"Mmm-hmm." Contesting that is solidly in the realm of 'arguing with someone about their religion' which is unimaginably rude, and so Jeremy is going to leave it alone. "Factories aren't magic, though. Neither is this." He pats the computer. "I mean, I couldn't make it, but mostly 'cause it takes hundreds of people. And I can give it instructions to do things, I'm not, like, good at it, but I took a programming class." 

Programming is a pretty abstract topic, but does Iomedae want to see a video on car manufacturing? 

Yes but it's not going to persuade her that magic isn't involved because she's pretty sure in Azlant magic items were made in - factories, though the holy book didn't use that word, just that they weren't made by individual craftsmen at home slowly and at great expense. 

Jeremy cannot read Iomedae's mind and is oblivious to her continued assumption that factories involve magic. He'll track down a video sequence for her on the history of computing and show her a video on the Jacquard loom, which he plays at 0.75 speed but which is still kind of hard to follow, and he ends up pausing a lot to cover background he's pretty sure Iomedae won't have. 

Evelyn makes a big vegetable-laden pasta salad for lunch, to be served alongside the rest of the croissants and a platter of fillings to choose between. She calls them over for it about 40 minutes after getting home.

(Lily already had a snack and Evelyn had been choosing to assume that Iomedae filled up on cookies enough to fuel the bike ride home and was fine, since she hadn't mentioned being desperately hungry. Evelyn suspects Iomedae would never ever complain about being hungry, but she can't actually live her entire life hovering and trying to persuade Iomedae to eat more.) 

"I was thinking," she says over the lunch table. "A lot of things are closed on Sundays, but what about a trip to the science museum this afternoon?"

Lily loves the children's exhibits and activities, and it's probably genuinely educational for Iomedae. Also, it has a PLANETARIUM. Evelyn is planning to surprise Iomedae with that bit. 

Iomedae is in fact ravenously hungry but she'll solve this by eating quite a lot of pasta, if there's visibly enough to go around.  Abundance!!

"I don't know 'museum', ma'am."

(There is visibly a ton of pasta to go around, though between the two of them Jeremy and Iomedae can put quite a dent in it.)

"Museums are great! It's - basically a place where you can walk around and see educational examples of - all sorts of things, there are art museums with famous paintings and history museums with old pottery dug up from thousand-year-old villages and stuff. This is a science museum, so it has stuff like the video you and Jeremy were watching on gears and how they make bicycles work, and then way more things. There are staff who know a lot about how they work and can answer questions, and it's all meant to be fun for children Lily's age and for grownups." 

"It's really cool!" Jeremy assures Iomedae. He stopped attending family science museum trips years ago, they don't swap in new exhibits very often and it got boring, but seeing Iomedae's face is going to be an entire exhibit of its own. 

"It sounds very good but we have not fed the poor yet."

Oh no she did completely forget to leave any food bank donations at Costco, didn't she. "Iomedae, the food bank is also closed on Sundays - remember I said it wasn't open on the weekend? the weekend is Saturday, that's yesterday, and today as well - but we'll go tomorrow." 

"The food bank closed on holy day? But that is when worker not work all sun hours."

"...Yeah, honestly I thought it was weird too! I didn't actually look at all the secular - not run by a church - food banks." Honestly she spent five minutes looking at all and kind of stopped on the first Catholic-affiliated one that looked legit. "And I sort of thing the Internet isn't the best place to look and we should ask the person at the food bank that's open tomorrow what all the other good ones are. But I can have more of a look now, and then maybe we can pick out some food from my cupboard to donate, and drop it off and then go to the museum? I do want to go to the museum, Lily loves it and you'll learn lots of new English words there." 

Jeremy groans loudly. "Mom, let me look up food banks." He rolls his eyes at Iomedae. "Mom is, like, really bad at Google. S'like how she's bad at TV controls. They didn't have Google when she was my age." 

"Maybe I should have talk to the priest even though he not believe I holy warrior."

"Yeah, maybe. I'm sorry I didn't think of it. He probably would know." 

....Jeremy is just going to take himself off to Evelyn's closet-study to Google things. It seems like it might be really important to Iomedae, and it's already past noon, finding anything open today at all is going to be time-sensitive. 

"You could also go to the museum and I could go back to my friends if they still in Reno working."

This is kiiiind of awkward to handle.

"Iomedae, I know that you're responsible enough to be okay," probably, maybe, sort of, "but it's a rule, it's my job to make sure that you're safe. So I can't just drop you off without knowing anything about your friends and what they're like." 

(This is not entirely true. Evelyn has looked after children younger than Iomedae who had very dubious friends - in some sense way more dubious than the friends Iomedae is describing, who sound pretty wholesome aside from the whole being undocumented immigrants thing - and she wasn't allowed to physically stop them from leaving the house, and was in some cases - with certain social workers, she very clearly remembers which ones - actively discouraged from bringing it up or mentioning her discomfort, which she thinks was ENTIRELY REASONABLE discomfort.

..She's - not, currently, dealing with a social worker pushing in either direction - at least as far as she knows, she hasn't had a chance to check her email for a reply from Diel. All she has to go on is that she feels pretty iffy about, what, randomly dropping Iomedae off vaguely near where her illegal migrant friends are working?) 

Iomedae must be so frustrated about all of this. And it feels like there might be a lot of trust at stake - well, lately every conversation with Iomedae feels like that, but this one at least offers a right answer, or if not that, an answer.

...She can't take Lily with her to meet Iomedae's migrant friends, but Jeremy's available, and police-checked, and Lily adores him, he could keep her occupied. 

"- I could take you to meet them, if you know where they might be? And if I've met them, and they seem - nice, and like they'd look after you - then I might be okay letting you spend time with them on your own, later." 

(This is absolutely not fostering best practices and Evelyn is already cringing at the thought of having to elide all of this when writing her log notes to Diel tonight. But. Diel isn't the one here, in the room, right now, trying to make sense of and work with Iomedae.) 

"Martin is not there, he is in the hospital. The others safe, I know them six months no problems even when I not know talk to them. They follow God. They work. They not look after me, because I am not a child, but if I was a child, I would trust them look after me. If I was a child, I have lots more trust them than trust you.

And also - I a holy warrior, the person keeping me safe is me. You do not even carry a sword. You cannot keep me safe. But if you want come with me and meet them, you can do that."

....Okay, wow, several parts of that were pretty ouch. Not that Evelyn feels like she can claim to be surprised. She definitely feels like she walked right into that one. She will smile so normally. 

"I know. We– I think I said this before, it's like you and I know how to live in different worlds -"

(Evelyn is abruptly acquiring a much more visceral sense of why they call it the 'First World' and 'Third World' and...okay there must also be a Second World and she's suddenly tempted to tell Jeremy to Google that too except for how that would be stupid.) 

"- and I'm sorry everything I have to say is so confusing, and probably seems very stupid to you, but in my world, someone who's fifteen is, yeah, a child. And also I just think it's - true - that you don't know all the laws here, and might break them by accident, and I feel better about that - not happening - if I'm there." 

"You can come with me if you want! It make sense come with me to tell me laws. 

When I was child, my parents say I had to be twenty, to be holy warrior. And I obedient and was obeying. But then God said, no, Iomedae holy warrior now. And my parents sad, because they want me to be safe. But they love me, and they know - that God pick me? That means I not a child. That God no can make a holy warrior if not ready. That maybe I die, but I die serving God, and if they try to say no Iomedae, do not obey God, that is not loving me. And they know if they make me choose God or them, I choose God. So they - cry. And they hug me, and they angry with God, and say, God, she is still small. But also they see I am happy, and I am happy God called me. And they make me metal clothes, and give me sword, and go with me as far as Tisele. Because sometimes love someone is keep them safe. And sometimes love someone is raise them strong. And sometimes love someone is let them go."

Wow. Oof. Okay. That's...a lot of things...

....Evelyn is not going to cry right now. That would be unprofessional, and wouldn't even help. Because, well, it's pretty clear at this point that Iomedae isn't someone who would cry at this particular provocation.

(Iomedae might cry at a church service, reminded of how Jesus died to save people from Hell, but - that's different - why is it different - Evelyn isn't actually sure why but it fits, somehow, in her sense of Iomedae, that church is a place where it's - okay to not be desperately oriented toward helping the poor, where it's okay to instead listen to a reading and cry, and that's not where they are right now...) 

- she still needs to come up with a response to the thing Iomedae just said, which is clearly incredibly important to her, and - it doesn't matter how much Evelyn still feels intensely confused about Iomedae's entire conception of God, and what it means to her to be a holy warrior, and - 

(Evelyn is pretty sure she's going to have emotions about - something - as soon as it's not a terrible idea because it would make her feelings Iomedae's problem.)

"I'm glad your parents raised you to be strong, and - were willing to let you go." 

"I don't know what God plan for me.  I don't know that God not plan me meet you, and learn how to make laundry machines, and take that home and build Heaven in world. And I know I need stay where the court thinks for months so they can hear what happen Martin. And I know that grown enough holy warrior not same as grown enough never foolish, never in error, never need help. I mean to obey you, unless God say some different thing. But I am grown, and I obey you as grown woman, because this ordered by your government, and because this your home and all should obey you in your home. I had my child time. There too many people burn in Hell for me have more child time. God thinks I strong enough to mean my word, and find my way."

And it's not like Evelyn has a counterargument to that, does she.

She's– it's not the time to throw her own emotions around, is it, so she's not going to - and she's confused, again, Iomedae keeps saying things that seem like they might be very important and also don't make any sense, don't quite fit into the picture Evelyn is trying very hard to build, here - 

- she's not going to show any emotions right now but she sure is having them. 

"I - don't know what God said to you, love, but - yeah, I think you're grown up enough to mean what you say." 

Which is, of course, the moment at which Jeremy jogs back over to the kitchen with a scrap of notepaper in his hand. 

"Wow, Mom, you're in fact terrible at Google. ...Though, uh, sorry, Iomedae, I think there actually aren't any food banks open on Sunday afternoon, unless we want to drive to Carson City, which is three hours drive away so I'm pretty sure that's a no." 

....He makes a slightly apologetic face. "- Wasn't obvious. Ton of places are just open, like, one day a week. Or their website is hard to find. But there's definitely, like, three food banks that have hours on Saturdays, and we missed on that would've been open earlier this morning." 

"Maybe next week I go to, and commend," it's a new vocabulary word from the sermon, "the food bank open on holy day and not on days when workers working. I was thinking maybe today we go to the people I live with until Friday, I say bye to children, I tell them la migra not get me, I tell God bless them."