A Study in Drowning(58)

Preston shrugged. “Sailors also call their ships by women’s names. Myrddin’s father was a fisherman. I suspect it’s just a bit of cheekiness on Myrddin’s part.”

“Maybe.” It still felt wrong, in no way that Effy could articulate. “I’m thinking about ‘The Mariner’s Demise’ again. ‘But a sailor was I—and on my head no fleck of gray—’”

“‘So with all the boldness of my youth, I said: The only enemy is the sea,’” Preston finished. “It’s a memento mori. It’s about the hubris of young men.”

“The sea is what, then? Death?”

“Not death, exactly. But dying.”

She arched a brow. “What’s the difference?”

“Well, in that earlier line, right before what you started reciting—‘Everything ancient must decay.’ I think it’s about the sea taking and taking, eating away at you slowly, the way that water, say, rots the wood of your sailboat. The last thing the sea takes from you is your life. So. I think it’s about dying, slowly. The mariner’s hubris isn’t necessarily in his belief that he won’t die, but his belief that the worst the sea can do is kill him.”

Effy blinked. The road ahead bunched and then flattened, splitting the hills like a furrow carved through an ancient hand. “I like that,” she said after a moment.

“Do you?” Preston sounded surprised. Pleased. “I wrote a paper on it. I might incorporate it into my thesis—our thesis. Since you like it.”

“Yes,” she said. “I’ll happily put my name to that.”



The drive was very pleasant, the day green and blue and eventually, as evening came on, gold. After another hour they stopped at a small shop by the side of the road, and each got a sausage roll wrapped in waxed paper and coffee in a paper cup. Effy poured liberal amounts of cream into hers, and three sugar packets. Preston watched her with judgment over the rim of his own cup.

“What’s the point,” he began, as they climbed back into the car, “of drinking coffee if you’re going to dilute it to that degree?”

Effy took a long, savoring sip. “What’s the point of drinking coffee that doesn’t taste good?”

“Well, I would argue that black coffee does taste good.”

“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that someone who drinks scotch straight would think that black coffee tastes good,” Effy said, making a face. “Or else you’re secretly a masochist.”

Preston turned the key in the ignition. “Masochism has nothing to do with it. You can learn to like anything if you drink it enough.”

The car rolled gently back onto the road. For a while they sipped their coffee and chewed their sausage rolls in silence. Effy’s mind was stuck on the memory of Preston swallowing that scotch without flinching. He didn’t strike her as the partying type, staying out until dawn at pubs or dance halls, stumbling back into his room and sleeping through morning classes. Those types of people milled around her at the university, but she’d never been one of them, never really known any of them—not even Rhia was so careless.

She looked at Preston, the golden light gathering on his profile, turning his brown eyes almost hazel. Every time he took a sip of coffee, Effy watched his throat bob as he swallowed, and let her gaze linger on the bit of moisture that clung to his lips.

She blurted out, suddenly, “Do you have a girlfriend? Back in Caer-Isel?”

Preston’s face turned red. He had been mid-sip of coffee, and at her question he coughed, struggling to swallow before replying. “What put that on your mind?”

“Nothing in particular,” Effy lied, because she certainly was not going to confess that she had been wondering about this since her conversation with Ianto—or admit how intently she’d been staring at him. “It’s just that we go to the same university, but we didn’t know each other there. I just wondered what sort of things you did . . .”

She was flushing profusely, too, gaze trained firmly on the coffee cup cradled in her lap. She heard Preston draw a breath.

“No, I didn’t,” he said. “I mean, I don’t. Sometimes, you know, there are girls you meet, and—well. But it’s never more than a night, maybe coffee the next morning . . . never mind. Sorry.”

He was phenomenally red at this point, staring with stubborn attention at the road, though for a brief moment his eyes flickered to her, as if to gauge her reaction. Effy pressed her lips together, overcome by the inexplicable urge to smile.

She liked when she flustered him. It seemed to be happening more and more of late.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I know what you mean. What a charmer you are after all, Preston Héloury.”

He laughed, cheeks still flushed. “Not in the slightest.”

“I don’t know about that. I find you very charming, underneath all the smugness.”

“You think I’m smug?”

Effy had to laugh at that. “You aren’t exactly the most approachable person I’ve ever met. But I suppose that’s because you’re also the smartest, most eloquent person I’ve ever met.”

Preston just shook his head. He was silent for a moment, staring through the window as the scenery passed by slowly. At last, he said, “There’s a lot to compensate for, when you’re the only Argantian in Llyr’s most prestigious literary program.”