Effy looked around. There were hundreds of trees, branches whipping violently, their leaves coming loose and curling up into the air. “Do you need any help with that?”
Ianto gave a mirthless laugh. “Not from you, my dear. This isn’t women’s work.” But his voice was light, and there was no cruel, glassy gleam in his eyes. There was a long metal chain on the ground beside him, coiled like a snake ready to strike. “Well. I suppose you could bring me my jacket. It’s draped over one of the chairs in the dining room.”
“Of course,” Effy said. She was trembling already, overwhelmed by the opportunity she’d been given. Where Ianto’s collar slung low, she could see just a glimpse of the leather cord.
She hurried up the stairs to the house and heaved the door open, breathing hard.
The foyer seemed darker than usual, one rusted candle stand in the corner giving off a bubble of filmy light. Effy splashed through the puddles on the floor, ignoring the water dripping from above and the ceiling sagging like an old man’s jowls.
Wetherell stood in the threshold to the dining room, looking even grimmer than usual.
“What will you be doing to weather the storm, Ms. Sayre?” he asked. His lips barely moved as he spoke.
She did not want to tell him that she planned to leave; he might warn Ianto. “What is there to do?”
“Board up the windows. Tie down the trees.” Wetherell’s eyes shifted under their heavy lids. “If you were smart, you would leave now, while you still can.”
Effy blinked in surprise. “You’re going to leave? You’re in charge of Myrddin’s estate . . .”
“Myrddin’s estate is more than just this house. It’s all the money in his Northern bank account, the royalty checks owed by his publisher, the letters that I gave Mr. Héloury. This house is nothing but an ugly, rotting testament to the late Myrddin’s cruelty, and the price Ianto is still paying for it.”
“Cruelty? What do you mean?”
“This is no place to bring a wife, to raise a family, living always with the fear of destruction. Myrddin did it on purpose, building the house here and holding his wife and son within it. He wanted them to be afraid—afraid to stay, and afraid to leave, in equal measure.”
Suddenly Effy remembered the one-sided conversation she’d overheard.
I didn’t have a choice, Ianto had said, groaning as if he were in pain. This house has a hold on me, you know that, you know about the mountain ash . . .
She remembered the look of envy in his eyes when she had left Hiraeth with Preston. She remembered how desperate Ianto had been to get back to the house after their meal at the pub, desperate enough to leave her stranded on the side of the road.
If she was not supposed to believe in magic, how could she explain any of it? She had no choice but to think Ianto was mad, miserable, chained to this house and to his father’s legacy out of guilt and grief and enduring terror. Myrddin wanted Ianto to be afraid, and so he was, even after his father was gone.
Perhaps the truth would free Ianto, too. They just had to get to the basement.
Effy drew in a breath and met Wetherell’s eyes without contrition.
“I’m not afraid,” Effy said, even as the wind made the window glass ripple like paper. “I’m not leaving until I get what I need.”
When she went back out to bring Ianto his jacket, it was already raining more furiously, the droplets hard and fat, almost painful as they hit her skin. Ianto scarcely looked up as she reemerged; he was coiling the large chain around the trunk of the tree, looping it through the stakes with a bitter, teeth-gritted concentration.
He shot her a brisk look and said, voice tight, “Lay it on my shoulders, please.”
Slowly Effy approached, blood pulsing with adrenaline. If she failed now, it was unlikely she would get another chance. With great care and deliberation, Effy laid the jacket over him. One shoulder, and then the other. And then, as he began to shrug into it, she slipped the cord from around his neck with a gentle and innocuous tug.
Sucking in a sharp breath, Effy stumbled back, shoving the key quickly up the sleeve of her coat. Ianto didn’t even twitch.
He looked up for a moment, at the tree that he’d draped with chains and fastened to the ground, like a sorceress tied at the stake. His eyes were half-closed. His expression was unreadable.
“Ianto,” Effy said, against her better judgment. She knew she ought to just flee to the basement now, knew that Preston was waiting for her, that they couldn’t afford to waste any more time. But her chest felt tight with an unexpected grief. This house has a hold on me, Ianto had said out loud, to no one.
Despite his odd, shifting moods, despite his occasional cruelty, Effy had finally realized they had more in common than she’d thought. “Are you sure you want to stay?”
He choked out something that Effy thought was a laugh, but she couldn’t quite be sure. Ianto turned around at last, strands of black hair plastered down his face like the long claw marks of some wild beast.
“‘But a sailor was I,’” he said, “‘and on my head no fleck of gray—so with all the boldness of my youth, I said: The only enemy is the sea.’”
The sound of the rain blurred his recitation, striking out syllables. But Effy knew the words by heart. Ianto, with his cloudy, turbid gaze, had no intention of leaving Hiraeth.
Effy could barely bring herself to nod at him. She staggered back up toward the house, heart roaring in her ears. Ianto had omitted the poem’s first line: Everything ancient must decay.
Preston was waiting for her outside the basement door, pacing nervously. One hand was curled around the back of his neck. Effy pulled the key from her sleeve and held it out, dangling it in the air.
Behind his glasses, Preston’s eyes grew wide. “You really got it?”
“When will you finally stop underestimating me?”
He huffed out a laugh, but it was shaky with fear. “You don’t have to do this, Effy. Really. We can come back later. We can hire a dredge crew to clear the water—”
“Preston,” she said curtly, “we both know that we’re not coming back.”
Wetherell had vanished from the threshold. Effy hoped he’d packed his things and driven down the road, away from this house, while he still had the chance. Had he turned the car’s mirrors right-side out again before he went?
She imagined the bartender at the pub in Saltney nailing boards over her windows, all the fishermen battening down their hatches. How many more houses would this storm take? How many stories, how many lives, crumbling into the oblivious, uncaring sea? With trembling hands she fitted the key into the lock and turned it.
The rotted door swung open without a sound.
Behind it, the dark water rippled and seethed. It sang a wordless song of depths, of danger. Effy took one step down the stairs, then another, until she had reached the very last stair that was not submerged.
Preston stood in the threshold above her, his shoulders actually trembling.
“It’s all right,” she said, and she was surprised by how calm her voice sounded. “Turn on the flashlight.”
Whispering something unintelligible, Preston clicked it on. Light grafted onto the damp stone walls and illuminated the faded engraving above the water. The only enemy is the sea.