The mention of Father Antonin's seal brought a nod from Ziotea.  She wasn't so sure about delaying their report, but she definitely had more questions for him.  It was a shame he was in El, but perhaps Warband Phoenix would meet up with him and some of the others there, and she'd have a chance to ask then.  Certainly she could take the day or so they'd have back in Magnagrad to check the archives, and go through Father Antonin's bookshelf, though she doubted she'd find anything of interest in the latter.  She disliked the idea of snooping beyond that.  The healer had always been good to her.  She might even go so far as to call him a friend.

Her brows snapped back down when Father Oren mentioned the statue.  He was wrong, wrong about her, about what she'd meant.  Her feelings on her heritage were complicated, sometimes conflicting, but while it was a curse -- anything that lead to the ether factories could hardly be termed otherwise -- she no longer sought to deny that it was a part of her.  But what it meant...

"I came on a whim, not because of any meddling or machinations from Phoenix's Aspect.  I very nearly didn't.  So if One-Seventeen had a hand in this trip, it would have had to be through you.  I would not have been a reliable target."  Ziotea didn't bother commenting on the visions; she'd shared as much of hers as she cared to.  "When I say I am not one of you, it is because this is the truth.  I have the blood, the power, the raw destructive skill.  But I know of Omestris only what could be learned on the street.  I know only what others expect me to be because of it.  What few memories I have from when I was small are filled with Lanostran teachings, Lanostran beliefs.  You're mistaken, Father Kanus.  I didn't destroy the statue, merely severed it from its base.  The blood is there, and I have accepted that.  The blood that shows so strongly in me has made me what I am.  But it did not make me one of you."  She paused, her frown deepening, but left the rest of her thoughts unsaid.  Perhaps she envied that connection, she who was an outsider everywhere.  Who had few ties to any heritage at all.  Far more prevalent was the frustration that this land held only more questions, and none of her answers.

After a moment she changed topics.  "We also shall have to decide what to do about those three upstairs.  I mean to confront them.  I dislike being yanked around.  At the least, we can determine if they are constructs or merely possessed.  But perhaps we can learn more from them."