, and a bad-smelling green T-shirt shoved into the passenger door's cupholder. The Honda CR-V's back has its seats folded down and is piled high with wooden folding benches, Reynhard's spare shield, bags of folded canvas, spare tent stakes, random pieces of work-in-progress armour, rolls of duct tape, water bottles, snacks, sweaty elbow pads, tattered printed booklets of songs, boxes of rivets, scraps of leather, a spare loaner helmet, a sewing kit, empty tupperware, picnic blankets, what looks like it might be a real sword if Iomedae cranes her neck, an electronic fake-flame lantern, piles of letter paper that look like bureaucratic forms, a cloak, a roll of extension cables, some foam offcuts, a few folded linen tablecloths, another bag of snacks, a foam-headed hammer and a rattan polearm. There's probably more hidden underneath that stuff. 

Iomedae, who has been mostly watching anxiously out the back window, turns around to look at it. That is...a lot of stuff. ...is any of it Evil?

A lot of it smells evil, thanks to fighter funk, but Iomedae's Detect Evil only picks up the sword and something hidden beneath the linen tablecloths. 

"....we stole expensive magic items," says Iomedae in mild horror. "...can tell because they evil."

"I guess the evil people shouldn't have left their evil stuff lying around," Haley says delightedly. Then she hesitates. "How do evil items work? Can we use them for good or sell them, or is this a, like, throw them in a lake situation?" 

"Someone is evil does not mean you can steal they things!! We should no any thing, maybe call to ask about giving back. ....Haley, evil means they killed some men, probably, it no mean they are - a thing you kill you see it."

"Iomedae, killing people is wrong." 

"I know that! Holy warriors try very hard not kill any person! But most knights, they killed some people. This very bad! It send them to Hell, if they no do better. It is no reason to - it not mean you can steal they things, or stab them any time you see them. No place make law no being Evil."

"No, like, I don't know what kind of horrible medieval murder world you come from but here on Earth killing people is like seriously wrong, the worst thing you can do, and if someone's going around killing people then I don't see any issue with taking away their evil stuff that they were probably just going to use to kill people with. It's against the law to kill people, it ought to be against the law to be evil - wait, no, I don't even care about the law, it's wrong to kill people - most people here have killed nobody ever. If the knights are mostly murderers then they should all go to jail or - something - we should stop them! Whatever it takes! Before they do more murder!"

How did Haley get saddled with the task of persuading the holy warrior that it is actually necessary to have a plan to overthrow evil and not just run away and find employment as farm labourers! How! Why is this her job! Shouldn't holy warriors come with instructions from God to defeat evil and do good or something? 

"We are not the law. If the law wants to kill them for murderers, or take they things away, the law can do that. A good law maybe, to do that. But we no can decide, oh they Evil we do any thing we want, like if they fiends. If we have to kill them to save a person they trying kill, yes, we do that. But - no can steal all things they own because we think they maybe killed a person, not knowing any thing about when or how. And they look much more for us, if we have they magic items. The magic items very lotsmoney."

"I - no, you said it yourself, the law here is so useless that you didn't even know working for five dollars a day was illegal, because people did it openly and nobody stopped it, and you didn't know fucking slavery wasn't okay because the cops literally placed you into that situation. If we want someone to stop them it's got to be us. The cops will just laugh at us and not believe us, if we tell them magic knights from another world are murdering people!" 

"-ah. I - you probably right about that. That means the thing we have to do is very hard because - no can obey law, but need all the things that laws supposed to do. Laws supposed to be - I do not have the English for this. I have to pray on it. 

...I still think we give back they magic or they chase us lots more."

"But going all the way back to give the items back will get us killed, right?" 

Haley has found an exit, just in time; the car has been making distressed beeps for a while. She navigates the exit, slams on the brakes somewhat abruptly, and skids across the parking lot to the gas station.

In the darkness, the gas station is lit by halogen lights above every pump. There's a neon sign reading OPEN above the door, and a bored-looking older man behind the counter inside. Haley pulls up besides a pump and for a second just sits and breathes and notices the sheer amount of adrenaline in her system.

"If we at least take a look at them, we can figure out what they do and whether they're useful?"