“My mother is Llyrian,” he said. “Regardless, I could have gotten a scholar’s visa. I’m here with permission from Dean Fogg. Collecting Myrddin’s letters and documents for the university archive.”
She hadn’t noticed his very faint accent before, but she heard it now: the little catch in his throat before the hard consonants, his barely aspirated h’s. Effy had never spent so long speaking to an Argantian before. For a moment, she was fixated on the particularly delicate way Preston rounded his lips when he said his long vowels, but then she blinked and all her anger returned.
“I don’t know why you care about Myrddin at all,” she said. Unexpectedly, her throat tightened, on the verge of tears. “He’s our national author. Not yours. Have you even read his books?”
“I’ve read them all.” Preston’s expression hardened. “He’s a perfectly valid subject of scholarly inquiry no matter the background of the scholar in question.
She hated the way he talked, so full of aloof confidence. For weeks she had steeled herself for precisely this confrontation, but now they were arguing and he was winning.
Effy remembered what the librarian had said to her. “You want be the first to tell his life story,” she said. “You’re—you’re just the academic equivalent of a carpetbagger.” An Argantian trying to write the narrative of a Llyrian icon’s life—of Myrddin’s life—it was so aberrant that she was at a loss for further words.
“No one owns the right to tell a story,” he said flatly. “Besides, I’m not pushing any particular agenda. I’m just here for the truth.”
Effy took a deep breath, trying to untangle the various strands of her rage. Underneath the righteous anger she felt about an Argantian perverting Myrddin’s legacy, there was something deeper and more painful.
What’s the point in studying literature if you don’t want to tell stories? She wanted to ask him, but she was afraid that if she opened her mouth, she might actually cry.
And then, over Preston’s shoulder, she saw a figure pacing down the cliffside. He was enormously tall and clad in all black, and despite the wind, his dark hair lay flat upon his head, almost as if it were wet.
Effy thought of the creature in the road, and her chest seized. But by the time the figure reached them, she could tell he was an ordinary man—broad shouldered and square jawed and enormous, but mortal after all.
“I was beginning to worry you’d fallen right into the sea,” he said. He was middle-aged, around forty. The same age as Master Corbenic. “The cliffs have been particularly unsound of late.”
“No,” Preston said. “We’re fine.”
“Then the sea is behaving itself today.” The man’s gaze flickered briefly to the seething gray expanse below. “You both know the rumors about the second Drowning, I’m sure. Have you been explaining our predicament to Ms. Sayre?”
Preston stiffened. Effy wondered if he would mention their argument. Well, it had been more of a verbal assault on her part. But what would that achieve, aside from making them look like squabbling children?
“I thought I would leave that to you,” Preston said at last. Effy noticed the way he dug his thumbnail into the spine of his notebook.
“Excellent,” the man said smoothly. He turned to Effy, his pale eyes gleaming. “It’s very nice to finally meet you, Ms. Sayre. I can’t express enough how pleased I am that you’ve agreed to come. I’m Ianto Myrddin. The late illustrious author was my father.”
Under his stare, Effy felt her stomach swoop like the gulls. Ianto had a coarse, rough-edged handsomeness, as if he’d been born right out of the rough-hewn rocks. His knuckles pressed up beneath taut skin. When she shook his hand, her palm came away prickling, almost raw from his calluses.
“Thank you for inviting me,” she said. “Your father—he was my favorite author.”
It was an understatement, but she figured there would be plenty of time for gushing praise. Ianto smiled at her, highlighting the one crooked dimple that slashed his left cheek. “I could tell from your design. That’s why I chose it, of course—it’s something my father most certainly would have loved. Treacherous but beautiful. I suppose that characterizes all of the Bay of Nine Bells, doesn’t it, Ms. Sayre?”
“Effy,” she said. She had not expected to sound so dumbstruck, or for her knees to feel so weak. “Just Effy.”
Beside Ianto, Preston looked very thin—and very uneasy. Effy didn’t miss the way his throat pulsed when Ianto spoke.
“I’m going back to the house,” Preston said. “I have work to get done.”
“Yes, there’s a stack of my father’s letters waiting for you,” Ianto said. “And for you, Effy, breakfast and coffee. I’m sorry you have to endure the guest cottage, but my mother insisted. She’s very elderly. Fragile.”
“It’s not a problem,” she said. Her voice sounded, to her own ears, oddly vacuous. She had the sudden and familiar sensation that she was underwater, the tide rolling ceaselessly over her. She had not taken any of her pink pills this morning.
“Well then.” Ianto smiled again, and Effy felt the same way she had when the cliff had crumbled beneath her, the awareness of being at a great height pulsing in the soles of her feet. “Let me show you Hiraeth.”
A faint morning fog was coming over the cliffside. It crept in pale and slow, like lichen consuming a dead tree. Out of the mist rose Hiraeth Manor, gray and black and green, as if it were an extension of the cliffs themselves.
Ianto led them up a stone staircase, the steps uneven and carpeted in moss. The wooden double doors were damp and moldering; Effy could smell the rot before she even reached the threshold. The brass door knocker was huge as a bullring and flaking with rust. Ianto had to jam his shoulder against the door several times to force it open, until at last the ancient hinges relented with a dismal and ominous groaning sound.
“Welcome,” Ianto said. “Try not to slip.”
Effy looked down before she looked up. The tile floor was scummy, like the surface of a pond, and the red carpet that led up to the staircase was thick with mildew. When she lifted her gaze, she saw the staircase itself, the wood termite-eaten and wet, cobwebs strung through the banister like weaving on a loom. Portraits hung askew over peeling wallpaper, which looked like it might once have been an attractive peacock blue, but water stains had turned it a grimy shade of gray.
“I—” she began, but stopped abruptly, unsure of what to say. The air tasted thick and sour. When she had recovered her faculty of speech, blinking profusely against the dust in the air, she managed to ask, “Has it been this way since your father passed?”
Ianto gave a huff that was half amusement, half dismay. “It’s been in various states of disrepair since I was a child. My father wasn’t much for home improvement, and the climate in the bay doesn’t exactly make for easy upkeep.”
There was a faint splash from her left. Preston had stepped through a small, filmy puddle. “I’m going upstairs,” he said shortly. “I’ve wasted enough of the morning already.”
Effy knew that was a hidden gibe at her, and she narrowed her eyes back at him.
“At least have some coffee.” Ianto’s tone did not suggest Preston had much choice in the matter. “And then perhaps you can help me give Ms. Sayre a tour. I imagine you’re more familiar than I am with some parts of the house by now. My father’s study, for example.”
Preston drew in a sharp breath, but didn’t protest. Effy felt no more pleased at the prospect of him tagging along, though for Ianto’s sake, she tried not to show any obvious displeasure.
The kitchen was off the foyer—small, cramped, and tumbledown, half the cabinet doors hanging off their hinges. The white tiles were laced so thoroughly with filthy grout that they looked like crooked teeth in an old man’s mouth.