“You never told me all this before," I said, by way of explanation. "You all have dividedup America into kingdoms, is that right?”

“I've never had a home before." That must have been all the sweets talking; I'd never have told him otherwise. "I mean, staying with Li, I never felt like I belonged. That's all."Sam touched my wrist, making me shiver. "You always have a home with me.”

“The old man laughed. Now that I did find unsettling. They always laugh right before they kill you. After the long explanation of their evil deeds and right before they kill you. Always. They must have been too rushed for explanations.”

“True names,” said September wonderingly. “These are all true names. Like, when your parents call you to dinner and you don’t come and they call again but you still don’t come, and they call you by all your names together, and then, of course, you have to come, and right quick. Because true names have power, like Lye said. But I never told anyone my true name. The Green Wind told me not to. I didn’t understand what he meant, but I do now.”

“See, I told you it would all work out,” Niniane said to Tiago. “You are, as always, perfectly right,” Tiago told her.”

“You telephoned me every evening. I was very grateful to you. Sometimes we would talk for five or ten minutes, and sometimes for three-quarters of an hour. I liked to be in bed before you rant at ten o’clock, and I always asked if everything was all right. Of course things were not, and never will be all right, but you were all right with me. That is what matters throughout the whole of the world. “You are all right with me.”