There is a HUGE amount of daily life background that doesn't make it into the books. For example: the Elves of this time period use magic much as a modern human society uses technology: for food preservation, for crop fertility, to treat sickness and injury. Since there are not a lot of Lightborn in the general population, and since it is in the War Princes' best interests to keep them close at hand, the best way to diffuse Magery to the places where it can be most useful is to enchant or bespell objects. Thus, tarnkappas to confer invisibility, bridles that confer Silversight on their wearers, barrels that preserve all items placed within them, and so on. When the Lightborn complain of having their Light used to find lost gloves and heat bathwater, this is very much what their daily duties involve when they are serving in a Great Keep.

At least...it used to.