"I do not know 'birthday'."

"...What time of year you were born? So, say, if you were born in summer and you're fifteen now then you're going to turn sixteen in like nine months, but if you were born in early winter then you're almost sixteen already." 

That's not how they do it in Taldor. They count from Ascension Day. 

"...I do not feel comfortable saying things about my childhood when you're in a position of power over me."

"....Okay."

Man, Iomedae really has just settled on a blanket policy here, Evelyn can't even slightly think of why her birthday would be information she's worried they'll use against her. (Maybe she doesn't know it, and is worried the system will think this means her parents were bad parents?) But of course from Iomedae's perspective, she doesn't know that and can't be sure that anything is safe. It's upsetting, it feels like something Evelyn must have gotten wrong, but - it's pretty understandable from Iomedae's side of things, and sometimes there just...isn't a way to get it right. Evelyn getting upset every time Iomedae is wary of the system is going to get old fast and won't help with anything. 

She starts setting the table. 

...Lily is going to try to beckon Iomedae over to the other room while Mummy is distracted, and give her a folded-up note she made secretly in art class. It has her old address (527 Crampton Street) and the best drawing she could do of what her old house looks like from the outside. 

Maybe Lily isn't cursed and is just aware it's a bad idea to seem too clever, as a slave. She studies the paper carefully, and tries to read it back to Lily. "Five...backwards five...seven?"

"'Ive TWO se'n," Lily corrects her in a loud whisper. "Izda nummer." She drew the number on the mailbox on the house-drawing, and points at it. "C'ampton izza steet." 

*"527 is the number. Crampton is the street." 

"Five two seven Campton Street?"

Nodnodnod. "I'far byou haffa bike." 

*"It's far but you have a bike." 

"Yes. I will go when I can get someone to tell me how to get there, okay? It may be a day or two."

"Da puter te'you!" Lily offers helpfully. "P'tin a Goo'lmap." 

*"The computer will tell you. Put it in Google Maps." 

"I think maybe I'd need to be able to read to do that."

...That's probably true. Lily makes a face. "...I dink baddit," she offers. She has computer lab class tomorrow, maybe she can sneakily print it out and pretend it's for art? She doesn't...actually know all of the steps in finding Google Maps and looking up a house...but she can ask the teacher and it won't be suspicious like it would be if she asked Mummy for help. 

*"I'll think about it." 

"Okay." Hug. "I do not know what I will do when I go there but I will go there and see if he is a demon and see if he is hurting people, and if he ever try to hurt you again I will God-fight him."

Hughughug. "Do'tll Mummy, she s'op you." 

*"Don't tell Mummy, she'll stop you." 

"Yeah. She not know how to - let me get her advice and no be stopped. It's okay. I learning how America works."

Lily is pretty sure that the idea of grownups who will give you advice and not stop you from doing things is fake. But she trusts Iomedae. 

Evelyn calls them over for dinner. 

Iomedae in fact has been noticing she sometimes gets a stomachache from how rich American rich person food is but she ignores this to eat three servings of it because her body will presumably adjust. (She totally failed to parse the nurse's commentary as an admonition to eat less and would be diligently obeying if she had understood.)

"Doctor sayed I should eat lots meat and cheese and fish, even when not a holiday, but I don't know how much lots."

"I think eating three meals a day and a big enough portion that you're full afterward seems fine? We have meat for either lunch or dinner most days, I think that's reasonable. I can make an effort to cook fish more often. - You might need to eat more if you're doing a lot of exercise, I think krav maga tonight is going to be a pretty intense workout. We can have a snack once you get home." 

She will take a normal amount of stew then and put lots of cheese on it.

...This stew makes her mouth hurt. Why does this stew make her mouth hurt??? Is it poison??? She can check if it's poison, that is one of the spells she learned and the only one she's had for the last few days except that it's probably illegal to cast spells as a foster child? And Evelyn doesn't know she's a wizard. Nobody else is acting like they are poisoned. She could take the food somewhere else to check? But that would be Very Suspicious probably.

...She could just ask. She has not gotten in trouble for asking Evelyn things yet.

"This food hurt me?"

Oh no. "Is it too hot– ...ohhh, it might be that it's spicy?" It's really not very spicy, Lily can't handle very spicy food, and Evelyn would have thought Mexican food is often spicy? Though Alfirin probably couldn't afford to eat at restaurants and might have been eating plain canned beans and tortillas like Iomedae apparently was. "Spicy means - it's a kind of flavor, from a sort of, uh, I guess it's a fruit technically? Called chili peppers. It tastes like something is hot, and it sounds like you're not used to it? I can get you something else to eat instead. And a glass of milk, milk helps with the mouth burning." 

Does Iomedae seem fine with the chili? 

"I can eat it I just need know it not poison." She doesn't like it very much but she shouldn't waste food especially food that has meat in it.

It is an unfamiliar feeling and flavor but Iomedae is a hungry teenager and is undeterred.