Water watches and puts her halo away. Except for the wings she looks quite human like that. Also naked, not that a film of water was doing much.

"What's the difference between when you do and don't have that thing up?"

"My halo? When it's up then there's water around me and when it's not there isn't."

"Halo?"

"It's called a halo."

"Huh. Do you know if elementals of things other than water have them?"

"I think elementals have halos."

"What other kinds of elementals are there?"

"I don't know."

"Okay." She checks on the fish again. They are cooked. She puts out the fire. "Don't touch these for a little while, they're going to be painfully hot to start with."

"Okay."

She waits a little longer, touches one, and says, "Okay, now they're safe."

Water picks one up and takes a bite. "Fish! Is good!"

"I know."

Om nom nom nom fish.

Om nom fish!

"Do you want to see something secret?" she asks, once the fish has all been nommed.

"Ooh, secret? From who?"

"Well, it's secret from magicians, and it's secret from other spirits, and it's secret from other humans because they'd tell magicians, but if you won't tell then it doesn't need to be secret from you."

"Okay, I won't tell any of those people."

"When I got away from the baby's father, I stole books. They're a secret from magicians because they'd steal them back and hurt me for taking them, and they're a secret from other spirits because it's bad enough I'm making there be another magician in the world without teaching her from their books of magic. It's not just books of magic, though, there's stories and stuff too."

"I won't tell," repeats Water.

"Thank you. Do you know how to read? Do you want to see them?"

"I do know how to read! I would like to."

"Okay!"

She leads her to a small clearing a little ways away in the woods, and pulls a mat of woven plant matter off a hole in the ground. In the hole is a box, and in the box there are books.

Water pulls out a random book and opens it.