Page 43 of Last But Not Leashed

“One and a half percent elf, Missy.”

“What’s the other one and a half percent?”

“Going to have to run a scan. It’ll be a few minutes.”

“This explains so much. Of course she’d find herself an elf.”

“One and a half percent hardly classifies me as an elf,” I muttered.

“Alan? Why did my baby girl have to pick a fearless elf male?”

“She cries when her crushes run away, Miss. We’ve talked about this before. And no, you can’t bite him—or her former crushes for running away.”

“They should be groveling at her feet!”

“While this is true, remember how frustrating it was when my brother kept running away? How long did it take you to convince him you weren’t going to murder him in his sleep following conception?”

Some stories were worth hearing, and I held my breath hoping they’d continue the discussion and offer more insights into the wondrous horrors that was the Frankwell family.

“That’s my mother’s fault for using my father’s skull as a purse! I didn’t do anything, damn it.”

My mouth dropped open. “She used his skull as a purse? But why?”

Ethel’s uncle laughed. “Remember this when he does something you don’t like, Missy. He asked why.”

“Humans. My father died of old age, boy. My mother missed him. It’s elven custom. She wore his skull on her hip for ten years—the customary time of grieving. Now she shows him off to frighten the humans.”

No wonder they ate those who cheated; if Ethel’s mother was to be believed, partnerships were serious business to them. Ten years of mourning would make most people seem excessive. “That’s oddly sweet,” I admitted. “She must have loved him a lot.”

Ethel’s mother smiled, and something about her eyes softened, full of the sort of melancholy for a lost love so deep it could never be erased. “She did. He was loyal, and there’s little else more important to an elf than loyalty.”

“Like lycanthropes.”

“Essentially.”

Ethel’s uncle burst into laughter. “Ethel’s done landed herself an interesting one, Missy.”

“What’d you find?”

“I figured I’d check the exotics databases on genetics first to eliminate the data crunching the machine had to do, and it didn’t take long to get a hit on that last percentage.”

“Seriously, I thought it took hours to crunch out this information,” I muttered. “Days, even.”

“Quiet, son. I ain’t talkin’ to you.”

“But those are my genes.”

“Quiet, son.”

I sighed.

“Stop playing around, Alan. What is he?”

“It looks like Sjöfn had a dalliance with one of the ljósálfar seven or so generations ago. Maybe six. Six generations would be roughly a percent and a half.”

“Norse? He’s Norse?” Ethel’s mother wailed. “That’s not fair. My line is of Celtic origin.”

“Don’t worry about her whining, son. She’s just jealous because the ljósálfar were few and far between. Celts were more likely to roam, and don’t get her started about the Asiatic elves; they outnumber the Celtic elves five to one.”