Tears were falling down Effy’s cheeks, and even though she tried, she couldn’t stanch them. The warmth in her chest spread through her blood, all the way to her fingers and toes. Her missing ring finger didn’t ache anymore. That phantom, too, had been banished.
“I’m so sorry,” Preston said quietly, “but we couldn’t get it in time—Myrddin’s diary, the letters. The, uh, photographs.” His cheeks reddened. “The two of us know the truth, but the rest of it has been lost with the house.”
“You found Emrys’s diary?” Angharad’s voice tipped up in disbelief. “My son didn’t know that secret room was there. The Fairy King might have, but I put iron on the back of the wardrobe, so he couldn’t get at it even if he wanted to. How did you find it?”
Preston glanced over at Effy, with a look of great admiration and affection. “She’s very clever, this one. Effy.”
“Effy,” Angharad repeated. It was the first time she had spoken Effy’s name. “I cannot begin to explain how grateful I am for all that you’ve done for me. Both of you. It’s enough, I think, to be free from this house. And to have even two people who know the truth.”
But Effy just wiped her eyes, feeling wretched. Feeling angry. It was an uncommon feeling, unexpected. Her weightless limbs suddenly strengthened, as if filled with purpose.
It was not enough. Not enough to justify a life spent in obscurity and repression, a girl and then a woman and then a ghost, alone in that ruined house, tormented endlessly by the Fairy King. It wasn’t fair, and Effy could not bear it. She would shout the truth to the world, even if it was only her voice, and even if it turned her throat raw. She could not bear to be silent any longer.
And she would not return to Caer-Isel only to lower her gaze to the ground every time a classmate snickered at her, every time she saw Master Corbenic in the hall.
She would not go back to that green chair.
As Effy’s gaze traveled across the room, it landed on something she had forgotten about until now.
She lurched to her feet, so abruptly that Preston looked frightened and startled, and Angharad blinked in bewilderment. Heart beating fast, Effy grabbed the heavy box from the desk and brought it over to them, its enormous padlock thumping.
“We have this,” she said, a little breathless from the effort. “We couldn’t open it, of course, but . . .”
Angharad looked up at her, eyes wide and disbelieving. “How?” she managed. “I thought it had been lost, drowned . . . that silly line. Emrys did write that one, sort of. He wrote all his poetry, more or less, at least when he was himself. It was after an argument we had, when my husband was still my husband some of the time. I wanted us to move, before the Fairy King took his body back, but Emrys was as deluded as his possessor, driven mad by those cycles of possession. He said there was something important about living in Hiraeth, no matter how close it was to ruin. I snapped at him, ‘Well, everything that’s ancient must decay.’ ‘You can’t fight time,’ I must have said. And Emrys snapped back, ‘It’s not time I’m worried about, darling girl. The only enemy is the sea.’ How did you manage to recover it?”
Effy and Preston looked at each other. At last Preston said, “Brave, too. Brave and clever, Effy Sayre.”
“I can see that,” said Angharad. Very slowly, she drew her hands up to her throat. She pushed her hair back over her shoulder and dipped her fingers below the collar of her gown. After a few moments, she produced a thin chain and, at the end of it, a key.
The key slipped into the lock like a sword at last returning to its sheath. Effy saw a little leather-bound book tucked inside, and yellowed letters wrapped in twine. She saw Angharad’s decorous script, her name and Myrddin’s bracketing every page. His at the top （dear）， hers at the bottom （yours）; him beginning, her ending.
But Effy also saw that the top of the box had been fitted with a mirror, and in that mirror she watched her own lips parting, her lashes fluttering, her golden hair curling in the firelight. She saw her face there beside Angharad’s, and right above the old letters, past and present and future all coiled into one moment that felt as tight and tense as a held breath.
Effy reached up and felt her own face, watching her movements in the mirror. She traced the bridge of her nose, trailed gently along the planes of her cheeks and the line of her jaw. The numbness had receded, and warmth radiated from her skin.
Signs of life, as her muscles twitched and jumped at the featherlight touch. Signs of life, everywhere.