"I don't think who in particular owns the garden will come up, just that owning gardens is a thing. Hell of a world to come into when somebody already owns all of it."

"Gardener said he suggested she check out the public botanical gardens."

"If somebody told you they owned all the air and light around here and you should go somewhere else if you wanted to breathe and look at things... not because they owned the land, because they owned the air and light..."

"If I were an elemental I'd go to the duchess and offer to occasionally magic the plants healthier in exchange for staying there, I bet she'd agree to that."

"The elemental might do that once I've explained, that's just where I'll have to start explaining, people owning places."

"Uh huh." They go to the estate.

"Will the Duchess want to give us permission before we go in to talk to the Wood-or-whatever -"

"We wrote her, we're allowed on the grounds."

"Mkay." In she goes to find the elemental. She has turned herself into a shrub sort of thing near a bunch of climbing flowers. "Hi - what are you -"

"I'm Leaf," says the elemental.

"- Wood and Earth?"

"Yeah."

"Well, hi, I'm Fire."

"Hi."

Escort watches grumpily.

And Fire explains to Leaf that people here have it so they can own places and plants and stuff, who knew, right.

"The gardener sprayed me with something and it hurt," says the Leaf, as she starts pulling herself up.

"- that's no good -" Fire turns to the escort.

"I can ask him." He does. "He sprayed the whole area with weed killer. You can't really hurt elementals anyway, right?"

"...you can't kill us. It can still hurt."

"He needs to be able to do his job."

"Aren't people supposed to leave confused elementals alone till we get here? If some Amentan passed out drunk with his foot wedged in the fence would the gardener run him over with a tiller?"

"You take a lot longer to get here than mental health services."

"That's not her fault."

"I'll tell him to steer around them with the pesticides if another one takes up residence."

"The cops need to be clear on leaving elementals alone meaning that."

"It wasn't a cop, it was the gardener."

"They called the cops, right? Who are supposed to tell them to leave elementals alone?"

"I don't know if that was before or after he called the cops. I'll let them know a complaint was registered."

She nods.

Leaf is unrooted. She flies away.

"Thanks."

"Uh-huh."

There are a few more like that - Water in a pool, Glass on a skyscraper, Lightning in a power plant.