Midnight Enchantment Read Free

though she doubted they understood her.
    The sprae were the only reason her mother, Thea, lived. Thea was a rare and special breed of fae, a kind born only since Piefferburg had been erected. Her life force was dependent upon the sprae, the tiny sentient beings who were drawn to fae energy. The origins of the fae dependent were murky, a result of the goddess Danu’s will alone.
    The scent of vegetable stew hit Elizabeth’s nose the moment she cleared the doorway. Her mother turned from the pot on the stove. “And where have you been this evening, my girl?” She waved a hand at clothing draped over a chair. “Go on, get dressed. I have a good stew and some even better bread.” Her mother was used to her strolling around naked, since her water self was the way Elizabeth traveled so often.
    Elizabeth’s stomach growled at the prospect of food. She went for the pair of trousers and the man’s shirt, inhaling for any remaining whiff of her father’s scent, but it was long gone now.
    Her mother spooned up stew into bowls and set the table. Elizabeth went to the refrigerator to get the cheese and butter for the thickly sliced bread already on the table.
    “I was just out exploring,” Elizabeth finally answered her mother’s question.
    She wasn’t very good at lying and hoped her mother wouldn’t press her. Her mother had ways of making people dowhat she wanted through the food she cooked, like tell the truth when they didn’t want to tell it. It was her strongest talent. If she didn’t do it with her strong intuition, she did it with her tea or baked goods.
    They sat down and began to eat. Elizabeth buttered a piece of bread, keeping her eyes away from her mother’s face. These days she needed to be really careful around Thea since she was keeping a secret—an enormous life-changing one.
    Her mother stared at her for a long moment, then the small laugh lines around her eyes creased. “You’ve met a man.”
    The knife she held clattered to her plate and she glanced up. “What? Why would you say that?” She gave a laugh that sounded a little too tense to be genuine.
    “You’ve got a glow about you I’ve never seen before, a glow of excitement. That’s got to be what it is. Tell me about him!” She leaned forward, her face beaming.
    Thea wanted so much for Elizabeth to drag herself away from the hermit’s life that her mother was forced to lead because of her sprae dependence—the hermit’s life Elizabeth had grown up leading out of necessity. Thea wanted Elizabeth to meet a man, move to the city, have children, be happy. Above all, avoid the fate of losing her sense-of-self to water.
    A life in the city and a family weren’t what Elizabeth wanted at all, despite the sheltered life she’d lived.
    “A glow of excitement?” she echoed. Ah. Well, yes, of course. Her life had turned very exciting the moment the Summer Queen had entrusted her with two of the pieces of the
bosca fabh
and had ordered her to hide them. “I haven’t met a man, Mom. At least, not in the way you’re thinking.”
    “Oh.” Her mother sighed and placed a slice of cheese on the heel of the bread. “That’s too bad.”
    Elizabeth made a
hmmm
sound that was as noncommittal as she could make it, then swallowed a spoonful of stew. “
Mmmm
, good stew.”
    Her mother waggled a finger at her. “Don’t change the subject on me, girl. It’s time we had a talk about your future, and this is just the moment to do it.”
    She was familiar with this conversational opening. It had to do with the walls of Piefferburg falling and what that meant for the fae.
    Elizabeth set her spoon to the side of the bowl and sighed. “Any future that doesn’t include you alive in the world isn’t a future I want to contemplate. Can we not talk about it tonight? Let’s enjoy our food instead.”
    Even though she wasn’t hungry anymore.
    The sprae provided her mother’s life force. If the walls broke, her mother would die. She’d watched her father