“It is not always what we do, Sa'han, but who we love that makes us who we are. Quen”

“We all watched Al open the door. Turning, he waved to us, then passed the threshold. The door shut behind him. I waited for something to happen. Nothing did. “This isn’t good,” Quen said. I choked back my burst of laughter, knowing it would come out sounding hysterical.”

“Ivy and I will deal with the uncomfortable situation like we always have…by ignoring it. It was something we were both good at.”

“Who’s going to keep them from wiping us out species by species? Not me. We aren’t prepared for a new demographic of magic-using humans who are sadistic, power hungry, don’t like Inderlanders, and see genocide as an acceptable form of communication.”

“I sighed. "And what am I to you, Al?""My maid," he said brightly. "Shall we do this?”

“We’ve been out of the closet for about 40 years.’ His lips parted. ‘Out of the closet?’ A grin came over my face. ‘Sorry, we came clean, uh, we told them we existed after a virus hiding in tomatoes, a sort of a plague, started killing humans. It dropped their numbers by about a quarter. They were going to find out about us anyway because we weren’t dying.’ Pierce watched my moving foot and smiled with half his face. ‘I’ve always been of the mind that tomatoes were the fruit of the devil’, he said.”

“And then there are the rare ones who know love, who understand it. Who freely give of themselves, demanding only a return of that love,that trust.”