While many would have been properly intimidated by Kitty’s interrogation, yet another Meijer took an awkward question at face value. He set his drink down, reached to top off their glasses, then folded his hands together when he realized said glasses did not yet need topping off.

“Certainly. Members of a synagogue typically pay annual dues, like a library.” Well, a good library. “As for the poor, access to services – which include food,” God, he was still horrified by Hurley’s old church without so much as a loaf of bread in sight, “is open to all regardless of ability to pay.”

His eyes shifted back to Uriel, and this time Zechariah did drink from his glass.

“As has been the case since our people escaped Egypt … your child will face less obstacles than you and I were he or she raised as a gentile instead.”