When Basil merely nodded and then turned his attention back to her, Sherry forced a smile and said, “So it’s Baw-zil, not Bay-sil?”

Basil nodded. “It’s short for Basileios.”

A car horn honked as he spoke, and she wasn’t sure she’d heard right. Tilting her head, she asked, “Bellicose?”

“No, not ‘bellicose,’” he said with a chuckle. “That is a temperament not a name. My name is Basileios.” He spoke slowly and loudly this time to be sure she heard.

“Basileios,” Sherry murmured, and then pursed her lips briefly as the name tickled her memory. “So you weren’t named after a spice, but some big snake from Harry Potter? Nice.”

He blinked. “A snake? What the devil are you talking about?”

“I think she’s getting Basileios mixed up with basilisk,” Stephanie said helpfully, turning in the front seat to grin at them.

“Basilisk, right,” Sherry said with a smile, and then shrugged. “They sound very similar.”

“They are not similar,” he said grimly. “My name is ‘Baw-sill-ee-os.’”

“Well, you said it fast the first time and it sounded kind of like ‘basilisk,’” she said apologetically.

“It did kind of, didn’t it?” Stephanie agreed.

“It did not,” Basileios said indignantly.

Feeling herself relax a bit, Sherry teased, “Well, if you’re going to go and get all bellicose about it, maybe we should just go with the spice and call you ‘Bay-sil’ after all,” she said, pronouncing it like the spice.