the drowning was more than a climatological event. it came to define social, political,
and economic history in the region, and gave rise to a distinctive and ever more salient
subculture among residents of the bottom hundred. somewhat paradoxically, it caused an
upswing in southern nationalism, a hardening of llyr’s north-south divide. it can thus be
said that the drowning structures the core of southern identity, even nearly two centuries
later.
from the introduction to a compendium of southern writers in the neo-balladic
tradition, edited by dr. rhys brinley, 201 ad
the next morning was the first truly cloudless day in the bay of nine bells since effy had arrived,
and she took it as a sign. as soon as she awoke, she dressed quickly and scampered up the path
toward the house, her boots sliding in the soft dirt.
below, even the sea appeared to be behaving itself, the waves a hushed murmur against the
stone. sunlight glinted off the white peaks of foam. in the distance, she saw two seals at play in the
water, their gray heads pebble-small from her vantage point.
yesterday’s calm had given way to a fledgling determination. sitting in the car beside preston,
tobacco smoke filling the cab, effy had decided she would try. she could not give up before she
even started.
you don’t have to love something in order to devote yourself to it, preston had said. in the
moment she had chafed at his condescension, but now she realized—with some reluctance—that it
was actually good advice.
and maybe she had been wrong about myrddin in a few aspects, but that didn’t mean she was
wrong about everything. he was still the man who wrote angharad. he was still the man who put
iron on the doors of the guesthouse.
angharad had once thought her tasks impossible, too. at first she had never believed she could
escape the fairy king.
effy was no great designer, but she was an excellent escape artist. she was always chipping
away at the architecture of her life until there was a crack big enough to slip through. whenever
she was faced with danger, her mind manifested a secret doorway, a hole in the floorboards,
somewhere she could hide or run to.
at last the house came into view, starkly black against the delicate blue sky. effy had her
sketchpad with her original design for hiraeth manor and three pens, lest one or two of them run
dry. she was panting with pleasant exhaustion by the time she climbed the mossy steps.
ianto was waiting for her at the threshold. he looked pleased to see her, perhaps even relieved.
“you look as though you’re feeling better,” he remarked.
“yes,” she said, feeling a fresh wave of embarrassment as she remembered how she’d fled
from the house. “i’m sorry about not coming yesterday—i’m still, um, getting used to the air
down here, i think.”
“understandable,” ianto said, generously. “you’re a northern girl through and through, i can
tell. but i’m glad to see you looking less green.” she didn’t know whether he was commenting on
her appearance or her attitude, until he added, “your skin is a lovely color.”
“oh,” she said. her face heated. “thank you.”
ianto’s pale eyes were shining. “let’s begin, then,” he said, and beckoned effy through the
doorway.
effy shook off the slight feeling of unease and followed after him. she had been chosen on the
strength and inventiveness of her original design, but that had been done before seeing hiraeth
itself. ianto’s initial entreaty had made it sound like there would be nothing but a large empty field
waiting for her, ready to be filled with a new foundation. not a dilapidated monstrosity. after
returning from saltney yesterday, effy had sat down on the edge of the bed, sketchpad balanced on
her knees, and tried to marry her initial vision with the ugly reality she’d seen.
the result was, at least to her novice’s eyes, not half bad. she figured the plan would evolve
over time—ianto wanted a finalized design before she returned to caer-isel—but she could do it.
she needed to do it.
ianto led her into the foyer, which, despite the sun and cloudless sky, was still only half filled
with gloomy gray light. the puddles on the floor were murky and salt- laced. wetherell was
standing by the entrance to the kitchen, looking stiff and dour and hard-edged. when she said good
morning to him, he responded with only a nod.
effy refused to let him temper her enthusiasm. “this is where i want to start, actually,” she
said. “the foyer. it should be flooded with light on a sunny day.”
“that will be difficult,” ianto said. “the front of the house faces west.”
“i know,” she replied, reaching into her purse for her sketchpad. “i want to flip the whole
house around, if we can. the foyer and the kitchen facing east, overlooking the water.”
ianto assumed a pensive look. “then the entrance would have to be along the cliff.”
“i know it sounds impossible,” she acknowledged.
wetherell spoke up. “what it sounds is expensive. has mr. myrddin discussed the financial
constraints of the project with you?”
“not now,” ianto said, waving a hand. “i want to hear the extent of effy’s plans. if we need to
make adjustments, we can do that later.”
for a moment wetherell looked like he might protest, but his lips thinned and he sank back
against the doorway.
“well,” she began carefully, “i did think about that. cost and feasibility. following my design,
it would be necessary to demolish most of the current structure and set the new house back several
acres from the edge of the cliff. given the unpredictability of the rock, the uneven topography . . .”
effy trailed off. a pall had come over ianto’s face. his look of displeasure told her that their ideas
were not, in fact, aligned. had he not thought of an entirely new structure taking the place of the
old?
ianto’s expression, the darkening of his eyes, filled her with a vague but terrible dread. she
shrank back.
but he only said, “will you come upstairs with me, effy? i’d like you to see something.”
effy nodded numbly, immediately feeling foolish for being so afraid. it was the sort of thing
her mother would have chastised her for—nothing happened, effy. she’d been offered that puzzled
scorn in lieu of comfort as a child when she’d run to her mother’s room after having a nightmare.
after having the same nightmare, over and over again, that same dark shape in the corner of
her room. eventually she had stopped coming to her mother’s door at all. instead she read
angharad in the lamplight until her sleeping pills pulled her under.
ianto led her upstairs, hand gliding over the rotted-wood banister. effy followed, feeling a bit
unsteady on her feet. as they passed the portrait of the fairy king, she paused briefly and met his
cold stare. she hadn’t meant to do it. it felt like a taunt, a reminder that this version of the fairy
king was trapped inside a gilded frame, inside an unreal world.
but the real fairy king was not muzzled like the one in the painting. and she had seen that
creature in the road.
effy gripped the hag stone in her pocket as she and ianto reached the upstairs landing. water
was dripping off the carvings of saint eupheme and saint marinell. ianto was so tall that it
dripped onto his shoulders and his black hair.
he didn’t seem to notice. living in a place like this, effy supposed, you might begin to not feel
the cold or damp at all.
“this way,” ianto said, directing her down the hall. the floor groaned emphatically beneath
them. he stopped when they reached a small and unremarkable wooden door. “you left in such a
hurry the other day, i didn’t get to show you this. not that i blame you entirely, of course. this
house is not for the faint of heart.”
the knob began to rattle and the doorframe began to shake, as if someone were pounding on
the door from the other side. effy tensed, heart pattering. she found herself thinking of master
corbenic’s office and the green armchair, its loose threads like reaching vines.
ianto threw the door open. or rather, he turned the knob and the wind did the rest, nearly
yanking the door right off its hinges with a vicious howl. effy stumbled back instinctively, raising
a hand to shield her eyes. it wasn’t until there was a lull in the wind’s wailing that she was able to
peer through the open door.
there was a narrow balcony, only half its boards fully intact, eaten away so thoroughly by
mold and damp that the floor resembled a checkerboard: stretches of black emptiness alternating
with planks of sun-blanched wood. it creaked and moaned in the wind the way effy imagined a
ghost ship would, tattered sails swaying to a banshee’s song.
she looked up at ianto in horror. she hoped he didn’t expect her to actually set foot on the
ruined platform.
as if able to read her thoughts, he thrust out his arm to hold her back. it was a large arm,
black-haired, the skin under it as pale as the ancient stone.
“don’t go any further,” ianto said. “and ignore yet another testament to my father’s
negligence. i want you to look at the view.”
feeling safer behind ianto’s arm, effy peered forward. over the rotted wood was the cliff face,
green and white and gray, dotted with eyries and smaller gull nests, feathers catching in the wind.
below it, the sea looked sleek and deadly, waves gnashing their teeth against the rock.
effy felt the height in the soles of her feet and her palms turned slick. before, when the cliff
had broken apart beneath her, it had been so unexpected, she hadn’t even had the chance to be
afraid. now she understood the danger of the rocks, the ocean’s foaming wrath.
“it’s beautiful, isn’t it?” ianto said. even in the wind, his hair still lay mostly flat.
“it’s terrifying,” effy confessed.
“most beautiful things are,” ianto said. “do you know why it’s called the bay of nine bells?”
effy shook her head.
“before the drowning, the land stretched out further into the sea. there were dozens of small
towns there on the old land—fishing villages, mostly. what have you been taught about what
happened to them?”
“well, there was a storm,” effy started, but she could tell it was one of those false questions
that was like a hole in the floor. if you took the bait, you would fall right into it.
ianto smiled at her thinly. “that’s one of the misconceptions many northerners have about the
drowning. that it was one enormous storm, a single night of terror and then its aftermath. but it
can take a person up to ten minutes to drown. ten minutes doesn’t seem like a very long time, but
when you can’t breathe and your lungs are aching, it seems very long indeed. you can even die
after you’ve been pulled from the drink, dry on land, water having rotted your lungs beyond
repair. the drowning of the bottom hundred took years, my dear. it started with the wet season
lasting longer than it should and the dry season being less dry than it ought. a few cliffs
crumbling, a marsh or two swelling past its margins—at first it was scarcely remarked upon, and
certainly not taken as a warning.
“have you heard the expression about the frog in hot water? if you raise the temperature
slowly, he won’t notice a thing until he’s boiled alive. a soft-bellied northerner might have seen
the danger coming, but the southerners practically had scales and fins themselves. the sea took
and took and took, thousands of little deaths, and they endured it all because they knew nothing
else. they didn’t think to fear the drowning until the water was lapping at their door.
“the lucky ones, the wealthier ones, with their homes set back further from the shore,
managed to flee. but the waves rose up and swallowed everything, houses and shops and women
and children, the old and the young. the sea has no mercy. in this bay there were nine churches,
and they were all swallowed up, too, no matter how hard their supplicants pleaded with saint
marinell. they say that on certain days you can still hear the bells of those churches, ringing
underwater.”
effy turned toward the water and listened, but she didn’t hear any ringing.
“the drowning was two hundred years ago,” she said. “long before your father was born.”
she hoped it didn’t sound disparaging.
“of course,” ianto said. “but the story of the drowning lives in the minds of every child who
is born in the bottom hundred. our mothers whisper it to us in our cradles. our fathers teach us to
swim before we can walk. the first game we play with our friends is to see how long we can hold
our breath underwater. it’s the fear we have to learn. the fear keeps the sea from taking us.”
effy remembered what rhia had told her about the southerners and their superstitions. about
how they feared a second drowning and thought the magic of the sleepers would stop it.
watching the ocean barrage the cliffs, and hearing ianto speak, effy could understand why they
thought such a thing. fear could make a believer of anybody.
strangely, she found herself thinking of master corbenic. when he had first placed his hand
over her knee, she had thought he was being warm, fatherly. she hadn’t known to be afraid. even
now, she didn’t know if she was allowed to be.
“that’s why my father built this house here,” ianto went on. “he wanted my mother and me to
learn how to fear the sea.”
“your mother isn’t from the bottom hundred?” it wasn’t the point of what ianto had said, but
the small detail stood out to effy, who hadn’t seen even a trace of the mysterious widow.
“no,” ianto said shortly. “but effy, i hope you understand that to tear down this house would
be an act of sacrilege. it would dishonor my father’s memory. perhaps i was unclear in my initial
missive, and i apologize. this house cannot be leveled. i know that you have enormous respect
and affection for my father and for the legacy of emrys myrddin, so i am confident you can rise to
the challenge.”
did he believe, too, that myrddin’s consecration would stop another drowning? that perhaps
it would even reverse the damage that had already been done? effy didn’t ask; she didn’t want to
risk offending him. as she tried to decide how to reply, ianto reached over and pulled the door
shut. the wind’s howling grew muffled, and her hair lay flat again.
“i’m ready,” effy said at last. “i want to do this.”
she wanted so badly to do something valuable for once, to make something beautiful,
something that was hers. she wanted this to be more than just an escape, wanted to be more than a
scared little girl running away from imaginary monsters. she couldn’t write a thesis or a
newspaper article or even a fairy tale of her own—the university had made damn sure she knew
that. this was her only chance to make something that would last, so she would take it, no matter
how insurmountable the task seemed.
and when she went back to caer-isel, it would be to tell master corbenic and her schoolmates
that they had been wrong about her. she would never go back whimpering and kneeling. she
would never sit in that green chair again.
she would have to put her faith in myrddin once more. she would have to believe he would
not set her an impossible challenge. she would have to trust, as she always had, the words written
in angharad, the happy ending it promised. so what about the million drowned men? so what
about the rumors of another drowning?
her only enemy was the sea.
“excellent,” ianto said, smiling his one-dimpled smile. “i knew i was right to choose you.” he
reached over and rested a hand on her shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. effy froze.
ianto did not stop staring at her, as if he expected her to reply. but all effy could feel was the
clamminess of his touch, the enormous weight of his hand. it sent her stumbling backward in time,
back to master corbenic’s office. back to that green chair.
she couldn’t speak for how heavy it felt. she felt as if she’d turned into an old doll, buried
under cobwebs and dust.
when the stretch of silence became too long and too awkward, ianto let her go. the intensity
of his gaze dimmed, as if he had sensed her sudden terror. he blinked, looking a bit dazed himself.
“i’m sorry,” he said. “excuse me for a moment. i need to run some numbers by wetherell.
he’s not going to be happy with me, i’m afraid. please just wait here.”
effy didn’t wait. her head was throbbing and her stomach felt thick. myrddin’s strange ruin of a
house creaked and groaned around her. many years ago, before the first drowning, the people of
the bottom hundred had executed their criminals by tying them up on the beach at low tide. then
they all watched and waited as the waves came up. they brought picnic blankets and bread. they
fed themselves as the sea fed the sinner, pouring water down her throat until she was pale and
gorged.
effy wasn’t sure why she always pictured a woman when she thought of it. a woman with
kelp-colored hair.
that was exactly the sort of barbarity the northern conquerors claimed they were saving their
southern subjects from. centuries later, it was the stuff of fairy tales and legends, all of it
generally llyrian, as if no conquest had ever occurred. as if whole villages had not been
slaughtered in a quest to eradicate those unseemly traditions. as if stories were not spoils of war.
effy walked slowly down the hall, one hand pressed flat against the wall for support. her
nausea did not abate as she paused outside one of the doors. it was the study on the other side,
preston’s room. curiosity, or maybe something else, compelled her to reach out for the knob.
she had always sat numbly inside the church confessional, trying to invent sins that seemed
worth confessing but not so horrifying as to scandalize the priest. now she had the unmistakable
urge to confess. she wanted someone to know how ianto had touched her—even if she was still
trying to convince herself it had been nothing at all. a friendly gesture, a bracing pat on the
shoulder. but didn’t all drownings begin with a harmless dribble of water?
effy hated that she couldn’t tell right from wrong, safe from unsafe. her fear had transfigured
the entire world. looking at anything was like trying to glimpse a reflection in a broken mirror, all
of it warped and shattered and strange.
preston had said all he cared about was the truth. who better, then, to tell her whether her fear
was justified? she felt, somehow, that he could be trusted with this.
all that time in the car and he had never touched her. in fact, he had moved about her, around
her, in a very careful sort of way, as if she were something fragile he did not want to risk breaking.
effy held her breath and opened the door slowly. it creaked like the rest of the house, an awful
squeal like a dying cat. she was expecting to see preston sitting behind myrddin’s desk, head bent
over a book.
but the room was empty, and effy felt a thud of disappointment. she let her gaze wander
across the scattered papers and old books, the cigarettes lining the windowsill, the blanket thrown
over the shredded chaise longue. she looked at the chaise for a moment, trying to imagine preston
sleeping there.
it made her smile a little bit to think about it. his long legs would dangle over the edge.
feeling more curious and emboldened, she moved toward the desk. it had been myrddin’s,
though she could no longer imagine him sitting there—preston was all over it. his books were
lying open like clamshells, water stains yellowing their pages. the poetical works of emrys
myrddin, 196–208 ad was open to the page with “the mariner’s demise.” effy traced her finger
over the words, thinking of preston doing the same. had she imagined the reverence in his tone, or
did he feel passionately about myrddin after all?
there were papers strewn about, some balled up or folded, others just crumpled and then
smoothed flat again. many had ragged edges, as though they’d been ripped out of a notebook. effy
looked for preston’s notebook, but she didn’t see it. his pens were scattered around, irresponsibly
uncapped.
it was funny now, how she had assumed he would be fastidious and precise in all his work.
even she didn’t leave her pens uncapped like some kind of barbarian.
effy was aware that she was snooping, but she didn’t care. she smoothed some of the papers
flat. most of them were written in argantian, which she couldn’t read, though she did pause to
study preston’s handwriting. it was tight and neat, the same way it had looked in the library
logbook, but not necessarily elegant. he had a funny way of drawing his g’s, two circles stacked
like a headless snowman. effy bit her lip because it seemed like a silly thing to smile at, even
though it did charm her.
she unfolded another paper, this one written in llyrian.
proposed thesis title? execution of the author: an inquiry into the authorship of the major
works of emrys myrddin
part one: present theory of false authorship, starting with ??
part two: cryptographic evidence—ask gosse for samples
part three: letters, diary entries—use nearest mimeograph, in laleston?
the list went on for quite a bit longer, but effy’s mind stopped on the first line. execution of
the author. with trembling fingers, she turned the paper over. preston had drawn some aimless
sketches in the margins and scrawled some slapdash words, repeating their way down the page.
she was staring at his marginalia in shocked disbelief when the door creaked open.
“what are you doing?” preston demanded.
effy crumpled the paper at once, heart pounding. “i could ask you the same.”
her voice sounded more certain than she felt. preston had a mug of coffee in one hand, and his
lithe fingers curled around it so tightly that his knuckles were white. that same muscle feathered
in his jaw. effy remembered how guarded he had been when ianto showed her the study, how
quickly he had put his notes away when she joined him in the booth yesterday.
now she knew why he’d been so careful to hide his work.
“effy,” he said gravely. he still hadn’t moved from the threshold, but his eyes were darting
around behind his glasses.
“‘execution of the author,’” she read aloud in a quavering voice. “‘an inquiry into the
authorship of the major works of emrys myrddin.’ this is your thesis?”
“just wait a second,” preston said, an edge of desperation to his words. effy found she quite
liked the idea of him begging her, and a little heat rose in her cheeks at the thought. “i can explain
everything. don’t go running off to ianto.”
her cheeks heated further. “what makes you think i would run to ianto?”
preston paced toward her slowly, letting the door groan shut behind him. effy’s heart was
beating very fast. she remembered what the shepherd had told her, about the fairy king in his
disguises, and in that moment she thought she could see a bit of that wickedness in preston, his
eyes narrowed and his chest swelling.
effy reached for the hag stone in her pocket.
in another moment, all the ferocity in him fizzled. he shrank back, as if tacitly apologizing for
daring to approach her like that, and effy’s hand slid from her pocket. preston did not make a very
convincing fairy king. too stiff. too scrawny.
“listen,” he said. “i know you’re a devotee of myrddin, but this isn’t meant to disrespect his
legacy.”
effy held the paper against her chest. “you think he was a fraud?”
“i’m just trying to get at the truth. the truth doesn’t have an agenda.” when she only stared
back at him stonily, preston went on. “‘fraud’ has certain connotations i’m not comfortable with.
but no, i don’t think he’s the sole author of the majority of his works.”
gritting her teeth, effy wished he would just speak plainly for once. she struggled to keep her
voice even as she replied, “myrddin was a strange man, a hermit, a recluse—but that doesn’t make
him a fraud. why would you believe something like that? how could you believe something like
that?”
it was myrddin they were talking about, emrys myrddin, the seventh and most recently
consecrated sleeper, the most celebrated author in llyrian history. it was absurd. impossible.
“it’s complicated.” preston put down his coffee mug and ran a hand through his already-
mussed hair. “for starters, myrddin was the son of a fisherman. it’s not clear whether his parents
were even literate, and from what i can find out, he had stopped attending school by age twelve.
the idea that someone of his limited education could produce such works is—well, it’s a romantic
notion, but it’s highly improbable.”
effy’s blood pulsed in her ears. by now, even the tips of her fingers had gone numb with fury.
“you’re nothing more than a typical elitist twat,” she bit out. “i suppose that only the spectacle-
wearing university-educated among us can write anything meaningful?”
“why are you so interested in defending him?” preston challenged. his gaze was cold, and
even in her rage, effy supposed it was deserved. “you’re a northern girl. sayre isn’t exactly a
southern peasant name.”
how much time had he spent thinking about her surname? for some reason it made her
stomach flutter.
“just because i’m not a southerner doesn’t mean i’m a snob,” she said. “and that just proves
how stupid your theory is. myrddin’s work isn’t just for superstitious fisherfolk for the bottom
hundred. everyone who reads it loves it. well, everyone who isn’t an elitist—”
“don’t call me a twat again,” preston said peevishly. “i’m far from the only one to question
his authorship. it’s a very common theory in the literature college, but so far, no one has done
enough work to prove it. my adviser, master gosse, is leading the charge. he sent me here under
the pretense of collecting myrddin’s documents and letters. i am here with the university’s
permission—that part wasn’t a lie.”
the thought of a bunch of stuffy, pinch-nosed literature scholars sitting around in leather
armchairs and coldly discussing ways to discredit myrddin made effy feel angrier than ever.
angier than when she’d confronted preston on the cliffside, angrier than when she’d seen his name
written in the library’s logbook.
“what’s your end goal, anyway? just to humiliate myrddin’s fans? they would remove him
from the sleeper museum, they would . . .” something truly terrible occurred to her. “is this a
grand argantian plot to weaken llyr?”
preston’s expression darkened. “don’t tell me you actually believe the stories about sleeper
magic.”
effy’s stomach shriveled. her fingers curled into a fist around preston’s crumpled paper. of
course he wouldn’t believe in sleeper magic, being a heathen argantian and an academic to boot.
she felt embarrassed to have mentioned it.
“i didn’t say that,” she snapped. “but it would be massively humiliating for llyr, losing our
most prestigious sleeper. it would affect the morale of our soldiers, at the very least.”
“llyr is winning this war, in case you weren’t aware.” preston spoke aloofly, but a shadow
passed over his face. “they’re even thinking about reinstating a draft in argant—all men eighteen
to twenty-five. it’s not my aim at all, but it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if llyrian
soldiers were to suffer a loss of morale.”
effy could hardly imagine anyone less suited to military life than preston héloury. “so you’re
a saboteur.”
he scoffed. “now you’re being truly ridiculous. this isn’t about politics, not in the slightest.
this is about scholarship.”
“and you think scholarship is completely removed from politics?”
to his credit, preston seemed to genuinely consider this, fixing his gaze on some obscure point
on the far wall for a moment. when he looked back at her, he said, “no. but ideally it would be.
scholarship should be the effort to seek out objective truth.”
effy made a scathing noise in the back of her throat. “i think you’re deluded in even believing
there’s such a thing as objective truth.”
“well.” preston folded his arms across his chest. “i suppose we fundamentally disagree, then.”
effy’s rage was starting to subside, leaving her shaky with the ebbing of adrenaline. she
stopped to think more calmly.
“well,” she said, mimicking his smug tone, “i don’t think ianto would be very happy to learn
that the university student he’s hosting is actually trying to tear down his father’s legacy. in fact, i
think he would be furious.”
she was glad to see preston’s face turn pale.
“listen,” he said again, “you don’t have to do this. i’ve been here for weeks and i’ve hardly
found anything of use. i’m going to have to give up the project and leave soon, unless . . .”
effy arched a brow. “unless?”
“unless you can help me,” he said.
at first she thought she had misheard him. if he had meant to fluster her, it had worked. when
she recovered herself, effy asked, incredulously, “help you? why would i ever help you?”
and then, without preamble, preston said, “‘i looked for myself in the tide pools at dusk, but
that was another one of the fairy king’s jests. by the time it was dusk, the sun had cowed herself
too much, drawn close to the vanishing horizon, and all that remained in those pools was darkness.
her ebbing light could not reach them.’”
he looked at her expectantly. even as dazed as she was, effy remembered the end of the
passage. “‘i slapped at that cold, dull water with my hands, as if i could punish it for disobeying
me. and in that moment, i realized that without knowing it, the fairy king had spoken truly:
although the tide pools had not shown me my face, i had been revealed. i was a treacherous,
wrathful, wanting thing, just like he was. just as he had always wanted me.’” effy paused, gulped
down a breath, and then added, “and it’s ‘waning light,’ not ‘ebbing.’”
preston folded his arms across his chest. “no one else in the literature college can do that.
quote angharad word for word at the drop of a hat. and that poem, ‘the mariner’s demise’?
myrddin isn’t known for his poetry, and that’s a very obscure one.”
“what’s your point?”
“you clearly want to be in the literature college, effy. and you deserve to be.”
effy could only stare at him. she had to remember to breathe, to blink. “you can’t be serious. i
have a good memory—”
“it’s more than that,” he said. “what do you think the other literature students have that you
don’t?”
now he had to be toying with her. hot, indignant tears pricked at her eyes, but she refused to
let them fall. “just stop it,” she bit out. “you know the reason. you know women aren’t allowed in
the literature college. you don’t need to play some cruel, silly game—”
“it’s an absurd, outdated tradition,” preston cut in sharply.
effy was surprised at his vehemence. he could have repeated the same platitudes that all the
university professors did, about how women’s minds were too insipid, how they could only write
frivolous, feminine things, nothing that would transcend time or place, nothing that would last.
“i didn’t think you’d care so much about a rule that doesn’t affect you at all,” she said.
“you should know by now that i’m not a fan of doing things just because that’s the way
they’ve always been done.” preston set his jaw. “or preserving things just because they’ve always
been preserved.”
of course. effy’s cheeks warmed. “so, what? i would get a paragraph in your
acknowledgments?”
“no,” he said. “i would make you coauthor.”
that was even more unexpected. effy’s breath caught, her heart skipping its beats. “i don’t—
i’ve never written a literary paper before. i wouldn’t know how.”
“it’s not hard. you already know myrddin’s works back to front. i would write all the theory
and criticism parts.” preston looked at her intently. “if you went to them with a truly
groundbreaking literary thesis, they wouldn’t be able to come up with an excuse not to let you in.”
effy almost rolled her eyes—who called their own work groundbreaking? but she allowed
herself, briefly, to imagine a new future. one where she went back to the university with her name
beside preston’s on a groundbreaking thesis (maybe even before his, if preston wanted to play fair
and put their names in alphabetical order). one where the literature college broke with its
outmoded tradition. she would never have to draw another cross section.
she would never have to see master corbenic again.
there was hope, blooming like a tender little flower bud. master corbenic, the other students
—they couldn’t win if she quit their game and started playing another.
but it would mean betraying myrddin. betraying everything she had believed her whole life,
the words and stories she had followed like the point of a compass. angharad had always been her
true north.
“i can’t,” effy said at last. she couldn’t bring herself to elaborate further.
preston exhaled. “aren’t you at least a little bit curious about myrddin’s legacy? don’t you
want to find out the truth for yourself? he’s your favorite author, after all. you could end up
proving me wrong.”
she snorted, but she couldn’t deny the idea was appealing. “you really care more about the
truth than you do about being right?”
“of course i do.” there was not an ounce of hesitation in his voice.
his intensity made her falter. as if sensing her will had wavered, preston pressed on. “i can’t
tell you it won’t be difficult, getting the department to change their minds. but i’ll fight for you,
effy. i promise.”
he met her eyes, and there was no subterfuge in his gaze. no artifice. he meant it sincerely.
effy swallowed hard.
“i did try, you know,” she managed. “when i first got my exam score. i wrote a letter to your
adviser, master gosse. i suggested thesis topics. i told him how much myrddin’s work meant to
me.”
preston drew a gentle breath. “and what did he say?”
“he never replied.”
effy had never told anyone that, not even her mother. she looked down at her hands, still
curled around the crumpled piece of paper. they were trembling just a little bit.
“i’m sorry,” preston said. and then he hesitated, running a hand through his hair. “i—that’s
terrible and cruel.”
she said nothing, trying to ignore the tears pricking at her eyes.
“but i have faith in this project,” preston went on. his voice was softer now. “i have faith in
you—in both of us.” he stammered a little bit at the end, as if embarrassed by what he had said.
effy had never heard him trip over his words before, and for some reason it made her want to trust
him more.
“but what about the sleepers?” she asked, risking the possibility that preston would just scoff
at her again. “i know everyone at the university is a snooty agnostic who thinks they’re too clever
for myths and magic, but not everyone in llyr feels the same. especially in the south. they think
that myrddin’s consecration is the only thing preventing a second drowning.”
“a single paper isn’t enough to destroy a myth in one fell swoop,” preston said. “especially
not one that’s had centuries to build. the sleeper museum isn’t going to evict myrddin the
moment we step off the train in caer-isel with our thesis in hand.”
he hadn’t spelled it out precisely, but effy knew what he meant: that truth and magic were two
different things, irreconcilable. it was precisely what effy had been told all her life—by the
physicians who had treated her, by the mother who had despaired of her, by the schoolteachers
and priests and professors who had never, ever believed her.
effy had put her faith in magic. preston held nothing more sacred than truth. theirs was not a
natural alliance.
and yet she found herself unable to refuse.
“don’t you think they’ll have the same apprehensions i did?” it was her last line of defense.
“don’t you think some of them will ask why a person with the name héloury is so intent on
destroying the legacy of a llyrian national author?”
“all the more reason to have a blue-blooded llyrian name like effy sayre on the cover sheet
next to mine.” preston’s gaze held a bit of amusement. “consider it an armistice.”
effy couldn’t resist rolling her eyes. “is that really why you want my help?”
“not just that. ianto is shutting me out. he doesn’t trust me. but he trusts you.”
she remembered the way ianto had laid his hand on her shoulder. how heavy it had felt, how
it had pushed her back down into that drowning place. without thinking, she blurted out, “so what
do you want me to do? seduce him?”
preston’s face turned strikingly red. “no! saints, no. what kind of person do you think i am?”
effy was flushing, too, unable to meet his gaze. why had she said that? it was more proof that
something was broken inside her brain, like a skewing of train tracks. she could never trust
anyone’s intentions.
“do argantians have a patron saint of truth?” she asked.
“not exactly,” said preston. “but i’ll swear by your saint una if it makes you happy.”
somehow, effy found herself nodding. her right hand was still clutching preston’s paper, so
she stuck out her left hand, with its missing ring finger.
preston took her hand and they shook. his palm was soft, his fingers long and thin. effy
usually didn’t like shaking hands with people. she always held on past the point of comfort
because she never knew when it was time to let go.
“i swear by saint una i’ll help you,” she said. “and i won’t reveal you—us—to ianto.”
“i swear by saint una i won’t betray you,” said preston. “and i’ll fight for you. i promise your
name will be there on the cover sheet, right next to mine.”
effy held on to him, their fingers locked. she waited for him to twitch, to shake her loose, but
he didn’t. the pad of his thumb was ink stained. she wondered if this was some sort of test, if he
was trying to judge her mettle. effy had never thought of herself as someone with much staying
power.
yet there was nothing challenging in his eyes, and effy realized then that he was giving her the
choice. it was a small thing, maybe not worth remarking upon at all. but very rarely did anyone
allow effy to choose.
finally she let go. preston’s hand dropped to his side at once, fingers flexing.
“we’ll start tomorrow,” he said stiffly. “can i have my paper back?”
mortified, effy released the page and set it down on the desk. the ink had bled a little onto her
palm. “you should have written that one in argantian, too,” she said.
preston gave her a thin-lipped look. “i know that now.”
back in the guest cottage that night, effy’s mind wouldn’t stop turning. even after she had
swallowed her sleeping pill, she lay awake staring at the damp and moldy ceiling, thinking of the
bargain she had struck.
perhaps in the morning she would realize it was a foolish thing to do. perhaps she would regret
not leaving on the next train.
perhaps she would regret betraying myrddin.
but for the moment, all she could feel was a stomach-churning adrenaline. she rubbed at the
nub of her ring finger. it was as smooth as a hag stone.
effy rolled over, hair streaming out over the green pillowcase, heartbeat still quick. when she
closed her eyes, she could see preston’s page of notes, blue ink against white. it was her name
he’d scrawled aimlessly in the margins, repeating all the way down the page:
effy
effy
effy
effy
effy.
