A Study in Drowning(30)
Effy’s blood pulsed in her ears. By now, even the tips of her fingers had gone numb with fury. “You’re nothing more than a typical elitist twat,” she bit out. “I suppose that only the spectacle-wearing university-educated among us can write anything meaningful?”
“Why are you so interested in defending him?” Preston challenged. His gaze was cold, and even in her rage, Effy supposed it was deserved. “You’re a Northern girl. Sayre isn’t exactly a Southern peasant name.”
How much time had he spent thinking about her surname? For some reason it made her stomach flutter.
“Just because I’m not a Southerner doesn’t mean I’m a snob,” she said. “And that just proves how stupid your theory is. Myrddin’s work isn’t just for superstitious fisherfolk for the Bottom Hundred. Everyone who reads it loves it. Well, everyone who isn’t an elitist—”
“Don’t call me a twat again,” Preston said peevishly. “I’m far from the only one to question his authorship. It’s a very common theory in the literature college, but so far, no one has done enough work to prove it. My adviser, Master Gosse, is leading the charge. He sent me here under the pretense of collecting Myrddin’s documents and letters. I am here with the university’s permission—that part wasn’t a lie.”
The thought of a bunch of stuffy, pinch-nosed literature scholars sitting around in leather armchairs and coldly discussing ways to discredit Myrddin made Effy feel angrier than ever. Angier than when she’d confronted Preston on the cliffside, angrier than when she’d seen his name written in the library’s logbook.
“What’s your end goal, anyway? Just to humiliate Myrddin’s fans? They would remove him from the Sleeper Museum, they would . . .” Something truly terrible occurred to her. “Is this a grand Argantian plot to weaken Llyr?”
Preston’s expression darkened. “Don’t tell me you actually believe the stories about Sleeper magic.”
Effy’s stomach shriveled. Her fingers curled into a fist around Preston’s crumpled paper. Of course he wouldn’t believe in Sleeper magic, being a heathen Argantian and an academic to boot. She felt embarrassed to have mentioned it.
“I didn’t say that,” she snapped. “But it would be massively humiliating for Llyr, losing our most prestigious Sleeper. It would affect the morale of our soldiers, at the very least.”
“Llyr is winning this war, in case you weren’t aware.” Preston spoke aloofly, but a shadow passed over his face. “They’re even thinking about reinstating a draft in Argant—all men eighteen to twenty-five. It’s not my aim at all, but it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if Llyrian soldiers were to suffer a loss of morale.”
Effy could hardly imagine anyone less suited to military life than Preston Héloury. “So you’re a saboteur.”
He scoffed. “Now you’re being truly ridiculous. This isn’t about politics, not in the slightest. This is about scholarship.”
“And you think scholarship is completely removed from politics?”
To his credit, Preston seemed to genuinely consider this, fixing his gaze on some obscure point on the far wall for a moment. When he looked back at her, he said, “No. But ideally it would be. Scholarship should be the effort to seek out objective truth.”
Effy made a scathing noise in the back of her throat. “I think you’re deluded in even believing there’s such a thing as objective truth.”
“Well.” Preston folded his arms across his chest. “I suppose we fundamentally disagree, then.”
Effy’s rage was starting to subside, leaving her shaky with the ebbing of adrenaline. She stopped to think more calmly.
“Well,” she said, mimicking his smug tone, “I don’t think Ianto would be very happy to learn that the university student he’s hosting is actually trying to tear down his father’s legacy. In fact, I think he would be furious.”
She was glad to see Preston’s face turn pale.
“Listen,” he said again, “you don’t have to do this. I’ve been here for weeks and I’ve hardly found anything of use. I’m going to have to give up the project and leave soon, unless . . .”
Effy arched a brow. “Unless?”
“Unless you can help me,” he said.
At first she thought she had misheard him. If he had meant to fluster her, it had worked. When she recovered herself, Effy asked, incredulously, “Help you? Why would I ever help you?”
And then, without preamble, Preston said, “‘I looked for myself in the tide pools at dusk, but that was another one of the Fairy King’s jests. By the time it was dusk, the sun had cowed herself too much, drawn close to the vanishing horizon, and all that remained in those pools was darkness. Her ebbing light could not reach them.’”
He looked at her expectantly. Even as dazed as she was, Effy remembered the end of the passage. “‘I slapped at that cold, dull water with my hands, as if I could punish it for disobeying me. And in that moment, I realized that without knowing it, the Fairy King had spoken truly: although the tide pools had not shown me my face, I had been revealed. I was a treacherous, wrathful, wanting thing, just like he was. Just as he had always wanted me.’” Effy paused, gulped down a breath, and then added, “And it’s ‘waning light,’ not ‘ebbing.’”