A Study in Drowning(101)

Effy got to her feet. She had done enough sitting.

“No,” she said. “It’s not enough. And I’m not bluffing. If you don’t fire him, I’ll tell the whole country. I’ll tell the whole world.”

Dean Fogg just stared at her, his eyes turned to angry slits. A mere month ago she would have shrunk under his gaze, her mind slipping out of her and her body following, fleeing the room as quickly as she could.

But she had faced down the Fairy King in all his eldritch power. She had made him crumble into a handful of dust. This battle was easy by comparison.

“All right,” he said. His voice was a low snarl. “I’ll acquiesce to your terms, ludicrous as they are.”

Master Gosse chuckled. “I enjoy this girl, Fogg. I look forward to instructing her.”

Preston stood then, too. “We’ll have to speak about a publication schedule, make revisions. And of course sign the papers to transfer Effy from architecture to literature.”

“Of course,” Dean Fogg said sourly. “My office will be in touch. Now, both of you, get out of my sight.”

Effy kept her lips pressed shut until they had left the dean’s office, gone down the hallway, and burst from the building into the cool afternoon. Everything was bright, drenched in sunlight, making Preston squint behind his glasses as he looked at her.

There was a wonderful tightness building in her chest, and at last it bubbled out in a laugh.

“We did it,” she said. “We really did it.”

The promise he had made to her all those weeks ago, that they would write a paper that gained her admittance to the literature college, that he would stare down Dean Fogg and fight for her, had finally been fulfilled. It was the foundation upon which Effy could build a new life.

And then, unexpectedly, Preston pulled her into an embrace and lifted her into the air. He spun her around for a brief moment before putting her down again, his cheeks flushed, looking bashful.

Effy laughed again. “I thought you weren’t a romantic.”

“I wasn’t,” Preston said, cheeks still pink. “Until you.”

Now he was making her blush. Effy cupped his face. “I think we should celebrate.”



When they arrived back at Effy’s dormitory, she realized Rhia had been underselling herself. For a last-minute party, there was an impressive selection of liquor, an impressive number of guests, and even a hand-lettered WELCOME HOME sign that had been stuck to the wall using hairpins and a bit of thread.

Rhia dragged Effy and Preston into the center of the kitchen and immediately barraged him with questions. Effy could only watch in quiet amusement as he stumbled to answer them. This was not the kind of test that any amount of studying or natural intellect could help him pass.

Rhia had borrowed (stolen, she confessed, after two rounds of drinks) a record player from the music faculty. It turned on and on, needle wearing very gently against the vinyl. When a slow song came on, Preston took Effy’s hand. They danced (which was mostly just swaying, as Preston, too, was several drinks deep), her head on his shoulder. When the song ended, she felt only a twinge of grief.

Then Preston encountered a fellow literature student, and Effy saw him truly in his element for the first time. He was more patient than she remembered him being, when they’d met that day on the cliffs. Even as the other student argued that “The Dreams of a Sleeping King” was unfairly maligned, Preston listened, and made his counterarguments without a trace of smugness.

All around her Effy could feel walls coming up, rising out of the earth like a tree from its roots. But they didn’t feel stifling. The architecture of her new life was taking shape, and there were windows and doors. She did not need to slip through cracks in order to escape. If she wanted to leave, she could. If she wanted to stay, there were repairs that could be made. The foundation would be strong. Effy was sure of that.

After several hours, Preston brought her back to his dorm room.

As soon as they arrived, he fell into bed without even taking his shoes off. Effy lay beside him, eyelids heavy. Moonlight was streaming through the window, as clear and bright as the beacon of a lighthouse.

Nighttime was still scary. Ordinarily it was when the Fairy King would appear as a vague, dark shape in the corner of her room, his pale hands reaching, his bone crown gleaming. If she did manage to sleep, Master Corbenic waited for her there: the glint of his gold watch and the enormity of his hands. And now her dreams were lurid with images of drowning houses, of the thrashing, uncaring sea.

And the Fairy King, always the Fairy King, in Ianto’s body or his own. She had defeated him in Hiraeth, but would he ever be gone for good? When she closed her eyes, she could still see him. His ghost lingered—or at least, the grief and fear did.

Preston shifted in his sleep, arms circling her waist. His heart thudded softly against her back, with a rhythm as constant as the tide. The walls here were strong. They would hold against anything. There was no need for iron, for rowan berries, for mountain ash.

The danger was real. Effy and Angharad had both proven that, with their wits and their mirrors. The danger lived with her; perhaps it had been born with her, if the rest of the stories about changeling children were to be believed. The danger was as ancient as the world. But if fairies and monsters were real, so were the women who defeated them.

Effy did not have her copy of Angharad under the pillow, but she thought of its last lines, which she knew by heart.