“Terrifying. If you towel yourself off, you can come in and have some tea.”
Effy managed a grateful smile and went into the bathroom. Everyone had told her the university dorm rooms were disgusting, but when she arrived, she’d thought of it as sort of an adventure, like camping in the woods. Now it was just boringly, inanely gross. The grout between the tiles was filthy, and there was a sickly orange ring of soap scum around the edge of the tub. When she yanked her towel off the rack, she saw a preternaturally huge spider scuttle away and disappear into a crack in the wall. She didn’t even have the energy to scream.
When she stepped back into the hallway, drier, Rhia’s door was flung open, her room filled with soft yellow lamplight. Maisie was perched on the edge of the bed, steaming mug in hand, auburn hair swept up into a hasty bun.
“I saw Watson in there,” Effy said, collapsing into Rhia’s desk chair.
“No, I squished Watson, remember? That’s Harold.”
“Right,” Effy said. “Watson went out in a blaze of glory.” The black mess of him had taken ten minutes to scrub off the bathroom wall.
As Rhia filled Effy’s mug, Maisie asked, “How come all the spiders are men?”
“Because then it feels more satisfying to squish them,” Rhia said, flopping down beside her on the bed. Seeing her curled around Maisie like that, with such casual intimacy, Effy had the sudden sensation of being an intruder.
It was an eternal feeling, this sense of being unwelcome. No matter where she was, Effy was always afraid she was not wanted. She took a sip of tea. The warmth helped ease some of her discomfort.
“So I think I’m failing three classes,” she said. “And it’s only midautumn.”
“It’s a good thing that it’s only midautumn,” Maisie said. “You have lots of time to make it up.”
Rhia played absently with a strand of Maisie’s hair. “Or you could just quit. Come join us in the music college. The orchestra needs more flutists.”
“If you can teach me to play the flute in the next week, consider it a deal.”
She didn’t say that frustrating as it was, architecture felt less like giving up than music would. The architecture college was the second-most prestigious at the university. If she couldn’t study literature like she wanted, at least she could pretend architecture had been her first choice all along.
“Not sure that’s entirely realistic, my love,” Maisie said. She turned to Effy. “So what are you going to do?”
Effy almost told them about the poster. About Emrys Myrddin and Hiraeth Manor and the fresh drawing in her sketchpad. Rhia was impulsive and always full of wild ideas, including but not limited to I’ll teach you to play flute in a week and let’s sneak up to the rooftop of the astronomy college, but Maisie was almost annoyingly reasonable. She would have told Effy it was a mad thing to even consider.
Right now the possibility of Hiraeth Manor, the dream, belonged to her and her alone. Even if it was inevitable that it would come crashing down, she wanted to keep dreaming it a little while longer.
So in the end she just shrugged, and let Rhia try to talk her into taking up the organ instead. Effy finished her tea and said good night to the other girls. But when she got back to her room, she did not have the remotest desire to sleep. The itch of frustration and yearning under her skin wouldn’t fade.
She sat on her unmade bed and picked up her battered copy of Angharad instead.
Angharad was Myrddin’s most famous work. It was the story of a young girl who became the Fairy King’s bride. The Fair Folk were vicious, shrewd, and always wanting. Humans were playthings to them, amusing in their petty, fragile mortality. The Fair Folk’s glamours made them appear hypnotically beautiful, like a gaudily patterned snake with a deadly bite. They used their enchantments to make humans play the fiddle until their fingers fell off or dance until their feet bled. Yet Effy found herself half in love with the Fairy King sometimes, too. The tender belly of his cruelty made her heart flutter. There was an intimacy to all violence, she supposed. The better you knew someone, the more terribly you could hurt them.
In the book, the protagonist had her tricks to evade and ensorcell the Fairy King: bread and salt, silver bells, mountain ash, a girdle of iron. Effy had her sleeping pills. She could swallow one, sometimes two, and fade into a dreamless slumber.
She turned to the back flap of the book, where Myrddin’s author photo and biography were printed. He had been a hermit and a recluse, especially in the last few years before his death. The newspaper articles written about him were stiff and formal, and he had famously refused all interviews. The black-and-white photo was grainy and taken at a great distance, showing only Myrddin’s profile. He was standing at a window, his silhouette dark, face turned away from the camera. As far as Effy knew, it was the only photo of Myrddin in existence.
Any house that honored Myrddin would have to be similarly mystifying. Was there any other student at the architecture college who understood that? Who knew his works back to front? Effy doubted it. The rest of them just wanted the prestige, the prize money, like the boy in the library. None of them cared that it was Myrddin. None of them believed in the old magic.
Her sleeping pills lay untouched on the dresser that night. Instead, Effy pulled out her sketchpad and drew until dawn.
Two
Storytelling is an art deserving of greatest reverence, and storytellers ought to be considered guardians of Llyrian cultural heritage. As such, the literature college will be the most exclusive of the university’s undergraduate programs, requiring the highest exam scores and fulfillment of the most stringent requirements. Pursuant to that, it would be inappropriate to admit women, who have not, as a sex, demonstrated great strength in the faculties of literary analysis or understanding.
From a missive by Sion Billows upon the founding of the University of Llyr, 680 BD
“So you’re really going,” Rhia said.
Effy nodded, swallowing a burning sip of coffee. All around them, other students had their heads bent over their books, pens gripped in ink-stained hands, lips bitten in concentration. There was the grind and hum of the coffee machine and the sound of dishes clinking as tarts and scones were served. The Drowsy Poet was the favorite café of students in Caer-Isel, and it was a mere block away from the Sleeper Museum.
“I’m not trying to rain on your parade—or, Saints forbid, sound like Maisie—but don’t you think it’s all a bit odd? I mean, why would they pick a first-year architecture student for such an enormous project?”
Effy reached down into her purse and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. Maneuvering around her coffee cup and Rhia’s half-eaten pastry, she smoothed it flat on the table, then waited as Rhia craned her neck to read what was written in neat, dark ink.
Dear Ms. Sayre,
I am writing to congratulate you on the selection of your proposal for the design of Hiraeth Manor. I received a great many submissions, but yours was far and away the one I felt best honored my father’s legacy.
I happily invite you to Saltney, to speak with you in person about your design. By the end of your stay, I would hope to have a set of finalized blueprints so we can break ground on the project swiftly.
To get to Hiraeth, please board the earliest train from Caer-Isel to Laleston, and then switch to the train bound for Saltney. I apologize in advance for the long and arduous journey. I will have my barrister, Mr. Wetherell, pick you up at the station.
With greatest enthusiasm,
Ianto Myrddin