Page 7 of Surviving Enchantment: Part One
Abert’s shoulders slumped.“There is more to life than the dead, Izzy.”
She nodded and said over her shoulder, “I will let you know if I find it.”
With that, she returned to the house and checked on her dinner.It still had half an hour to go in the oven before it was eating temperature.The silence in the house was incredible.
She went to her grandmother’s crystal and gathered it in a piece of silk.“I am sorry it was abrupt, Grandma, but I needed to be angry, or I would have cried for days.”
Izzy took the shards and put them and the silk into a box, warding it for safety.“I will bring you to the cemetery as soon as I finish my assignment tomorrow.You can rest.”
There was no response, but there couldn’t be.Her grandmother was gone.
She walked to the kitchen with the box and set it on the counter.“I am eating.Promise.”
Izzy set her place at the table, got some iced tea, and when her meal was ready, she pulled the small casserole out and walked it to the table with oven mitts.She was about to take the first bite when there was a knock at the door.
Izzy pulled on her human glamour and walked to the door.A woman with red hair and a dark elf were on her porch.She smiled and opened the door.“Hello.You are Hannah and Hannah’s dark elf.”
The male looked like he engaged in bodybuilding and never skipped face day.He smiled.“Agent Neekil.We are your new neighbours.”
“And Abert is a squealer.Come on in.”
She led them into the kitchen and said, “Not to be rude, but I have to finish my dinner, or tomorrow will be a disaster, and you will have wasted your deposit on the restoration.”
Hannah thudded into a chair next to her while Neekil prowled around.
“Wait.You are Isocar Lavrel?Abert just mentioned you as Izzy.”
Izzy smiled and swallowed some of her mac and cheese with pulled pork.“I have known him a while.I grew up here with the son of his last owner.He passed twenty years ago.”
Hannah looked at her.“How old are you?”
“Fortyish.No one knows for sure.I was adopted.”Izzy kept eating.“Just in case the agent runs a background check on me.I am not surprised by it.”She looked up.“But I have committed manslaughter, so that will show up.”She spelled her name.
Hannah frowned.“What happened?”
“I fought back.”
Hannah looked at Izzy and gave a slight nod of her head.Hannah smiled.“Good.”
“Yup.Then I went nuts for a decade, lost all members of my family but one, and have only now come back, just in time to hold my grandmother’s hand as she passed.There.One compressed bio.”
Hannah blinked.“Wow.”
“Well, you should get to know your neighbours.I already know that you are a member of the Lee construction family, got possessed by the guy who is looking for cookies, and then ended up transformed into a war companion dark elf.No kids yet, but he’s really trying.You are no slouch yourself.”
Hannah paused.“That’s really precise.”
Izzy pointed one hand at her own head.“Proximity seer.”
“Oh.I thought that was a dark fae trait.”
She took a huge mouthful of her dinner and dropped her glamour.“Better?”
Neekil froze.“Fucking hell.What made you?”
“No idea.Foundling.Probably because they saw this.”She drew her fingers around her face.“I was found at less than three weeks old, but I was so small, they don’t know when I was born.It was obviously a home birth.”
Hannah frowned.“So, how many adopted siblings do you have?”
