Seraphina spoke first. The Saintess training showed in the way she did it — measured, unhurried, the question shaped before it was asked.
"What do you want to know?"
Mira didn't answer immediately. Her hands were folded in her lap. The cataloguing rhythm she'd never quite let go of moved across her face once and then settled.
"I want to know what the Church will do to a girl who was made by the Cult."
The afternoon light shifted. Outside, somewhere on the second-floor landing, a student passed and was gone.
"The Church doesn't know what to do with girls who were made," Seraphina said. "It wasn't designed for that. The doctrine assumes a soul that arrived intact and was either preserved or corrupted. A soul that was assembled — constructed from someone else's plan — is a category the doctrine doesn't have. They would either declare you whole and ignore the assembly, or declare you damaged and prescribe correction. Both responses would be wrong."
