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couldn’t hear him since he wasn’t in our magic bubble. “Don’t be so hard on your mother, girls. Perhaps we didn’t have much choice in the matter. The Fae can be quite… convincing.” He looked directly at Mom now. “You need to tell them, Cecelia.”
    Cassidy and I turned to Mom, who nodded once before draining the rest of the wine. Her lips were stained light crimson. She pushed brown locks away from her face and I noticed a few strands of gray. Those were new.
    “The Leprechaun clan is mostly made up of dwarfs, or little people—”
    “Midgets?” Cassidy asked.
    “Well, yes, but that word’s not politically correct and some consider it derogatory,” Mom stated. “Anyhow, in order to keep the bloodlines alive, the Fae gathered a sister clan of dwarf females in a nearby town and gifted them with magic in return for their agreement to pair up with the Chaun men. After all these years, for some reason the clans are not successfully reproducing anymore. There’ve been many miscarriages and stillbirths or babes who die young with internal defects. Some say the two clans have exhausted the variety in the bloodlines and there’s fear of accidental incest—”
    “Ew!” Cassidy cut in. Mom ignored her and continued.
    “They’ve kept thorough records of family lines, but it’s to the point where many of them are related as second cousins and such.”
    “So, couldn’t the all-powerful Fae have found some other dwarf women in the world for them?” I asked. “Why did they choose a human?”
    Mom sighed and looked at Dad who gave her an encouraging nod.
    “Fifty years ago when McKale was born—”
    Cassidy smacked the armrest. “McKale is fifty ? Dude!”
    “Cassidy Renee, if you interrupt me one more time you’ll be sitting with your father away from this conversation.” Cass grumbled but shut up. Mom looked back at me. “I’ve done a lot of digging for information over the years. Fifty is young by their standards. You know magic enables the Dightheach to live longer than usual. But the average lifespan of a Leprechaun is a thousand years because the magic is so engrained into their DNA.”
    A thousand? Wow. My parents would be middle aged for a long, long time before they finally appeared “old.” They would probably live between three and four hundred years, which meant Cass and I would as well. Magical families had to periodically move and change identity to keep up the façade.
    “When McKale came along there was a lot of talk among the magical people around the world. Supposedly he was the healthiest Chaun to be born in centuries. Some say he was gifted as a newborn by a Faerie of the night. Some say he was born without dwarfism, so the genetics that were hindering the other babies did not affect him.” A look of hope must have landed on my face because Mom shot me a cautious look. “It’s all hearsay, dearest. I wouldn’t get your hopes up.” She appeared regretful and my hopes sank again.
    “Fact is, the Chaun and Fae both agreed that McKale was their best chance at strengthening the clan lines again, and they wanted a magical female whose bloodlines had never before been crossed with the Chaun. Your father and I were in Ireland seventeen years ago delivering our latest reports to the Fae when all of this talk was going on. I’d just given birth to you three weeks prior, Robyn. You were strapped to my chest in a carrier.” Her eyes went dark. “A Faerie woman saw you and laid claim.”
    “What do you mean?” I shivered and rubbed my arms.
    “Laid claim?” Cassidy asked. “That’s creepy. Couldn’t you tell her no?”
    Mom’s chin quivered. “Leon, get me another drink, would you, love?”
    My father nodded and pushed the call button. A minute later the drink was delivered. When the flight attendant went back to the server alley, Dad passed us the drink, down the line until it reached Mom. I’d never seen her drink like this. She downed half the glass before