...

"I have a spellbook."

"Can one learn just from -"

"I learned three spells from it. I can only do one in a day though."

"Wow.

I don't know if slaves are allowed to be wizards here or not."

"I do not know either. And also - It might be dangerous. I thought it maybe brought me here, do you know how you got here?"

"I thought I just got lost. But I shouldn't really have been able to leave the Empire by getting lost, it's the Empire in every direction for a very long way."

"Taldor is very big."

"Yes. It is weeks by ship from one end to the other."

- there's something weird, there, actually. Iomedae hadn't been thinking about it because everything was weird and it didn't jump out as a different kind of weird than everything else. But - "I want to go talk to Evelyn. I won't tell her you have a spellbook that might be illegal; I don't have the vocabulary anyway. But I want to ask her where she thinks Taldor is, relative to here."

"As you will." Alfirin can take the time to find somewhere in the room to hide the spellbook. (The locked drawer obviously won't do, it's where Evelyn will expecting her to hide anything she wants to hide)

"May your path be Aroden's, and His yours." And off she goes downstairs to find Evelyn.

(She could hide it under her mattress - it lifts up slightly from the bedframe - or under the bed itself, or in one of the drawers of the dresser, or underneath all the Legos in the toybox.) 

Evelyn is downstairs, watching a (definitely not inappropriate for children) TV show drama, and approximately not enjoying it at all because she's so worried about Iomedae. ...And Alfirin, but that comes as a bit of an afterthought, still. (And Lily, of course, but - she overall feels like Iomedae's arrival was helpful, for Lily, and she's so confused how to feel about that.)

She's still very much on edge and will notice and pause the TV as soon as Iomedae comes down the stairs. 

Iomedae wants to smile at her but it feels like lying. "Ma'am. I think Alfirin is okay and will be obedient. And me too.

Alfirin not from Taldor but she knew it. You know where Taldor is?"

Uhhhhhh. 

"- No, love, not exactly. I - think it's probably not in America, because," nothing about you makes SENSE if you were born here, "- because it sounds much poorer." Wow she had not been in the mood to have this conversation tonight. "...I think it might be in Mexico somewhere, or - maybe even further south than that, in South America. I think it's probably not on a different continent because you would remember if you'd had to travel on a boat."

"I think it not in America." I think it is on another continent, she would usually say, and it's magic that brought me here. I think it has to be another continent, or you'd have heard of us and we'd have heard of you. 

Do paladins lie to Tar-Baphon? She's not sure. But America isn't, actually, Tar-Baphon. She is pretty sure paladins don't lie to America.

Not tell America things...she thinks that's okay. And if she's wrong, and Aroden abandons her for it, then she'll tell Evelyn everything. 

Ask questions that aren't her real question - it feels like jumping off a wall and feeling her stomach tug around inside her on the fall down, but she's pretty sure it's just uncomplicatedly allowed.

"Do people know Christ everywhere? In all the countries in the world?"

What. 

"- I don't know. There are definitely a lot of countries in the world that don't - worship God and Jesus Christ - because there are a lot of religions in the world, the world is big. There might be some countries that haven't even heard of Christ, and there are definitely people who haven't." 

Evelyn has no idea why this is the conversation they're suddenly having. It seems like it might (must) be very important to Iomedae. She is pretty sure she can't possibly handle it well unless she knows why now - what did Iomedae just discuss with Alfirin? - but she doesn't, actually, know how to ask that question in a way that won't make everything worse. 

Iomedae nods thoughtfully. 

She has so many more questions. The place where Christ became a god. Is it known to these people? Do they go there sometimes? Do the parts of his church on different continents talk? But that's doing things, and when she does things she destroys the lives of everyone she's ever met.

What would actually happen, if this place came to Taldor's attention, or Taldor came to the attention of this place. Would she like it. Would it serve Aroden. 

It's not a hard question. They'd go to war. Probably the only real winner of that war would be Tar-Baphon, and the eastern barbarians.

You can, actually, make mistakes on a bigger scale than Iomedae has managed so far this week. A much bigger scale. 

And if America does not know about Taldor, telling them is one such.  And if America does not know about the Starstone -

"Where Alfirin is from they not know much about Christ," she says, truthfully and irrelevantly, and waits to see if she is renounced.

There is no obvious sign that she's been renounced, but Evelyn is looking - noticeably slightly confused, which is more of an emotional reaction than she's ever shown in front of Iomedae before.

(This...feels important. Very important. It feels like this is the closest Iomedae has come, at any point, to trusting Evelyn and opening up to Evelyn and talking about her past. Evelyn is trying very hard to get this right, and - she doesn't know how, she doesn't know what Iomedae needs right now or how to support her, and she's obviously going to do all the sensible things anyway, like make eye contact and actually listen, but she still feels off-balance...) 

"- That's a bit surprising to me," she says, after a moment. "Though - I guess there are lots of places, even places that aren't very far apart on a map, that - know different things." (She's thinking of, like, mostly-uncontacted Amazonian tribes, which is probably not Iomedae's situation, but.) "What sort of things did they know, about him?" 

Oh no, now Evelyn is trying to interact with the meaningless things Iomedae said instead of saying that she thinks there's a big and important - extremely big, extremely important - misunderstanding here which she wants to conceal from the government until she has lots more context. And Evelyn's trying very earnestly. Iomedae is not renounced but she does think she is wronging Evelyn, now.

She also thinks she's going to keep doing it. Because there is nothing gained, aside from satisfying her own confusion, by trying to convince Evelyn of this here and now, and there is an unfathomable amount on the table which is not Iomedae's to gamble with. If it is wise to try to convince America that there's an empire called Taldor they've never heard of, and a Starstone that'll let them become gods, if they don't already know and it'll help humanity win if they know - she can do it in six months. And so can Alfirin so the whole thing doesn't hinge on her not getting herself killed, either. 

And her best guess is that it won't, in fact, seem like a good idea in six months, either. She can't imagine it going well, in Taldor, to try to convince them you were from America, unless you knew how to make valuable things for them, and even then it'd be wiser just to make the valuable things. You might tell specific people who you had specific reason to trust.

You wouldn't tell the person assigned to pretend to be your mother. That is not how to do international politics. 

"They say he no like - places like America and the one that kill him," she says, inanely. "And she think I no would like other gods."

True, irrelevant.

....no, actually, she can't do this. She can decide to investigate things on her own and not involve Evelyn; she cannot use Evelyn's kindness and generosity to sneak help with her task out of Evelyn. Even if Aroden won't renounce her for it she cannot and will not. Even if the government has made her Evelyn's property, Evelyn has not actually herself in any sense obliged Iomedae to treat this as an adversarial relationship. If she does, Iomedae will play that game back. But tonight, she won't. 

"I'm sorry, Evelyn. I not being fair to you. I not saying the things I thinking. I not want to, and I will not. But I owe you better than say things that are not what I think. 

Good night."

What. 

- and the easy thing, and arguably the reasonable thing, would be to smile at Iomedae and pat her shoulder and let her go to bed, and trust that whatever Evelyn just missed, there - because she's pretty sure she missed something huge, maybe as few as a handful of seconds ago, maybe smeared out over the last several days - will, one way or another, turn out fine. 

But, you know, when a kid says something like that to you, it's - okay, in this case it's probably not the first hint at an eventual confession that reveals a pedophile ring, but it's - something of that magnitude? The thing Iomedae just said wasn't, exactly, something one could see as a 'cry for help', but Evelyn is definitely seeing it, right now, as a cry of none of things makes any sense. 

Evelyn stands up and - doesn't quite reach out to grab Iomedae's shoulder, but it's on some level clear that she would, if Iomedae were her own child who she'd known since birth and felt comfortable doing that with. 

"...Iomedae. I think we, maybe, really need to talk, because - I think I'm not understanding something, and I think it's something you've been trying to tell me all along." 

(Wow that sounded incredibly stupid once it was out of her mouth.)

What that's not fair Iomedae decided to be virtuous and now things should work out well.

That's also not how things worked out last time Iomedae decided to be virtuous. 

Aroden learned from his mistakes the first time so she had better do that too.

"Ma'am, I think you right. And we don't need to talk, because the thing - is not a thing you need to understand. You a very nice person and no one tell you if they did have plan war on Hell. ...I no have that yet. If I did, I find people who want to go to war with Hell, not people who want to help foster childs."

...Wow. Evelyn has - several different uncomfortable feelings about that. 

"Iomedae."

.....Okay. How do you even have this conversation. Evelyn is pretty sure she's about to disastrously have this conversation, because she's very tired and off-balance, but that - probably, she thinks, still seems better than not even trying to have it at all. Because at least Iomedae will see that she did try. 

"I'm– ...If you had a plan to fight Hell, I - wouldn't tell you to stop? Because - I think it's admirable, to want to save everyone in Hell. That's - not the thing I'm doing with my life, I couldn't fight probably even to save my own life, but - I've tried to help a lot of children, and - that means trying to understand what they want to do, with their lives. And so if the thing you need to do with your life is, fight Hell, then - that's a little bit my job, now, and I need to understand." 

(Evelyn is not at all sure that made any sense. She's even less sure it was a good idea to try to say, at all. But - it still feels like the most important thing, right now, is to try to show that she is trying and does care.)

"No, ma'am. I - sorry. I think maybe government wrong you, here. But -"

She wishes she had the vocabulary, she wishes she was saying this in a language where she didn't have to dig every word out from a pile of confusing conversations and squint at it carefully to make sure it means what she thinks it means.

"It is not your job to understand me. 

You are kind. You are generous. The thing you want to be for me cannot be, for people I did not choose, in place I cannot leave. I know you try, if I ask, to help me. I know you have try to take up the - shepherd - of people in need. I know that many things so bad that this thing America do is better. 

But when America take me from the church with Martin, America no take me as - person it buy and sell things from, or person it make and keep promises to. America no can take me like that. When America say to you, your job understand Iomedae, America do wrong to you, because America did wrong to me, and try to make you the sword of its doing. 

You try very hard, in very hard strange time. I see that. I no saying this to you now because you fail. If you fail, we have a nice talk something that no matter. You succeed, at being someone I will not take as - okay to use.

But you work for a thing that cannot take me as a equal, that cannot show any honor, that cannot see it. I do not want to be understand by you. I do not want you to think it is your job to understand me. It is both our job to do right each other when law say I in your power and I have important things to do and need to not spend your generosity to do them. But this any honorable person owe any other. Any other job you think you have to me, I free you. You do not owe it to me. You no should try to give it to me. And if America says you have to try to do it anyway, then I have to try to stop you. But I do not want to so I hope you just say 'okay'."

...Wow. Evelyn feels like she's being thoroughly outclassed at...philosophy? logic? at something, definitely...by a non-native English speaker. That would be embarrassing, if she were paying attention to feelings like that right now. 

"- I lied to your social worker," she hears herself say, and - wow what is she even going for with this, in what world was that possibly a good idea to say.

"....I mean, I - didn't tell Diel I was taking you to find your friends' camp, and - I didn't tell her why you were upset, after they weren't there. I think that was...not what I should have done for America, or for my job. And I might get in trouble for it. But it seemed important for you, to find out if your friends were okay or not, and - I care about you. Not because it's my job, or because the government told me to, just - because you're here, and you're you, and you've slept in my house, and I... I'm sorry, I - whether or not you think I should owe you anything, I can't turn off the part of me that cares about you, and wants to understand what you need."