Lily is SO EXCITED and also loves Iomedae's singing and sort of hangs around listening. She is not especially helpful at room prep but she at least isn't making more of a mess. 

It takes Diel even longer than she said it would, because it takes a while to line up the other placements and then forever to get all the way to Reno from Clark County, but eventually she pulls up in front of Evelyn's four-bedroom suburban American house. 

"This is where you'll be staying," she tells Alfirin. "Let's take you in and meet the family that'll be looking after you!"

Alfirin doesn't know anything about this family yet so she doesn't have anything to say to that even if saying things wasn't dangerous and even if she had all of her words.

Evelyn has been on tenterhooks for way too long, and was tempted to call Diel multiple times and only held off because she was probably (hopefully) already driving. It's past Lily's bedtime but there's no hope of getting her to bed now that she's all bursting with excitement about meeting another 'big sister'. 

She's been jumping at every car outside, but this one actually turns into her driveway. She has the front door open even before Diel has fully parked, and stands on the front step waving and trying to smile in a normal and definitely-very-nonthreatening fashion. 

(She is weirdly nervous about how tonight is about to go.) 

Iomedae, a holy warrior in the presence of someone who knows what a holy warrior is, stands at attention and Detects Evil. (There is no Evil.)

"Right, great," says Diel. "Alfirin, this is Evelyn. She'll be looking after you. I know Evelyn, and she's a wonderful woman. You'll have everything you need, and I'll check in in a few days so you can tell me then if there are any problems, okay? And this is Iomedae. She speaks Taldane, isn't that great?"

"She is speaking truthfully of Evelyn, as far as I can tell," she says in Taldane. "Where are you from?"

She doesn't actually know if Taldor is at war with Sarkoris in real life or just in all the stories, (in all the stories Taldor is always at war with everyone but that doesn't sound practical so it might be made up) and if it is in real life she doesn't know if that means that Taldane people are going to hate Sarkorians or if it's a more friendly sort of war. Somehow she didn't consider this before now, she was so excited to meet someone she had a bit more of a language in common with.

"Undarin! It is not in Taldor really. But I speak some Taldane."

"I have not heard of it. I am Iomedae, a paladin of Aroden, and one of Evelyn's slaves. I do not know if anyone explained to you how this place works?"

"Oh good," Diel says quietly to Evelyn, "I bet it'll be good for both of them. I have some paperwork for you, very quickly -"

"I think some of the other slaves tried but I didn't understand very much because my español is bad. It is a very rich place and people come here because it is rich, even to be slaves here, which I think is a stupid idea. Nobody is afraid of monsters, they are all tame, except maybe la migra but maybe la migra is not monsters, and is just people? You can not always tell by looking."

(Evelyn will participate in quick paper-signing. Diel clearly has a lot on her plate, and they can exchange more information later by email.) 

She...is somewhat uneasy about Iomedae's new ability to have private conversations that she can't understand with someone who is probably just as confused as she is about America, though maybe differently so, if they happened to bump into different aspects first. Who knows which of each other's confusions they're going to feed off, though. 

"Evelyn says la migra is just people. I can tell by looking, because I'm a paladin, and nobody I have seen is a monster in disguise, but I did not see la migra. The city guard caught me before the big raid - I thought they would not enslave paladins, because in the Empire that is not done, but I think they don't have paladins here, so they thought I was being absurd and wasting the magistrate's time."

(Diel will give Evelyn a tired smile and then rush out because there's another kid in her car to be dropped off tonight.)

"I did not know paladins could know just by looking. Can paladins know other things just by looking?"

"Paladins can see Evil and smite Evil. Powerful paladins get spells from their god just like priests and can know other things by looking but for a new paladin like me it's only Evil. - real Evils, monsters and undead and fiends and so on, it doesn't usually detect ordinary bandits who are no great warriors. If Evelyn kills her slaves more readily than a person should, I would not know that just by looking at her, but she is not a fiend wearing a human face."

That is reassuring on some fronts and worrying on others.

"...I am sorry you were made a slave. I do not know much about slaves, I do not know what it is like to be a slave in a house. Can you tell me?"

"It is not, here, like it would be at home, and I have only been here a few days. Evelyn is in charge, and she will call the guard to track you with dogs if you leave, and you are not allowed to carry a weapon, or earn any money, though she won't take what you earned before you came here. I think she would be allowed to take it, but she is temperamentally generous. We are to be obliged to go to 'school' but I don't know what it is, they haven't arranged it yet. 

...the way I have found it most useful to think about this place, when I was setting up your room and thinking how I'd explain it to people from back home, is - imagine the Emperor is a kind man, who wants to go to Heaven. So he says 'there should not be any urchins on the streets! They thieve and beg. I will not have it!" and his advisors say, 'yes, sire, we'll drive all the urchins out into the woods' and he says 'but is that Evil? Will I be damned for it?" And his advisors say, 'well, yes, sire', and he says 'then we can't have that! What if instead, we give all the urchins parents. They will be the property of their parents, as any child is the property of his father, but we will tell the parents it is their duty to the state to love the children, and if the children run away we will personally drag them back!' And his ministers said, 'yes, sire, we'll see it done', and then they did. So you have this whole thing which is in many cases much worse than being a street urchin, but more pleasing to the Emperor, and whether it is terrible depends entirely on the parents you are assigned, who of course won't love you since they're not really your parents but may or may not be decent. Evelyn is decent."

"...I understand. What do children - or slaves pretending to be children - do in a house like this? At home I would do some of the weaving and sewing and if my people took slaves and we had one who was pretending to be our child we would make them do more weaving and sewing probably, but I think here they have magic for weaving, because in Costco I saw a dress that was sold for fifteen dollars."

"Isn't Costco amazing? It is the first place I have ever seen that I knew in my heart Aroden commanded us to build, and I have seen pictures of the great stone arch.

They have magic for weaving and for so many things. Water, and laundry, and cooking. I do cooking and cleaning and laundry and look after Lily - that's Lily, she is seven but she had a terrible curse happen to her and you should think of her more like a child of three or four - but it's not really very much work, and Evelyn has so far not reprimanded me for taking time to myself to pray when the work is all done. This afternoon I was upset about la migra going after the people I'd travelled with and I spent half the afternoon in my room singing hymns and she didn't order me down until dinner. 

- Evelyn has an adult son. Jeremy. That's him right over there. He has been honorable in every interaction I've had with him, but don't be foolish, obviously." Alfirin is younger than her. "Do I need to explain how to avoid being foolish or did your mother explain that."

"...I was about to ask about the men. At home if a man tried I would fight him or if I can not fight him I would tell my brothers and my father after and they would fight him, and so no man tried. At home I was not a slave. I think if I am a slave and a man tries and I cut him with a knife, then I am killed and also a person who does not follow the laws. So I do not know what to do here."

"Yes. When I was travelling with the workers, a man tried, and I stabbed him, and then I brought him to the church for healing and they called the city guard and they questioned me about whether I was guilty of unlawfully attacking him, and that is when I learned that they don't know what paladins are and they took my sword and gave me to Evelyn. And that was with a man who didn't have papers himself, so I was very lucky, because I'd also have stabbed a man with papers.

You are not allowed to carry a knife or defend yourself with one. Evelyn said some things that made it sound like it might be all right if you could defend yourself without a knife, you might not get in trouble for that. 

Jeremy, anyway, hasn't tried, and when I was rude to him because I was angry he said I should petition the congressman of the land about the thing I was angry about and he'd help me learn how. So I think he's an honorable man. But if I am wrong -" Shrug. "Personally I mean to try to hit them and run away, if anyone presses the point, and I think it's not unlawful because the greatest claim on me is Aroden's, but maybe it'd be unlawful for you. If I'm around I will try to defend you since I'm a paladin but I don't know if I'll always be around."

...She is carrying a knife. Maybe she should keep carrying it and not tell anyone, or maybe she should give it up so that she is following the law, even though it's from home and kind of precious to her.

She could ask Iomedae, who's her fellow child-slave and has been helpful so far but - Iomedae's a paladin. She thinks maybe that means she has to tell if she knows anybody is breaking the law. What's more, she's a paladin of Aroden. Alfirin has heard of Aroden. He's the god of Taldor, of empire and conquest, and once when He was still mortal He came to Sarkoris and killed many people for following their old ways instead of worshiping Him. Alfirin is not sure it would be wise to trust a paladin of Aroden.

...But also Iomedae is the only person she can come close to speaking clearly to, and has been helpful so far, and just offered to protect her, and if she treats everyone as an enemy it will be much harder to escape this place eventually.

"...I have a knife. Do I have to give it away or just not carry it ever?"

"- oh. You should ask Evelyn - not in front of Lily, Lily's curse has to do with knives and she gets scared if they're mentioned, but I will go put Lily to bed in a few minutes and you should ask Evelyn then. I bet Evelyn will say either that it is all right to have in your room if you do not carry it, or that Evelyn will keep it for you in a safe place and give it back to you when you are too old to be a child slave. I don't know which of those she'll say. 

I'm sorry. I miss my sword like it was my arm. It is the thing I hate most about being a slave."

"I will do that. If some man tries and I hit him and run away, I will not be killed and a person who does not follow the laws?"