"Thinking of names is hard, and then after people think of names they argue about them. Some people want to call it godsmetal, but Spruce says just because we took this long to find it and it's awfully persnickety, that doesn't mean it's divine. So she just calls it 'new metal'. But then other people say they don't want to stick everyone with calling it new metal in a hundred years when it's not that new anymore, and it doesn't sound fancy enough."

"Well, how did other metals get named?"

"Long enough ago that they just have names now and nobody's needed to worry about it in thousands of years. Except nickel, but that's a contraction of a phrase that means 'fake copper' in... I forget, I think it was a language spoken in some little corner of an Imperial-speaking country but I can't remember if it was Capchen or somewhere else and I don't remember what the language is called. Or if it still exists. So I guess we could name the new stuff after a metal that already exists, 'magic steel' or something. But I feel like that would get confusing."

"Yeah. Maybe you could name it magic steel in a dead language?"

"Maybe. I'll ask Spruce if anyone's thought of that. Unless I forget. I'll probably forget."

"That's why I write things down, so I don't forget them."

"I forget to check if I've written down anything I should remember the same way I forget to remember if there's anything I should remember. I gave up writing stuff down, it never helps."

"Huh."

"Anyway. Maybe Rahi will show up and remind me there's something I want to talk to Spruce about. She does stuff like that."

"She could hear that Rook was in the garden - him in particular - and that he came back inside from upstairs."

"Yeah, that's Rahi."

"She's not sure if it's her ears being better or just paying better attention."

"I think it's probably both."

"Yeah, maybe, but there's no good way to test for sure, you'd need a bigger quieter space than there is anywhere."

"Yeah, something like that."

"Maybe on the ocean on a very calm day, but that would be a lot of trouble to go to just to find out something like that."

"Yeah. And ships make all kinds of noise, anyway. They creak and stuff."

"Is that very loud? I've never been on one."

"It's not really loud, but it's noise. I think it might be quieter in a really big field with only quiet kinds of bugs and birds, if you could find one of those."

"I don't know where one of those is. Oh well."

Niva shrugs.