A Study in Drowning(74)

“What did you want to talk to me about?” She tried to sound serene, pleasant. Tractable.

“I hope that Argantian boy didn’t do anything untoward.”

Effy couldn’t manage to keep herself from blushing. “No! Of course not.”

“Good.” Ianto inclined his head. The water had finally stopped dripping; the pool on the dining table was murky and stagnant.

He was silent for so long that Effy felt she had to say something. “Is that all?”

Ianto looked back at her at last. “You know, I’ve spent all this time trying to pin down what sort of girl you are, Effy. All women are either an Acrasia or an Amoret. Patroness of seduction or patroness of submission. But some women are far more one than the other. I believe you’re an Acrasia. A siren, a temptress. Men can’t help what they do when they’re around you.”

She tried to choke out a laugh, hoping she could brush off his words—but Ianto’s face was deadly serious, colorless eyes bright, no more murk.

Her heart ricocheted in her throat. She had her pink pills in her pocket. If she took one of them now, would it convince her he had said nothing wrong at all, that it was just her imagination that made her blood pulse with prey-animal panic?

In the pale mirror of Ianto’s eyes, Effy saw herself reflected back, only she was a child again, red-nosed and whimpering, as she had been on the riverbank. Impossible—a trick of this wretched house and her addled mind. She blinked and blinked until the image was gone, yet Ianto did not for a moment lift his stare.

She had disavowed Myrddin. She had left behind her hag stones in the pocket of her other trousers. She had sworn to herself she would be sane and safe without them. But that was the problem with annihilating her imagination. Her mind could no longer conjure that escape hatch, that crack in the wall. There was nothing for her to slip through.

Effy stammered her way through the rest of the conversation, then fled upstairs.



Preston was perched on the chaise, holding Myrddin’s diary, when she walked in. He looked up at her, with joy and relief, and said, “I got them.”

“Got what?” Effy was still breathless from her desperate scramble up the stairs, and Ianto’s voice was pulsing in her ears.

“The photographs,” Preston said. “I decided to take advantage of the opportunity when you were with Ianto downstairs, and—Effy, are you all right?”

“Yes,” she said, but her voice was shaking. Her legs threatened to give way beneath her. “Ianto just, well . . .”

Preston’s back straightened with attention. “Did he threaten you?”

“No—not really.” How could she explain it to him? She could barely explain it to herself. Ianto hadn’t brandished a knife; he hadn’t even tried to shift closer and slide a hand up her thigh.

As if conjured, Master Corbenic’s face appeared before her, rippling like a reflection on water. He had said to her once: You need someone to challenge you. Someone to rein you in. Someone to keep you safe, protect you from your worst impulses and from the world. You’ll see.

The words now felt like prophecy. If a story repeated itself so many times over, building itself up brick by brick, did it eventually become the truth? A house with no doors and no windows, offering no escape.

I was a girl when he came for me—

I will love you to ruination—

My beautiful and debauched girl—

Men can’t help what they do when they’re around you—

“Stop it,” she whispered, too low for Preston to hear. “Stop it stop it stop it—”

“Effy,” said Preston gravely, rising to his feet. “Please. Sit down. You look pale.”

Too numb and too queasy to refuse, she let him lead her to the chaise. He sat down beside her. They were not touching, not quite, but she was close enough to feel the heat of his body, and see those two little grooves that his glasses carved into the bridge of his nose. She still wanted to ask him if they hurt. Or if they had hurt once, but he’d grown so inured to the pain that he didn’t even notice it anymore.

“I’m sorry,” she said meekly. “I’m—I’m fine. I just haven’t eaten in a while.”

A mad girl, like the doctor had said. Like her mother had always believed, like the other students whispered in the halls. She tried to catch her breath, gulping down huge mouthfuls of air. Preston sat tensed next to her, fingers curling and uncurling in his lap. As if he wanted to reach out and touch her but didn’t quite dare.

At last, Effy lifted her head. Stop it, she told herself again firmly. It’s not real. None of it is real.

“You said you got the photographs?” she managed finally.

Preston hesitated, still looking very worried. “Yes. And something else occurred to me. If the pictures were indeed taken on this chair, then it means that Blackmar’s daughter was here at some point, at Hiraeth. Which means that the affair went on for more than just a year. Blackmar said that Myrddin didn’t move here until after Angharad was published.”

Effy frowned. She felt dizzy, unsafe in her own skin. “So that diary entry of Myrddin’s where he mentions Blackmar dropping off the manuscript—that was just to his apartment in Syfaddon?”

“It must have been. Part of me began to think, well, maybe it’s something as simple as Blackmar doing some light editing of the manuscript and then bringing it back to Myrddin to send to Greenebough? There’s nothing exceptional about that. But then why is Blackmar so uncomfortable at any mention of Angharad and his daughter? He was sweating when you asked Marlowe about it. I keep running it all over in my mind, paging through Myrddin’s diary, but there’s something we’re missing, something—”