"And yours as well?" She is not sure what the traditional response to that is.

She smiles brightly at her so apparently that's good enough, and goes off to her SEPARATE WASHROOM BECAUSE AMERICA IS A FUNDAMENTALLY ABSURD PLACE to wash for bed.

Alfirin sleeps with the spellbook tucked under the top sheet of the mattress and her knife under her pillow.

Evelyn makes herself a coffee, which is not a great idea this late at night but her head feels gluey with exhaustion, and she needs to write up log notes on Alfirin's arrival before she goes to bed. 

...What just happened. 

She can tell when a kid is hiding something from her; you get to have a radar for that, even apart from the fact that Iomedae basically said so outright. She can tell when a kid feels betrayed by The System, and no longer expects any of the adults to be on their side. Which...makes sense, from Iomedae's perspective that's more or less the thing that happened. 

She still doesn't understand what prompted Iomedae to bring up Taldor. There's got to be some kind of major significance to it - it was clearly important to Iomedae, there's something very high-stakes for her here - and Evelyn doesn't see it. Was Taldor some kind of drug-cartel village? That...feels like not even the right direction to be looking, somehow. She's so confused and tired of it. What did Iomedae talk about with Alfirin, that - made her reconceptualise something, put the pieces together in the right way and end up adding two and two and getting five? 

Ugh. 

She writes up a bland log note about Alfirin, saying that she settled in well and seemed to follow Iomedae's translation of Evelyn's explanation. She has a bone knife that Evelyn has asked her to keep in a locked drawer, but doesn't think she needs to confiscate if there are no further problems; it's one of the only possessions she still has from home. She writes that Alfirin has so far been polite and not disruptive, and comes across as an intelligent and self-sufficient child, but seems very wary, less open with adults than Iomedae was. Her English is also worse. She suspects there are a lot of things both of them aren't saying, yet, about their pasts and where they come from. Presumably Diel knows that it often takes children a long time to feel safe enough to disclose things to their foster carer.

She feels confident that she can manage both of them in the placement, though, and that Alfirin's presence will be positive for Iomedae and vice versa. 

She makes it to bed at around 11 pm, and lies awake worrying for a very long time before she finally manages to fall asleep. 

Iomedae somewhat to her own surprise falls asleep easily.

She was in pain, earlier, but that wasn't just because of the harm she had done; it was because she hadn't grown from it yet, she was trapped still being the person who'd made that mistake. She...feels like she's, in fact, a different person now from the one that made that mistake. She realized some things about the context she is operating in, and figured out her principles around how to behave honorably towards people who have unjust power over you but are trying not to abuse it, and she made a friend, and she made her confusions specific instead of inchoate and overwhelming, and if she needs to learn English to answer the confusions without tipping her hand, well, she's never been a slow learner. 

She tells Aroden that while he did not put how he felt about it in the holy books she knows it hurt, to wake up in a world he'd broken and could not fix, and she is glad that he stood up and went on fixing it and taught everyone else how to do that too.

She is curious if it hurt more than the being tortured to death to save people. She thinks it would, for her.

She asks him to look after her family and the families sundered by the raid and to conquer Hell, just in case he forgot since last night, and then she falls right asleep and sleeps soundly.

Lily, as usual, knocks on Iomedae's door as soon as she's awake at 5:53 am. "I c'min?" 

"Of course! Good morning."

Lily would like a hug and then to snuggle up with Iomedae in her floorblanket nest. It took her longer than that to realize that the beds in Mummy's house are safe, but she didn't have anyone other than Mummy to tell her. 

"Y'sced f'beds too?" she asks, very carefully. "S'kay'eer. NO bad NO s'ary." 

*"Are you scared of beds too? It's okay here."

"I'm not scared of the bed, it's just so soft I feel like I'll sink into it."

"Oh." That kiiind of sounds like a sort of being scared but Lily doesn't know what to make of it. "Y'wot," she reassures Iomedae. "N'dat soff." 

Can she hear more stories about God doing very brave things? 

*"You won't. Not that soft."

Yes. If she's going to exclusively tell stories of God's bravery that she heard since she arrived in America, now, well, there's still plenty of those. 

"...and God know the government going to come for him and kill him, and some people say, God, run away! Government come! And God could have run. Or he could have called angels to help. Or he could have killed whole government. But God's plan was to make them all free of sin, so when they go to judgment it no counted against them, so Hell have none of them, so God did not run. God let them nail him to cross, and they thought they had beat him, but it was His plan to save them, even though they were being mean and evil, because God save even bad people, if He can, and He die, and He come back because He always come back when He die. He has too much to do to ever stop."

Lily looks so concerned about the nailing part! "He s'ared? ...How cu'back?"

*"Was he scared? How did he come back?" 

"Probably He was scared! There is magic you can use to not be scared, but there is also magic you can use to not suffer, and I think He was not using it. Probably He was doing whatever worked best to save people. He came back because He was very magic. Very magic there's lots of ways to come back if you die."

Lily nods very seriously, as though this makes perfect sense. "You b'ry m'gic whe'you g'owup?"

*"Will you be very magic when you're grown up?" 

"It's hard to guess. I hope so."

Nod. "Hoper diffent m'gic. N'you sa'peel n'NOT nails." She shivers, and wiggles over to hug Iomedae tightly. "Y'my b'sisr. Nowan y'hut." 

*"I hope there's different magic, and you save people without being nailed. You're my big sister, I don't want you hurt." 

"Oh, I think probably the thing God did is not the best way for me to help people. But if it is, I would be glad, even if it hurt. If someone say to me now, Iomedae you can die like God and save all who want from Hell forever, I would be so happy." She hugs Lily. "There things much worse than hurting. Like - failing."

Lily does not really seem to get this but she can tell when her big sister is sad, and she hugs Iomedae harder. 

...Maybe breakfast now? 

Yeah, sure. They should practice sneaking and try to have the pancakes all ready before Evelyn comes downstairs.

Lily looks slightly worried about this - Mummy wasn't happy about the surprise at ALL last time - but sneaking is fun and so is making pancakes. She considers it and then nods agreeably and follows Iomedae downstairs, trying to be SO quiet. 

Iomedae doesn't really understand what bothers Evelyn, it seems totally unpredictable, but Evelyn's yet to hit her so obviously Evelyn has never been particularly upset. She will get out the fixings and start making pancakes, trying to give Lily as many tasks as a four-year-old could do successfully (that's a fair number! Four year olds are competent to help in the kitchen, if you watch them closely!)

Lily knows how to be helpful! Mummy lets her get the flour out of the cupboard and mix the batter when they make pancakes. Iomedae lets her do the egg-cracking, which Mummy doesn't usually because Lily has a tendency to drop the eggshells in the batter. Lily is very happy about this, and slightly forgetting that they're supposed to be sneaking and singing is not very sneaky. 

Evelyn has, unsurprisingly, slept terribly; she's always on edge when a new child is first staying with her, and she doesn't think Alfirin is the type to try to abscond in the middle of the night but she barely knows her, does she. 

She wakes to the sound of singing, and comes down in her dressing-gown, more bleary-eyed than usual. She ruffles Lily's hair fondly and puts on the kettle for instant coffee. "Those smell wonderful, Iomedae. Thank you for getting a start on breakfast!" Whether she approves of Iomedae cooking unsupervised is...not a battle she wants to pick right now...and it does actually seem like Iomedae is responsible enough to use a stove safely AND keep a close eye on Lily. 

She sits down with her coffee and rubs her forehead, still not really awake enough to come up with her usual morning chatter. 

Iomedae likes the house much better, she thinks, when Evelyn is asleep. She doesn't do anything she has been ordered not to do, but she isn't constantly observed doing it. She doesn't scold Lily, though, even though she would scold a four year old for singing when they'd been told to be quiet at home, because she suspects Evelyn will disapprove. 

"Good morning, ma'am," she says, and keeps working on the pancakes.

Evelyn is fully aware that a lot of kids are self-conscious if they feel like they're being Observed at all times, and she knows that it's nice for older children to feel like they get to have more independence. She - also definitely has the urge to hover and watch Iomedae at all times, but doing that isn't going to increase the odds that Iomedae finally lets something slip that puts all the baffling notes of confusion in context and makes it all hold together again. She'll make pleasant conversation over breakfast, though keeping an ear out for any sign that Alfirin is stirring, and then ask Iomedae if she minds watching Lily while she goes upstairs to shower and dress. 

"The food bank is open today," she says cheerfully. "Their hours start at nine. I haven't heard anything back from them yet, but their staff are probably all very busy. I was thinking we could go there once Lily is at school, assuming Alfirin doesn't mind joining us, and then we can ask to talk to someone about setting you up with some volunteer hours. - And we should buy you a bike in town, so you can get yourself there once you know the way. How does that sound?"