Being a holy warrior sounds like a pain in the ass, honestly. 

"...I mean, because I was thirteen and a dumbass who wanted to be cool and show her how much I didn't give a shit about her house rules? I guess a little bit to see how much I could get away with, and - maybe thinking if I was awful enough to her, they'd give up on me and let me go home. Which was also a dumbass move, my stepdad used to hit me 'cause his football team lost, when it wasn't even anything I'd done." Shrug. "If I'm going to be psychoanalyzing my thirteen-year-old self, I guess it felt like the whole world had already decided I was a bad kid, and so I might as well go all-in and have some fun. She wasn't even that mad about the wine. She was furious when I stole a bunch of crap from her friend's makeup store, because that's embarrassing for her, right, but she didn't hit me for that either." 

"Like - checking how much the pretending to be a family was pretending?"

"...I guess that's a way you could put it? And - yeah, no, it turns out Evelyn is not pretending when she says she thinks of us like her own kids. Honestly, if anything she treated Jeremy worse than me, he would've been grounded for a month if he stole anything. It's just, like, that only helps so much if you'd rather be an adult already instead of stuck playing happy families until you turn eighteen. And Evelyn tries to get it but - I'm not sure she does, really." 

"I think if I was eleven like you say you was, I would care if Evelyn really cares about me and understands me. But since I am an adult, I care about planning how much money I will earn each week so I can save for going home when I am freed, and about carry weapon so no rape, and about learn a job that will still be useful as a holy warrior in Taldor since I do not want to stay in a country where holy warriors are not welcome and there are not orders I can join, and about behave honorably to Evelyn even though I keep many things from her. But if Evelyn understood I was an adult it would probably make those thing more easy."

"Taldor sounds horrible, honestly, but I'm not going to be the one to stop you from going home. ...I do think Evelyn wants to trust her foster kids to be responsible, and it sounds like you actually are responsible and not a little shit like I was, so - it'll get better. Probably. She's really generous with allowance and she'd probably help you open a bank account if you wanted to start saving now."

Shrug. "She's kind of against kids having jobs because she thinks of it as a," air-quotes again, "a 'growing up too fast' thing. And because she thinks it distracts you from school. For what it's worth, I'm actually pretty glad she was on my ass as much as she was about school, I hated it at the time but I could've messed up my life a lot more if I'd landed with a foster parent who didn't care if I was doing my homework." 

"Taldor is poorer than here but I do not think it make you slave if you go to a church for help when a man try to rape you. And if it does do that, I have a chance of fix it, because in Taldor they know what holy warrior is. I think I do not trust America banks if in America smart people say there are no gods."

"- What does that have to do with anything? Banks aren't churches." 

"In Taldor they is and that why you can trust them."

"Iiiiiiiii think that most churches throughout human history have not been very trustworthy. Personally I think it's because God doesn't exist to yell at priests for being corrupt." 

Well that was a little bit harsher than how Emily would've preferred to say it!

"It sounds like the churches you knew in Taldor aren't like that, though? Also, man, I am seriously starting to wonder if one of us is crazy, you keep confidently saying things that make no sense with, like, anything I know about the world." 

Yeah at that Iomedae is actually irritated. It's not that Taldor is great but it is grating to hear about how Taldor is so terrible from the nationals of the country that enslaved her and invades other countries for having holy warriors, and that claims that everyone who gets miraculous healing is just confused.

"In Taldor, you can trust a bank-church because Abadar choose the priests, and everyone know the bank of Abadar good. In America, maybe you slave all your holy warriors and the gods give up on you and go work places that are not so evil. And then all Americans say, oh, gods are no real, we will invade the places where the gods work and kill their priests! See! No gods!"

"You would think if the gods were real they would have some objections to that." 

"Okay, this is driving me up the wall." Emily digs for her smartphone. "I'm going to just google 'Abadar.' How do you spell– I guess you wouldn't know how to spell it in English." 

She's ignoring Emily. "God have so many fights. He have to fight Hell and 'Abaddon' and Tanar. He have to fight Tar Baphon. He have to fight every thing that get in way of good lives for people. America is a evil place, but God no can fix every bad thing in the world at one time, and America no is hurt people forever! America only hurt people until they eighteen! If there no Hell, maybe then when I pray to God I say 'save me from slave'. But there is Hell, so I no ask that, and God love the people in Hell too much to answer me even if I did."

"I would be pretty happy if it turns out your god exists?" Claudette says thoughtfully. "- I mean, mostly I'd be pissed off that Hell exists, that's such a stupid design choice for the universe, but at least your god has reasonable priorities about it. And if Hell does exist then obviously it'd be important to know that." 

Emily is not having any luck on Google and is starting to feel like she's losing her mind. Or, okay, not starting to feel, it's been going on for a bit now. "Iomedae, how do you say your god's name in, like, your own language?" 

"Aroden."

Well, here goes more Google searching. She'll try various spellings of 'Taldor' too. Emily sort of feels like Iomedae is failing to acknowledge the extent to which this the era of globalization and every single country in the world has a Wikipedia page. Presumably it's even more frustrating from Iomedae's perspective, though, and deciding she's crazy now would be rude. 

"Did it feel like anything, when God made you a holy warrior?" Claudette says curiously. "I mean, how did you know?" 

"It feel like - you know the difference between 'it is dark' and  -" she closes her eyes.

"So it's like having a new sense, but not sensing anything with it?" 

"Yes, like that. And a feeling of warm and close to God but that people sometimes feel when not choosed as holy warriors."

"Yeah, I feel that way when I get high and I have to say I had never considered it to be evidence that God actually exists." 

"My parents did have the priest check. They know I would not lie but wanted to make very sure I not confused before spend all the money."

“How does the priest tell? Is that also a priest sense?”