And then everything but the water was silent.
He took Effy by the arm and dragged her up the steps, as if she were as light as a doll, some child’s plaything. The water sloshed around them, and upstairs the house was groaning and groaning.
Effy’s last glimpse of Preston was through half-shut eyes. She saw only the rusted chains around his wrists, binding him to the wall, and his gaze flashing fearfully behind his glasses.
She tried to cry out his name but couldn’t, and then Ianto slammed the door shut after them.
Ianto dragged her into the dining room. Effy’s vision returned in increments, enough to see that the doorway had half collapsed on their way through, splintered wood sticking out at strange angles like the branches of a stripped pine tree.
It took her a moment to realize it wasn’t just the blow to her head: the entire room was slanted, tipping down toward the sea. The dining table had slid against the far wall, the chairs crammed up alongside it, and against all odds the glass chandelier still swung perilously overhead, like the heavy pendulum of a grandfather clock.
She was propped up in one of the moldering chairs, gaze still fuzzy. Ianto moved with graceless determination around the room, hurling furniture, flinging open cabinet doors viciously. As if he were looking for something. The musket still gleamed at his side.
“Please,” Effy managed, around a mouthful of blood. “I’ll do whatever—whatever you want from me. Just don’t let him die, please don’t let him die . . .”
She couldn’t tell if Ianto heard her at all. He didn’t turn around again for several moments, and when he did, there was something clutched in his fist. A crumpled piece of paper and a pencil. He thrust them at her, and in her bewilderment, Effy took them.
“Here,” he snarled. “Finish the damn blueprints.”
Effy just stared at him, mouth hanging open. “This house is going to fall into the sea.”
Ianto laughed, and it was a terrible, rasping sound, like stone scraping against stone. “When the water fills your lover’s lungs, when he turns pale and swollen with it, when his body floats like the carcass of a dead fish—this house will stand. It must.”
Her heart was throbbing in her throat, hatred burning a hole in her belly. “Then why should I draw anything for you, if you’re just going to let him die? I won’t do it. I won’t.”
Fury rolled like dark clouds over Ianto’s face. He jammed the end of the musket under her chin. “I don’t want to have to kill you, Effy. You do know that, don’t you? I have always wanted to keep you here. Safe from the world.”
“I don’t know that,” Effy said. Her vision was still black at the corners. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Ianto gave a laugh that, this time, was remarkably soft—almost tender. “You can’t really think that the most qualified person for this project was a first-year architecture student failing half of her classes. Didn’t you ever question it, why the estate of Emrys Myrddin would hire a mewling little girl, with nothing to offer the world but a pretty face?”
Effy tried to reply, but her voice failed her. She managed only a small whimper.
“I didn’t need to read your file, Effy.” Ianto’s voice grew softer now, and he lowered the musket, bringing up his hand to cup her chin instead. “I knew what sort of girl you are. I’ve always known. A beautiful girl, but a weak one. One that no one would miss. Who would ask after you, if you vanished from your classes, from your dorm room? You were the perfect choice for this house. For me. A girl who could so easily slip away.”
Once upon a time, Effy had believed herself to be that girl. She had been terrified of anything that might hold her where she was, that might chain her where she couldn’t flee. She had fashioned herself into an escape artist, a magician whose only trick was vanishing. Permanence was dangerous. It had always felt like a trap.
Only now things were different. Perhaps her classmates would not ask after her, nor her professors. Perhaps even her mother would be glad to finally be done with her. But if she did slip away, through one of those tricky little holes in the foundation of the world, Effy knew that Preston would spend the rest of his life searching for her. She could not leave him alone. She could not let him drown.
And yet—she didn’t know how she could stop it.
Slowly, Effy unfolded the paper in her hand. Her fingers shook as she put the pencil to the page.
“There,” Ianto said, somehow even softer than before. “That’s a good girl. Build something beautiful for both of us. I don’t want to wait much longer. I’ve spent twelve mortal years looking for you, and now, finally, you’ve come home.”