Bella's driving home from Olympic National Park, herbs all wrapped up in paper and stashed in a Macy's bag on the driver's seat. Ho hum. She doesn't need most of them; she's going to dry them and take them home to Phoenix where she can trade them for equally nonindigenous-to-the-Southwest botanicals. The perks of being a child of divorce.
She's also pretty thoroughly aware that she wouldn't be willing to pick up hitchhikers if she didn't have magic, and by a similar token wouldn't have picked up this one if she'd known he was magic.
Well, he doesn't seem to be doing anything threatening.
"There's certainly more of it here than where I live most of the year," she agrees.
"And where is that?"
The question's automatic. She does not retract it when it's slipped out.
It would definitely be safer, he decides, but it would also be less interesting.
"I get the impression that you already know the answer to that question."
"I have a guess. For all I know there are lots of coincidentally named people running around, but the hypothetical coincidentally named people probably wouldn't've just said that."
"I never did Google you. You're not based on the right coast to come up very much, for all that I recognized the name."
"That works too. I wouldn't've blinked. All things considered I'd rather know, though, especially since you don't seem to be doing anything particularly intimidating."
"Explains what you were doing in the park. I hope it's nothing too terribly deadly."
"Likewise, actually - there's nothing I need for my own projects at the moment except some common stuff I wouldn't have bothered to pick personally when I could buy it. I'm going to trade it for things from other parts of the world when I'm back in Phoenix, since I was going to be here anyway."
"Gesundheit," says Bella, raising an eyebrow. "I only know common or witch names for most things, does that have one?"
"We'll be at your hotel in like five minutes," she says, when they pass a relevant sign.
"Awesome, thanks," Neville says. "I guess I'll have to find a tow truck or something tomorrow."