....What. Maybe she's never seen someone drink out of a container before and doesn't realize it works the same as drinking from, what, a...pond? River? (Surely she's consumed water before.) 

Evelyn cooperatively opens her mouth wide so the young girl can see that she swallowed the water! "See?" she says brightly. "It's okay. It's just water, like you find in a river or lake. I was thirsty and now I'm less thirsty and I feel better. Do you want to try some now?" 

The girl will very slowly and carefully take the bottle and tip some water into her mouth, close her mouth, and then open it to show that there isn't any water in it anymore.  She has not, visibly, swallowed.

"I don't feel better."

"Oh. Well, I suppose maybe you weren't thirsty, then." 

Evelyn is sooooort of not sure where to go from here but she's pretty sure she has to keep the girl talking. 

"Can you tell me what feels bad, then? You look sad. Are you lost?" 

"Lost is... not knowing where something is.  I know I am here.  Where are the other things?  They are lost."

"I think the buildings look very hard to move and they were probably here already. Did you come here from a different place that wasn't here?"

She wants to ask the girl if she had parents before but it feels too early for that, it's a sensitive topic, and also the child is not ACTING like she was parented in any manner or fashion whatsoever. 

"I came here from a different place that is here."

Does this child understand how...places...work. Evelyn is not going to say that out loud, it would be so rude. Maybe she's just confused about how to use language. Sometimes autistic kids use vocabulary in strange ways, right? 

"Were there different things in the other here? What were the things like?" 

"Same things but I could see them.  Here, everything I can see is being very HERE at me and I'M a THING."

...Yeah, no, she's got nothing actually. Her best guess is that the child thinks 'here' means 'where I am' and isn't used to...buildings? Man-made things in general, maybe? And maybe hadn't really realized she was a person until she saw other people? That doesn't really feel like it fits but it's her going theory for now. 

"That sounds like it must be very confusing and scary," Evelyn says, which seems true almost regardless of what the girl means by any of that. "I wish I could answer your questions and help you be less confused, but I just got here, and it's also very new and kind of scary for me. So maybe we'll just have to figure it out together. ...Do you want a lollypop? They're quite tasty."

She takes it out of her handbag. ...And peels off the wrapper and demonstrates putting it into her mouth (without actually letting any of her mouth touch it) before handing it over, she's learned her lesson about this poor girl being VERY CONFUSED about ALL OBJECTS. "You lick it and it tastes sweet." 

"You just got here?  Like me?"  The girl puts the lollipop in her mouth, also carefully not letting it touch her mouth, exactly the way Evelyn did.

"- No, you can close your mouth on it. I just didn't want to get my mouth germs on it." Evelyn smiles at the girl. "I think so, yeah! I was somewhere else, and then all of a sudden I was here - well, over there -" she points, "and the," this child is not going to have any idea what a king is, is she, "a man said there was something they needed my help with. So I think maybe I'm supposed to help you be less confused." 

"Why is -" the girl starts to say around the lollipop in her mouth, but this apparently brings the lollipop into contact with her tongue, because the girl suddenly drops everything else and mushes the lollipop all around her mouth, and then, with laserlike focus, just on rubbing it all over her tongue.  From the look of transfixed monomaniacal utter DELIGHT on her face, she's clearly the sort of poor kid who has never had access to this level of concentrated sugary flavor before!

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW! ....Also sad and concerning, but at least there's the concentrated adorableness to offset it, and it makes Evelyn really really happy to see kids having a normal fun childhood experience for the first time. 

- also she is pretty sure she isn't going to want to leave this child unsupervised for a while, so - maybe now, while she's clearly distracted, is a good time to stand up and take a few steps away - while still watching the girl closely - and wave to try to get the attention of someone, anyone, standing outside, so she can ask for literally any background on what they know about the city being on fire. And also, like, make sure there's a plan for the city to stop being on fire. If not she probably needs to get out of here - possibly that's a thought Evelyn should have had much sooner but to be fair there's kind of a lot going on. 

The palace grounds and neighboring areas are relatively sparser and made more out of stone and metal and less out of wood, so some very sensible mages are prioritizing putting out other parts of the city that are on fire.  Evelyn will probably notice some people flying around and conjuring water splashes, in the distance, as soon as she properly focuses on carefully looking over her surroundings.

The king and some obvious mages and obvious palace guards are all watching her from the palace gate she came from.  After Evelyn waves, there's some rapid hushed discussion and then one of the older-looking mages will head on over, their steps reluctant but steady.

Oh wow magic. Why is she in a YA fantasy novel setting again??? ...This is very overwhelming but if Evelyn has one skill, it's the skill of literally never getting visibly frazzled by absurd overwhelming situations. 

She takes another step closer and lowers her voice. "I'm sorry to bother you, and, well," gesture at the child, "I don't want to leave her alone just yet, so - well." Hopefully that is enough to convey the message that they should be discreet and careful. "I just got here and I'm very confused and could use a little more to go on here." 

"We're... not very much less confused.  What did you do?"

"...Talked to her and was calm? I don't actually know if she," vague gesture at the still-on-fire area behind them, "but getting mad wasn't going to help in any case, kids generally calm down best if you're calm with them and talk to them nicely. She seems to like the lollipop. I...probably need somewhere more comfortable to take her, if you have any advice on that." 

"It is well for all of us that you have such a talent with children.  My own have always terrorized me, I must confess.  Would it possibly be all right for us to escort you and the young lass to a... comfortable place... in a somewhat less... populated area?  Do you think you could hold her still for a thirty-minute carpet trip?"

Yeahhhhhhhhhh that pretty much confirms that the girl is some kind of...untrained wizard student? or something?...and responsible for the city being on fire. Poor thing. 

- carpet trip? Oh, right, YA novel fantasy setting, magic flying carpet. Great. Hopefully she doesn't get motion sick. 

"I understand. I - think that would be all right, but if you don't mind, I would want to see the, uh, carpet first, and explain it to her? I think she's finds all of - around here - pretty confusing and scary, and kids are a lot calmer if they feel more in control of what's happening to them." 

"Your will, summoned hero.  I shall have one obtained immediately."  He bows to her and strides off back towards the other gathered watchers, moving away with much more alacrity than he moved towards.

...Well, okay then. This continues to be very weird but Evelyn will focus on the part of it she has any skills for dealing with, which is the confused child who apparently has powerful magic, that may or may not be totally uncontrolled but which she's definitely capable of wielding during a tantrum. Or just in terrified 'self-defense', maybe, she must have been very scared and confused when no one was explaining anything to her. (When they were fighting her, maybe? Evelyn wasn't there and didn't see it but she would be so annoyed with them if they tried to fight a little girl.) 

She sits down on the bench again and watches the girl enjoy the rest of the lollipop. 

She doesn't seem to actually be swallowing the melted sugar and saliva that's accumulating in her mouth.  It's leaking out around the edges.

Well, that's disgusting, but how is this poor girl supposed to have ever learned manners? Fostering is a line of work that trains you not to be squeamish, though, and it's a practically a law of physics that kids get sticky. (Evelyn will...just not leap ahead to asking herself whether the kid is likely to be potty-trained, how about she doesn't borrow trouble before it's even showed up.) Maybe she just doesn't want to swallow it, because then all the sugariness won't be in her mouth anymore? That is not an issue Evelyn has exactly seen previously-very-deprived kids have before - usually they gobble their candy and are disappointed when it's gone - but it's not shocking to her. 

She has wet wipes in her handbag, those are one of the must-haves. She pulls one out. "Here, love, let me clean some of that up. ...You should swallow so it doesn't make a mess." ...She will try to very vividly demonstrate swallowing, in case the issue is that the girl doesn't know the English word. 

The girl looks SUSPICIOUS, but swallows, and then looks STARTLED.

"It went inside my thing!" she says.