Now Effy understood the opulence of Penrhos, the obvious discomfort Blackmar had displayed when they had questioned him about Angharad. “So Emrys never earned anything from the book at all?”
“Not a penny. He, my father, and Marlowe had all done their leering calculations and figured out the worth of my book and the worth of my life. And what did I get in return? I was not turned out of my father’s house, disinherited for being a loose woman. A disgrace to the Blackmar name.”
“That’s unbelievable.” Preston huffed and shook his head. And then, realizing his error, hurriedly added, “I don’t mean to say I don’t believe you. Just that it’s so egregiously unfair.”
Angharad arched a brow and turned further toward the fire. The firelight pooled in all the crevices of her face, her crow’s-feet and smile lines, the marks of passing time. Her hair, dry now, feathered lightly over her shoulders. Pure silver, save for a few enduring strands of gold.
“I never named the narrator, you know,” she said. “The book is in the first person, as of course you’re aware, and she’s never referred to by name. The Fairy King only calls her—”
“‘My darling girl,’” Effy quoted. The same thing Myrddin had called Angharad in his letters. The words felt terribly heavy.
“So the omission of the main character’s name was intentional?” Preston shifted forward eagerly. “I always thought it was meant to reflect the universality of Angharad’s experience, how her story reflected the stories of thousands of other girls and—sorry. I don’t mean to be rude. I just have so many questions.”
“I know.” Angharad drew her knees to her chest, and she did look almost like a girl then, very small in her white dress. “I’ll answer them. Eventually. But it’s so much to remember. The weight of a memory is one thing. You get very used to swimming with it dragging you down. Once it’s loosed, you hardly know what to do with your body. You don’t understand its lightness.”
A memory sparked in Effy’s mind. “In Myrddin’s letters,” she said, “he mentions that Blackmar was bringing Angharad to his house. We thought he was talking about the manuscript. But really he must have meant you.”
Angharad nodded. “My father delivered me to Emrys like a horse that had been bought and sold. We were married in a matter of weeks. The book came out not long after that. Marlowe decided the title.”
“I thought it was just cheekiness on Myrddin’s part, calling the book she and her.” Preston flushed. “And I thought, initially, that Blackmar wrote it. I thought that was the conspiracy we were trying to uncover.”
“The letters.” Effy blinked, as if newly prodded from slumber. “Preston, remember? There were some strange letters, allegedly from Myrddin, only his name was spelled wrong. It’s what made you think at first that they might be forgeries.”
“Oh,” Angharad said. “About a decade after the book was published, some intrepid reporters began sniffing around. In a fit of paranoia, Emrys burned all of his letters and ripped pages from his diary. Marlowe was even more paranoid, so he drafted some letters that would be proof of Emrys’s authorship, if it ever came to that. It never did, of course. No one cared to look further. Until . . .”
“Until me.” Preston swallowed, a muscle feathering in his jaw. “And it still took far too long. I’m sorry. Now it feels obvious, like I should have known.”
“Well, you came to the answer in the end,” Angharad said. “Even with the world against you—Marlowe and my father and my son, who was far too much like his father. I must sound as innocent as a child now. But for all my life, those three were my whole world.”
Effy’s voice wavered when she asked, “What about the Fairy King?”
“The Fairy King was all of them,” said Angharad. “Every wanting man has that same wound he can use to slip in. It wasn’t until we were back in the Bottom Hundred, in Hiraeth, that the Fairy King’s hold over Emrys became unshakable. His power was at its peak here. Still, there were years of wondering—would the man entering the threshold be my husband, imperfect as he was, or would he be the Fairy King, cruel down to his marrow? It was almost easier when the Fairy King took him over entirely. Then I knew to expect his viciousness, and I had my little mortal tricks.”
“The mountain ash, the rowan berries, the horseshoe over the door,” Effy recounted, realization dawning on her. “All of that wasn’t to keep the Fairy King away. It was to keep him trapped here.”
That was why Ianto had so hurriedly rushed her back to Hiraeth the day they visited the pub, back to the fetters that Angharad had placed on the house, before the Fairy King could take him over entirely. Effy felt another wave of sorrow. Ianto really had been fighting the Fairy King, as best he was able.
I had to bring her back, she remembered Ianto saying. Isn’t that what you wanted?
He hadn’t been talking to a ghost at all. He’d been talking to the Fairy King, to the voice inside his own head, invisible and inaudible to anyone else. And he’d been talking about Effy: the Fairy King could not allow Ianto to let her slip from his grasp.
“Emrys—or the Fairy King—smashed all the mirrors,” Angharad said. “And of course forbade me from buying new ones. His power was enough to keep me here, and my mortal trickery was enough to keep him here. When my husband died, I thought I might at last be free of him. But the Fairy King found a new vessel. My son.”
Grief entered Angharad’s voice again, like the sea flooding a tide pool.
“I’m so sorry,” Preston said again. “For that . . . and for everything you’ve endured.”
Angharad’s smile was sad and gentle. “I’m sorry, too. For what my son did, for what the Fairy King did, for what I couldn’t stop them from doing. He did fight, you know—Ianto. He could loosen the Fairy King’s bonds sometimes, long enough to leave the house, but eventually, always, the Fairy King would begin to take over again and Ianto would have to hurry back. To trap him here again, in my little web, in my orchard of mountain ash.”
Ianto had driven up the cliffs in such a vicious hurry, even as he had been losing the battle. She had seen the Fairy King in the car beside her. It had not been her imagination, a hallucination. The pink pills could not have stopped him—and neither, in the end, could Ianto.
“I could tell he was fighting it,” Effy said. “He wasn’t entirely a monster.”
Angharad lowered her gaze. “There were times, I confess, that I could have gotten my hands on a mirror. Yet I knew I could not bring myself to use it against my own son, even as I saw the Fairy King’s hold on him grow more complete with every passing day. I invited you here, Preston, in hopes that you might uncover the truth. But you . . .” She turned toward Effy, eyes dim. “The Fairy King wanted a bride, and I didn’t know how to keep you safe from him.”
“The guesthouse,” Effy realized, and it seemed almost a silly thing now, with the storm battering the walls and the embers burning with their waning light. “You did protect me. You ordered Ianto to have me stay here.”
Angharad appeared almost bashful. “I thought you might take it as an offense. I wasn’t sure it would be enough to keep you safe—but still, it was something.”
It had not been Myrddin protecting her as Effy had initially thought; he had not put the iron on the door. It had been Angharad this whole time—everything had been Angharad.
Effy felt tears prick at her eyes. Just as Angharad had said, she felt like some enormous weight had been lifted, and the lightness of her limbs was unfamiliar. Like the buoyancy of water. “Thank you.”
“There’s nothing to thank me for.” Angharad turned to Effy now, green gaze meeting green gaze. “I had decades to learn.”