The idea that anyone is going to cut her hand off should not even be occurring as a possible thing that might happen in twenty-first century America! Haley didn't even think abusive parents normally pulled shit like that! There's basically no hiding it and no plausible deniability if your kid is going around with a visibly amputated hand, so you'd just go straight to jail for being a horrible child abuser! 

"Just.... Just clarifying, who do you think is going to kill you? Just your foster parents? Or other people as well?" 

"The...Queen? Baroness? Duchess? People who work for the rich people? I do not know all the words....we should keep running."

"The queen definitely isn't going to kill you, she's a sweetheart. Baroness Elynor comes off kind of aggro sometimes because of how she talks but she is just the most protective person of newbies and kids. Duchess Nicole is - okay that one's on me, sorry, I know you don't speak a lot of English. Me saying she'd kill me was a figure of speech. Like, an exaggeration for effect. Whatever you're running from, I promise you they aren't all in on it."

Iomedae stands up. "I hope that is so. I not want to die if it is not so, so I run away. If no one kill you, you no should run. America is a rich place, lots safer than lotstrees."

"Okay, that is super understandable. I don't want you to get killed by whoever you're scared of. I just wanted to know if it was your parents, or people from before you were in care, or..."

Haley staggers to her feet with noises of great exertion and distress. 

"Robert and Jenny are honorable people. I want to pay them for the food. I will leave America, and work, and send them the money when I have it. I am - scared of, I think, if I know what scared of means - the evil people who knowed the name of my god."

"The name Jesus? - wait, you think you can leave America? That's not... that's not a thing. We're in Virginia. We're like a thousand miles from Mexico, maybe two thousand."

Also wait so if Robert and Jenny are fine then who the hell is Iomedae running from? She can't actually, for real, have spontaneously decided that Elynor was going to murder her? Elynor doesn't even fight.

Haley is going to be so very pissed if she did all this running and also getting tackled and Iomedae was never actually in any danger! 

"Jesus is what America call the god who was a man. They call him Aroden where I from. A thousand miles is - two months walking. Maybe I two months walking. Or maybe I get a car. Or a horse. Or maybe God have other plan. I not think God want me to foster child here."

"If you're trying to go back to your cult I really think you should please let us help you instead? Mexico isn't going to be a better place to be a foster kid, or - call Jesus Aroden or whatever." 

"In Mexico won't be a foster child. I was not a foster child here, until I taked Martin to the church, and he sayed not to do that."

"Who is Martin and why were you at a church?" Haley says, absolutely bewildered. "Uh - sorry if that's private I guess?" 

"When I come to America I live with people who move for work on farm. We go to lots farms. Good money, safe work, very happy. On one farm, meet Martin. Martin bad man. One day Martin try me - grab me at night -" she gestures at her neck. "So I stab him. Then I carry him to church for fix him. Then they make me foster child."

"You.... stabbed him. Then tried to convert him to your cult. Oh my god. You.... girl you are so lucky you aren't in juvie, holy shit."

It occurs to Haley too late that this may be an unwise thing to say while alone in a big field with a crazy girl twice her size.

This still doesn't make any sense though! She left her cult to come to the USA? But then worked on farms? And then randomly decided to drag a guy she'd stabbed all the way back to Mexico?

"Where the hell are you even from? - wait, sorry, that's racist. But-" 

Yeah she has no idea what to say any more, she's just hopelessly making 'please explain' shrugging gestures. 

"I don't know racist," says Iomedae patiently. "I am from Taldor, from Ujue, in Menador. ....we should keep going, find a barn, or helicopters spot us."

"I have never heard of any of those places," Haley objects, but she will very reluctantly get to trudging through the fields again, even though she hasn't the foggiest clue why she's still tagging along.

Iomedae might be violent or possibly crazy? But Haley has her feast gear hanging on her belt and even if her knife is a little blunt, she reckons she can poke someone's eye out with her fork... that was an insane thought. She is going to hang out too long with this girl and also become insane.

She realises it doesn't actually matter because she's not going to leave a foster kid alone and risk... whatever might happen to her.

Sure, whatever, they can find a barn. 

After they've done a full circuit of the roads directly encircling site, Nicole will pull over and try calling Haley's phone.

No response. It's probably switched off. In the best case, it's switched off in Haley's pocket and she's just forgotten that it's perfectly okay to pull it out now that she's no longer at a reenactment event. In the worst case, it's stashed safely in Haley's car.

"She'd come back, or call us, if she'd lost Iomedae," Nicole reassures Jenny. "It's probably a good sign. They'll be together somewhere, and Haley's a good kid."

Jenny is torn between feeling terrified and feeling embarrassed. She nods. "That's good."

"I'm going to get Google Maps up and we'll do the closest I can manage to a spiral pattern. Next roads out from site, then we'll call Ludmila and see if she has any updates for us."

Angling her phone away from Jenny very subtly, Nicole speed-texts Raoulin: 

> if you can get away can you do your thing

> like you don't have to say anything to io + hal

> just find them and text me where?

> jenny can just think im a genius who figured it out

Then she will actually pull up Maps to figure out a sensible route. 

Iomedae would prefer to have gotten farther away before they find a place to shelter for the night, but Haley clearly can't go much farther, and while it'd probably improve her odds to leave Haley behind since apparently Haley isn't actually worried at all about being killed, it seems foolish to pass up the chance to communicate openly with someone who has told you they think your plans are terribly mistaken. It is better to die trying to negotiate something better than live having passed up a chance to do so, she thinks.

The first not-in-use barn they come to is locked, but it's a padlock on a chain and you can slip past it if you're either slender or really stubborn. Iomedae picks up a stick and scouts it patiently for vermin likely to be lethal to Haley; nothing shows itself, so she settles in a corner where they can hide in some hay if anyone comes searching and continues their conversation where it left off. "I think Taldor very far from America," she says. "I not know how I get here. Maybe God do it."

"I've definitely never even heard of it." But that could just mean that it is a secretive remote cult compound. 

Haley has never hidden in the hay in a barn before. She got the idea from adventure novels and suddenly she's understanding why fantasy protagonists are unhappy all the time instead of being delighted that they're the Chosen One. Hay smells bad. Or possibly that's the animal shit. She doesn't particularly want to know.

"What's Taldor... like?" 

"There a lot of Taldor. I think it as big as America. The - most big person - in Taldor in Oppara, big city, walls old as Aroden. If you from America, you think - Taldor very poor. No cars, no roads, no Costco, people not as big, not much food. More bad things. But the priests in Taldor can fix swording. The priests here not do that. And in Taldor if you a holy warrior, you not a foster child. You can go to a knight order.Even if you was a foster child before God make you a holy warrior, no one keep you when you a holy warrior, that make God angry."

"You're.... are you fucking with me right now? Like is this a bit? Please don't be LARPing right now." 

Iomedae seems way too committed for this to be a bit. They might actually both get arrested or something.

"I don't... know those words."

"Iomedae you're trying to tell me that you've come here from like - an entire different planet. I would definitely know if there was some kind of.... medieval holy knight country as big as America. If you're not screwing with me you gotta prove it."