"Sometimes. Or - sometimes a thing that looks like one person doing something stupid is actually a bunch of different people who are opposing each other."

"Sometimes. We should probably sleep soon, so I can wake up early and prepare the spell before Evelyn is up."

"I'll give you half my Lily pay on days you spend the time I'm with Lily before Evelyn is up preparing spells to help us figure out what's going on."

"Thank you. You know that I am not a very good wizard, right?"

"I know. But you are young to be a wizard at all, and you'll get better."

And she straightens out the blankets on the floor, and closes her eyes to pray.

Aroden.

I will obey you in all things but I don't know which things that is. I don't know if Evelyn is telling the truth that she understands and wants to help. But it's - very bad, right, if someone is telling the truth and wants to help, and there's no way to trust them, no way to pull together because you can't know for sure. The strength of civilization is that we can all pull together and I know that doesn't just mean I should trust anyone who says they want to work on it but - but it means something. Right?

I am not sure if I should go to Lily's grandfather's house tomorrow. I am worried if I tell Evelyn then she'll stop me, but I am worried if I do it without telling her then she'll regret having offered to help me, today. I told Lily I'd check if her grandfather was a demon and I am going to do that but I do not want to make it look to Evelyn like I am - refusing her alliance -

I am not sure what You would do. You were a wizard and maybe that would help. But I don't think it's a problem of magic, not really. It's a problem of honor, only I don't know enough about - I know You thought I know enough. And You know far more than me. But I'm scared that I don't know enough, that I knew enough for Taldor and not enough for here, where maybe I am the only one who knows, or where - Evelyn knows a bit, the doctor knows a bit, but not enough, maybe. 

Please take my powers from me if I fail. I am not sure I would do anything at all, if I were risking Law itself and not just whether it can recognize me. 

And please conquer the Evil afterlives. Soon. Today would be a pretty good day to do it. 

Lily doesn't have a nightmare that night. She sleeps really well, actually. Things are as good as they've ever been! She has a big sister who's a holy warrior of God and so smart and strong and brave and good (and of course God is even MORE smart and strong and brave and good), and Lily has a PLAN. She's going to tell her teacher in computer lab that she wants to make a Google Map printout art project of how to bike to her "best friend"'s house. ...She's going to put in an address one street over because she is being very smart and careful, because this is the most important thing, and she thinks maybe the teacher knows her old address and would be suspicious. She can just draw the rest of the way in highlighter marker once she takes the art project home. 

She's awake at 5:55 am, and goes to the bathroom first - all by herself like a big girl - and then politely knocks on Iomedae's door. 

Iomedae startles awake but is calm by the time she gets to the door. "Good morning, Lily," she says very quietly. She doesn't want to wake Evelyn so Alfirin has time to prepare her spells.

Lily can be very quiet! She isn't all that hungry for breakfast yet and would be content to hang out in their bedroom and have snuggles. And maybe a story? It can be a quiet story. Lily is in favor of Mummy getting enough sleep so she isn't grumpy. 

Snuggles! "I think I am not going to go see if your grandfather a demon today," she tells Lily. "If he come here to hurt you I will fight him."

Maybe it's just because Iomedae doesn't think she knows how to get there and might get lost? Or maybe she doesn't have a way to go that Mummy wouldn't notice, and is worried Mummy would be mad. Mummy probably would be mad, but - Lily doesn't like thinking about that - she's not going to tell Iomedae not to go, though. 

"...'Kay," she says, subdued. She could try to explain her plan but that's so many words and the teacher is more used to understanding her, it'll be easier if she can just bring the art project home secretly and show Iomedae then. 

"I mean to go to his house. I think today is not a good day but tomorrow maybe is. I know it is so important, and I know it is my job."

"'Kay." Lily looks happier. She trusts Iomedae and she trusts God and it makes sense to want to go on a day that's a good day. 

(She isn't very worried that Grandpa will come here and hurt her today. She's been here for lots of days and she was at other houses for more lots of days and everyone tells her a lot that her old parents don't know where she's living now, and she definitely wasn't sure at first if that meant Grandpa didn't know but...it's been lots of days, and even if Grandpa did come here, she wouldn't be by herself - and she knows all the good places to hide now and Grandpa doesn't yet. And Iomedae would fight him.) 

Quiet snuggles. 

Evelyn doesn't hear any of that. 

She does have her internal clock firmly set to wake up around 6 am, by now, and she actually went to bed on the earlier side last night. She wakes up at around 6:15 am - gauges the color and angle of light coming through her curtains, glances at the clock - starts to roll over - 

- remembers that everything is very complicated right now. 

Right. Yesterday was another exhausting confusing day, but she thinks the break while the girls were at the food bank, and the additional short break when they were in krav maga, maybe mattered a lot? She had been...reacting, not thinking...and usually that's fine, because usually she isn't so - lost in the dark - like she was with Iomedae and Alfirin. And instead she had the energy to notice that there was something she was missing, and the will to go think about it by herself, and - honestly she doesn't remember most of the specific thoughts she had, she has terrible recall for anything that was only ever inside her head, but she remembers the results. 

Iomedae: not a kid. At least not in the sense that feels most real to Evelyn, of needing a mom. Iomedae needs people who believe in her and are on her side and want her to succeed - people willing to fight in her corner and give her advice and help her navigate the world - but that's not a kid thing, specifically, lots of people need that. Evelyn has needed it from her supervising social workers, plenty of times. ...She tried to communicate that to Iomedae and she thinks she succeeded? Evelyn is pretty sure something was successfully communicated, at least. There was a hug involved, and she doesn't think it was a - pitying? - hug, like the time before. 

She thinks she also managed to correct some of Iomedae's more concerning misunderstandings about what being in foster care means? She's not entirely expecting it to stick, Iomedae seems to have very deeply entrenched expectations about how the world works (and that's not even weird or unexpected, that's what happens with abused or neglected kids, and Iomedae wasn't abused or neglected - her parents genuinely seem to have done a great job of parenting - but her circumstances were awful and that probably has a lot of the same effects?) 

They talked about finances. Iomedae is clearly worried about a lot of ways she could develop what she sees as - bad habits for being a holy warrior and future heroine? But money seems like a big one. Evelyn does kind of feel bad now about not donating more to charity but taking in six foster kids is a terrible solution. Hopefully she'll have the vocabulary to explain that better, later. She...really does, at this point, feel like she owes that to Iomedae, not because she feels particularly bad about her previous choices but because Iomedae does need to know the - cultural context, or whatever - where Evelyn's choices are the normal thing, and caring for unsafe numbers of foster kids in order to donate to save other kids in poorer countries is not the normal thing. 

She offered to get Iomedae her sword back. (She also explained the Martin thing, and Iomedae didn't freak out, so...success? She can tell Diel that went fine. ...She probably should write something to Diel, since she's probably going to get the doctor's appointment notes soon and in isolation that might be more concerning than is really justified.) Evelyn is - not exactly regretting the offer, it's obviously what she should have said, but ugh it sounds awkward. She's never been in this exact situation before and doesn't know the procedure. 

...They had an extremely baffling exchange about - talking animals and Harry Potter - and Evelyn doesn't actually think it was the wrong decision, to put that on hold and finish saying her piece to Iomedae, because she was not in a good headspace for it and the thing she wanted to say was, she thinks, actually pretty important here.

It does feel a bit like she might have missed an opening to hear things from the girls when they were relatively less on guard about it? But - it feels different, right, from the sort of case where a teenager disclosed horrific abuse because Evelyn gave them an opening when she sat up with them and listened to them talk after she had just picked them up from the police station still drunk, at a point when they weren't necessarily thinking about the consequences of telling her.

It's different because - well, Iomedae and Alfirin can't possibly know the usual consequences, that's been half of their problem, that America and CPS regulations are mysterious and confusing and terrifying to them.

...And also because Evelyn does not, actually, think that telling Diel will end up being a good idea at all, if and when the - thing, whatever it is - comes out. She doesn't think bringing in the police is going to matter. She– it would be different if she thought that other children might be at risk, and could be rescued sooner if she arguably/ambiguously betrayed Iomedae and Alfirin's trust to learn things from them when they were less guarded, but that doesn't seem like the thing, here. It seems like something that's mostly just Alfirin and Iomedae's business, and only Evelyn's business to the extent that she can help them better if she has any idea what's going on. And it's just pretty reasonable, on their parts, to not want to tell her until she's rightly earned their trust. 

She might end up regretting that! It wouldn't be the first time that she's been vaguely uneasy about a child obviously keeping secrets, and decided to err on the side of letting them tell her once they were ready because it seemed like whatever it was could only be hurting them, and been very wrong.

But it doesn't work at all to be constantly paranoid that teenagers are lying. At least, it doesn't work for Evelyn. If she's doing her job right, then Iomedae and/or Alfirin will come to her with whatever it is on their own time, and it's okay if that takes two months, and - even if it's like the specific case where she regrets not digging harder, it's not like it was that realistic that she could have coerced the information out of them much sooner, and it would have cost so much to try. 

Evelyn yawns and stretches and rolls over, and tries to think if she has anything urgent on the schedule today. (Other than emailing Diel an update where she'll emphasize Iomedae having had a hard time understanding questions because of the language barrier, and probably having some cultural superstitions about invasive medical tests, which Evelyn will of course work on with her at home but doesn't think they should push just yet.) 

She can't actually think of anything, other than getting Lily onto the bus on time of course. Tomorrow is going to be super busy, with food bank volunteering and having Marian over for dinner and then krav maga if she gets the girls - hopefully at least Iomedae, though it's probably also good for Alfirin - to agree to her paying for it. But today is actually pretty wide-open. 

...It's relaxing. Surprisingly. Yesterday it would have been nervewracking, she thinks, but it's mostly that she constantly felt like she was failing to give either of them what they needed, and also they couldn't even have a conversation about it and every attempt to talk made it worse.

Today, she - doesn't really know where they stand, still, but she's not nearly as stressed? The (not)-kids are okay. Possibly feeling this way is as much a change on Evelyn's side as on theirs, because she - said her piece, and got a hug - but that's fine.

She's not particularly in a rush to get up, but when she still hasn't heard a peep or any creaking stairs at 6:30 am, she gets up and goes to shower in her en-suite.

(It's a ridiculous luxury, actually, being able to wake up slowly and roll around in bed thinking slow morning thoughts and then shower and get dressed and come out already polished and ready for her day, and not worry at all about the kids because Iomedae is handling it, and Evelyn trusts her with it and also trusts that it's not unfairly exploiting her. $5 per day is a bargain.) 

The water goes on in Evelyn's bedroom. 

Lily has been really enjoying the quiet snuggles, but she sits up a little. "Mummy up," she whispers to Iomedae. "- S'i'sower. B'a'fmin." 

*"She's in the shower, she'll be a few minutes." 

"Yeah. Let's go downstairs and start pancakes?"

Pancakes!!!

Best idea. Lily will follow Iomedae downstairs, holding her hand the whole way. 

Alfirin had finished hanging her one spell before the water came on, and gives up on trying to hang a second. She throws on some clothes and heads downstairs to help with breakfast. Iomedae and Lily are doing the pancakes, so she starts 'coffee'.

Evelyn is pretty quick in the shower, and at getting dressed. (It's an important career skill.)

She comes down dressed, cheerful and smiling with her hair finger-combed in the shower and towel-dried but not actually dry, and - wow, Alfirin made her coffee??? 

She should probably not give Alfirin a hug for it, too early (and also she doesn't want to reward "do everything possible to please your adults because they might hit you otherwise" and still isn't sure how much that applies with Alfirin) but she's visibly delighted. 

Mummy is in a good mood and Iomedae let her crack eggs for making pancakes and Lily is having a GREAT day so far. 

Evelyn is in a good mood! (Lily doesn't and shouldn't know all the many complicated reasons why.) 

It's not even 7 am and they've got breakfast already! Iomedae is very good at pancakes, Evelyn is grateful. And Lily's bus won't be here for over an hour. Lily should go up and get ready a little bit before that, but they've still got almost a whole hour after breakfast for - well, whatever family activity they'd all like? Evelyn is up for whatever they're excited about (though she is making eye contact with Lily in particular, who is after all actually a foster child and generally excited about family activities.)