“Yes,” said Effy. “This is Preston Héloury.”
Blackmar’s wrinkled brow wrinkled even further. “Héloury,” he repeated slowly. In his posh Llyrian accent, he made the Argantian name sound almost like a curse. “That name is familiar—you’re a student at the literature college, aren’t you? You’ve written to me before.”
“I have.” Preston’s posture was stiff, arms folded over his chest. “I’m an admirer as well, just not as, ah, eloquent as Effy in expressing it. Euphemia.”
He had a bit of trouble with the first syllable; Effy could see the small furrow in his brow as he tried, with his subtle Argantian accent, to pronounce it.
Hearing her full name in Preston’s mouth for the first time made Effy feel strange. Not unpleasant, but distinctly odd, her skin prickling with unexpected heat. With the added effort that it took to articulate them, the vowels sounded softer somehow. Gentler.
“Well, Argantians are not known for their zeal or passion. Too cold up there in the mountains, I suppose.” Blackmar chuckled, very taken with his own joke. “Come in, both of you. I’ll get you some brandy.”
He had two black-clad domestic workers take their trunks from Preston’s car and carry them silently up the steps to the house.
Effy and Preston followed slowly. The low, flat clouds were hanging darkly around the turrets of Penrhos manor, almost enveloping them, like a pair of gloved hands. The domestics set down the trunks briefly to heave the doors open, and then they all stepped over the threshold.
Inside was as grand as Effy had expected: a double staircase of white marble that led up to the second-floor landing, plush velvet carpets that matched Blackmar’s slippers and dressing gown, damask wallpaper bulleted with gilt-framed paintings and portraits. A large tapestry rendered the Blackmar family tree, beginning with one Rolant Blackmar, who Effy assumed was that industrialist—oil or railroads.
Above it was an enormous taxidermy deer head, its black eyes gleaming emptily, staring at nothing.
“It’s beautiful,” Effy said, because she felt it was what she was expected to say, and because it saved Preston from having to lie again.
Penrhos was beautiful, in a particular way. It was perfectly ornate, the furniture and wallpaper and rugs impeccably matched, not a smear of dust or a cache of cobwebs in the corner. The portraits were all dour and unsmiling; the velvet curtains let in not a sliver of light. There were no audaciously kitschy lamps or brashly abstract paintings, no boldly ugly chandeliers that made you want to squint up at them, trying to gauge if they really were ugly or not.
It was a beautiful house, but not a clever one. It was a house with no imagination.
Effy found it almost impossible to believe that Angharad’s author could live here.
“Thank you, thank you,” Blackmar said, waving a hand. “But you haven’t even seen the best of it yet. Come into the study. I’m sure you’ll want to relax after your long drive.”
Effy did not feel that drinking with Blackmar would be relaxing at all, but she followed him into the study anyway, Preston just a pace behind her.
The study had the same cohesion: peacock-blue drapes and matching armchairs, which were lovely, but not exactly inspiring. Another taxidermy deer head was mounted over the doorway, and a grandfather clock ticked dully in the corner. It was around six fifteen.
The domestics had vanished; Blackmar poured the brandy himself, wizened hand trembling. He handed Effy and Preston each a cut-crystal glass.
Brandy was an odd choice. Effy had only ever seen her grandparents drink it, just one after-dinner swig of liquor served in a minuscule glass. It wasn’t rude, precisely, to serve brandy without offering a meal first, but it gave Effy the distinct sense that something was slightly off with Blackmar.
Maybe the perfection of his furnishings was trying to compensate for something. A well-ordered house for a decaying mind.
“Cheers,” Blackmar said, settling himself into an armchair with great effort. “Here’s to a fruitful academic inquiry for you, and some good company for me.”
He chortled again at his own joke, and they clinked glasses. Preston swallowed his brandy without flinching; Effy puckered her lips and mimed taking a sip. She didn’t think Blackmar would notice. He sucked down half his glass in one gulp.
“Thank you,” Preston said, not at all convincingly. “And thank you again for your hospitality.”
Blackmar waved him off. “I’m an entertainer, you know. All great writers are. I entertain readers; I entertain guests. Once upon a time I entertained women, but those days are unfortunately behind me.”
Out of grim obligation, Effy laughed. Preston just stared uncomfortably down at his glass.
“Well, I’d love if you could entertain a few questions,” she said. “When did you first meet Emrys Myrddin?”
“Oh my. It was so long ago; I don’t think I could give you a year. It must have been in the late one-eighties. My father hired him, actually, as an archivist for some of our family records. He was my employee, you know.”
Effy glanced at Preston. That felt, somehow, significant. Preston’s eyes had taken on a gleam of interest as well—even Effy had to admit this fact bolstered his theory that Blackmar was the real author.
“So he lived in an apartment in Syfaddon, just like our other domestics, but during the day he was here at Penrhos, sorting files and doing other drearily menial things. But I’m a curious man, and I’ve always been interested in the lives of my domestics. Their backstories. So, with little better to do, I began spending time with Emrys in the record room. It turned out we got along like a house on fire.
“I could tell he was a Southerner, of course, from his name and accent, but he was different from the other Southern transplants that we hired. Sharper. More ambitious. I was working on a very early draft of ‘Dreams’ at that time, and Emrys showed great interest in my writing. He eventually told me that he was a writer, too, and we exchanged some of our works in progress.”
Effy’s heartbeat picked up as she leaned forward, but Preston spoke before she got the chance.
“Myrddin must have been working on The Youthful Knight then,” he said. “Was it bits of that you saw?”
Blackmar tilted his head contemplatively, eyes clouding. “I believe so. Saints, that was a long time ago. Another lifetime. Emrys was despairing—he thought no one would want to buy a book by a backwater peasant from the Bottom Hundred. But my family has connections with Greenebough Publishing, so I offered to make an introduction.”
Effy nodded slowly. That all lined up with what they’d read in the diary. “But The Youthful Knight didn’t do very well, did it? Myrddin wasn’t a household name until—”
“Yes.” Blackmar’s voice suddenly became curt. He set down his near empty glass on an austere side table. “That’s the part of the story everyone knows. Angharad made Myrddin famous.”
Blackmar had gotten cagey, and Effy could tell Preston sensed it, too. Preston set down his glass, and in a challenging sort of way, asked, “Was Myrddin still your employee then?”
“No, no,” Blackmar replied. “He’d made enough from royalties to rent an apartment in Syfaddon. And then he bought that dreadful house in the Bay of Nine Bells. I could never understand why he wanted to return to Saltney, of all places. But he said there was something about the bay that beckoned him. Like a lighthouse to a ship, calling him home.”
“There’s nothing quite like the place you were born,” Preston said. There was a solemn but inscrutable look on his face. “So did the two of you correspond while Myrddin was writing Angharad?”
“You know,” Blackmar said, his voice sharp, “my memory does not serve me as well as it once did. I think it would be better for you to speak to someone from Greenebough on these matters. As it happens, Greenebough’s editor in chief, Marlowe, will be coming tomorrow evening.”