After that, it was another week before Effy and Preston were able to present their thesis to the dean. Effy had only met Dean Fogg once, when he’d given her permission to go to Hiraeth, and he had not changed at all in the weeks since. He was a narrow man with blindingly white hair and no smile lines. His expansive office had a sitting area with five armchairs gathered around a coffee table, and his assistant served them tea and biscuits in clinking silver dishes.
Master Gosse, Preston’s adviser, was also present. He was Dean Fogg’s opposite in many respects: short and broad where the dean was tall and thin, with an ebullient mustache and maniacally curling black hair. He stood rather than sat, and refused the tea and biscuits. His dark eyes were leaping swiftly from one thing to the next, like a kitten following a stuffed bird on a stick.
The first few moments progressed in silence. Dean Fogg sipped his tea. He held a copy of their thesis on his lap. Preston bounced his leg, an anxious tic, and Effy’s fingers curled and uncurled against her thigh. Master Gosse paced, a bit Preston-like. His brisk footsteps against the wood floor were the only sound in the room.
At last, Dean Fogg set down his teacup and said, “I think it’s rather good.”
Effy almost let out a highly inappropriate laugh of relief. She clapped a hand over her mouth to stop it from coming out, while Preston said, “I know the theory and criticism sections could use some work. We could have cited more sources, delved deeper into alternative theories. But as a whole, do you think the argument is there?”
“Well, there’s certainly an argument. And, of course, you’ve furnished it with evidence that no other academic has any access to, presently . . . this diary and these letters. I suspect there’s quite a bit more than what made it into your paper. But it won’t mean much until they’re widely released.”
“What?” Effy managed. “What do you mean, ‘widely released’?”
“Any thesis needs to be vetted, my dear,” Master Gosse said. He had stopped pacing. “You can make an argument based on your interpretation of the evidence, but if no one else has read the evidence—well, it’s just mythmaking, at that point. No one has any reason to believe you.”
Preston nodded. “I know it seems a bit counterintuitive. But we’ll have to give everyone else a chance to read the letters and the diary before we can prove our thesis is correct.”
Effy glanced over at the chair beside her, the empty fifth seat in the office. It felt conspicuously empty. It felt as though it should have been occupied by Angharad. She remembered Angharad’s fixed determination when she had spoken of these potential inquiries. If she were here, she would say again: Let them come.
“So let’s say we do release it all,” Effy said slowly. “We’re going to war with every other academic, aren’t we?”
“Oh, not just academics,” Master Gosse said. “Tabloid journalists, the Sleeper Museum, the Myrddin estate, Greenebough Publishing . . . they all have a vested interest in preserving Myrddin’s legacy. The Southerners will riot, which will cause the Llyrian government to go into a panicked frenzy. Personally, I expect them to sue the university. They might even sue you.”
Preston made a nervous sound. Dean Fogg frowned. “The university has ample legal counsel,” he said. “But this mention of ‘we’ perturbs me, Euphemia. You are not, to be blunt, an academic. You are not a literary scholar. You are a first-year architecture student—”
“With all due respect, sir,” Preston cut in, “this paper is as much Effy’s as it is mine. It couldn’t have been written without her. We wouldn’t have found the diary or letters if not for her. And she’s more brilliant than any of my colleagues at the literature college, so if you’re planning on trying to leave her out of this somehow, I’m more than happy to take my paper elsewhere. To a tabloid journalist, perhaps?”
Dean Fogg’s thin lips thinned further. “You make a very sorry scholar yourself, Mr. Héloury, if you would leave this discovery to a newspaper gossip column.”
“It’s not my first choice,” said Preston, “or else we would be in the offices of the Llyrian Times right now instead, meeting with their editor in chief. But if you object to Effy’s inclusion, well, that’s just what I’ll have to do.”
Effy gave him a grateful smile as she rubbed the abrupt end of her ring finger.
“You’ve always been such a stubborn lad.” Master Gosse looked amused. “I never thought you would try and extort the university, though. Good on you.” He seemed to mean it genuinely.
Dean Fogg gave a disgusted snort. “How do you think it will look for the university to publish a groundbreaking thesis with a woman’s name on the cover sheet? There’s never been a woman at the literature college before. It’s unprecedented.”
“It’s an absurd, archaic precedent,” Preston said. “It should embarrass the university.”
“Watch yourself, Héloury,” Dean Fogg said.
Effy looked around the room again. Angharad had been here before: three men arguing over her work, laying a framework for her future. She had been silenced then.
But Effy would not be silent now.
“This thesis is a story about a young woman who was taken advantage of by powerful men,” she said. “She was bartered like a head of cattle, traded by men who tried to claim her work as their own. How do you think it will look for the university to do precisely the same thing? If we do hand over the thesis, and you publish it without my name, I’ll go straight to the offices of the Llyrian Times and tell them yet another story about men using young women. If that’s the sort of legacy you want for yourself as dean.”
It was impressive how quickly Dean Fogg’s face turned red, then purple. Effy had determined, upon further inspection, that the thick white hair was in fact a wig, and in his shock it slipped incrementally to one side.
He took a decorous sip of tea, as if to calm himself, and then said, “So you would have me admit you as a student of the literature college? There’s no other way to justify it, the name of some obscure architecture student on the title page.”
Effy’s breath caught a little bit in her throat, but after a moment she was able to answer. “Yes,” she said. “I’ll be the first woman in the literature college, but not the last.”
Dean Fogg nearly choked on his tea, but Master Gosse gave a delighted chortle. “Oh, I like this,” he said. “The university will finally be catching up to the times . . . and it will make a good story, won’t it? A story in which the university is a beacon of progressivism, and its dean a fierce but benevolent advocate for the rights of women.”
Yet something stuck in Effy like a splinter. Her mouth had gone dry, and she had to swallow hard before she could manage to speak.
“You can’t tell the story unless you fire him,” she said, voice wavering.
“Fire who?” Dean Fogg demanded.
She drew a breath. “Master Corbenic.”
And then Dean Fogg laughed, a hacking sound of disbelief. “Now, you listen to me, Euphemia,” he said. “Master Corbenic is a tenured professor. He’s esteemed in his field, and a personal friend of mine. If you think we’re going to fire him at your behest, because of some schoolgirl’s grudge—”
“‘Some schoolgirl’?” Effy’s voice suddenly became hard, her blood running hot in her veins. She had just interrupted the dean of the whole university, but she didn’t even care. “That’s all Angharad was, too. A girl. Unless you fire him, you’ll never see a page of these letters.”
There was a long silence, during which Effy’s heart pounded so loudly she could scarcely hear anything else, and during which Master Gosse looked quickly and eagerly between the two of them, as if waiting to see who would flinch first.
Preston’s jaw was set, his hand moving to grip the edge of her armchair.
It was too late to save Angharad. Perhaps it was too late to save herself. But it was not too late for another girl who might wander into Master Corbenic’s office and sit down obliviously in that green chair.