Sonic and Dresden were outside, back in the garden. Dresden contained his excitement, but his heart raced. He was with a genuine outsider! Who happened to be a girl and very beautiful, but those things were secondary.

Well... mostly secondary.

"My friends and I played a game when we were children," he said. "It was called 'the King says'. One person would be King and say something, and others would perform the action. Maybe we could play it?"

"The King says," Sonic said, and looked at him dubiously. She had one hand over her brow as though shielding her eyes.

"Yes it..." Dresden started, then stopped, realizing the obvious fallacy. She wouldn't know what to do when he said 'the King says'. "Very well, then. How about this, instead. Let's start by you pointing to anything and I'll tell you what it is?"

"I'll pointing to anything," she repeated, "and you tell I what it is."

"'Tell 'me' what it is'."

"Tell me what it is," Sonic repeated.

"Yes. 'I'. 'My'. And 'me'."

Sonic repeated the pronouns back to Dresden. "You learn astoundingly quickly," he said.

Sonic smiled. "I'll pointing," she said, "and you tell me what it is."

"'Point'."

"Point. I'll point."

"Good," Dresden said. "If you can learn the words as I speak it, I'll just keep speaking."

"Yes," Sonic said. "You keep speaking." She kneeled, still shielding her eyes, and moved her free hand over the soft greenery. "What it is?"

"You mean, 'what is this'? It's the ground, and that's grass. And we're in a garden."

She stood up and pointed at one of the garden's more stationary inhabitants. This one was covered in multi-colored flowers, and at its center was a large silky-black blossom that went straight up several feet. "What is this, in a garden?"

Dresden swallowed, realizing he was in over his head. He was familiar with the botany of the Hep – who wasn't? especially when certain species were apt to try and kill you from time to time – but the Custodian's vegetative menagerie was something else altogether. "It's a plant," he said. "Plant with flowers."

"What plant in a garden?"

"I don't know," he replied. "You'll have to ask the Custodian. He knows the names of all of these. I think. I can tell you all about plants in Hep Duatab though, out there."

Sonic didn't seem so interested in 'out there' though, and Dresden felt a twinge of disappointment, maybe shame, too. He was trying to impress the girl.

Instead of berating him on his lack of knowledge (which she wouldn't have done even if she had the vocabulary), Sonic got up and walked over to the flowering plant. She touched one of the blossoms, which retracted. "Flowers," she said.

"Yes, flower. That one's yellow. It's beautiful, you think?"

"Yellow flower, beautiful," she replied. She touched another, which also shied away.

"That's a pink flower," Dresden said. "But I don't recommend touching the black one in the middle. I think that's the plant's mouth." Dresden was pleased with himself. The Custodian had cautioned him about the black flower some time ago, and he was happy to have some knowledge to share.

"I don't touch the flower that's the plant's mouth. The black flower."

"You're getting better at this," Dresden said. "You know, I still don't know your name. What can I call you?"

"You can call me..." she replied, and she said the next word slowly, as a child would if they were learning a word for the first time (which, Dresden realized, was what she was doing), "Sour nick."

"Sour nick?"

"No," Sonic said. She almost had the correct syllables to state her name in this new language. "Sournick. Sore-nick." She gritted her teeth in determination. "Sonic!" she said at last, and breathed a sigh of relief.

"Sonic? Your name is Sonic?"

She nodded. Close enough.

"Sonic, it's really nice to meet you," Dresden said, and he bowed.

Sonic laughed. "It's really nice to meet you, Dresden." She smiled, then allowed the hand shielding her eyes to fall away. "I'll point to something, you tell me what it is."

"Yes, that's the game we are playing," Dresden said.

"Not a game we are playing," she said. She glanced up at the sky, and winced.

That is when Dresden realized she had not been covering her eyes for the light.

She had been covering her eyes from the sky.

"What is that?" she asked, and pointed up.