But of course Ianto’s words made all manner of thoughts run through her mind, most of them inappropriate, many of them downright lascivious. Until now she had not wondered about Preston’s preoccupations, if he had ever done this or that, maybe he even had a girlfriend back in Caer-Isel. All of it was distressing and flustering to contemplate.
“Regardless.” Ianto held her gaze. “I can’t have you going away for too long. Wetherell is pestering me for a final blueprint so we can discuss finances.”
“It will only be two days,” Effy said, carefully.
And then she saw the strange thing happen again: the murkiness vanished from his eyes, like sunlight beaming through clouds, and then abruptly it returned again. It happened several times—cloudy and then clear, cloudy and then clear—each time as quick as a blink.
It made her stomach knot. “It’s just, you can’t do the whole drive there and back in one day—”
Suddenly, Ianto rose to his feet. Effy shrunk back.
“You know,” he said at last, “perhaps it will be good for you to have some time away. Being stuck up here in this house—it can be suffocating.”
He spoke as if the words had taken great effort. All these shifts in him, like the trembling and crumbling of the cliffside under her feet, made Ianto impossible to read. He could swing a gun at her one day and be perfectly friendly the next. He could seize her hand and grip it so hard that it hurt and the next day keep himself at a noticeable distance.
The wind beat Effy’s hair and the tails of her coat back and forth, snatching them up and then letting them loose again. She thought again of the ghost, of Ianto’s one-sided conversation. This house has a hold on me, Ianto had said out loud, to no one. Effy was no longer certain of anything when it came to Hiraeth or Emrys Myrddin—but she was quite sure of that.
And if she remained here, it would take hold of her, too.
Ianto watched from the driveway as they packed their things into the boot of Preston’s car. Wetherell stood beside him, looking as grave and disapproving as ever, his silver hair sparkling with the fine mist that had come over Hiraeth.
Preston was worried about the drive down the cliffs. Effy just wanted to leave as quickly as they could. Jagged tree branches snaked through the fog like witch’s fingers, grasping at the air.
“I can’t believe he agreed,” Preston murmured as he lifted her trunk. His shirt came up a little over his abdomen, exposing a narrow swath of fawn-colored skin. Effy watched, transfixed, until his shirt came down again.
“You keep underestimating my charms.”
“You’re right,” he said. “On the title page of our paper, I’ll be sure to credit you as Effy Sayre, enchantress.”
She tried to keep from laughing so Ianto wouldn’t see, but her skin prickled pleasantly.
Preston walked around the car and unlocked her door. When he reached the driver’s side, he pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit it. After a beat, he asked, “Do you want one?”
The same warm pleasure pooled in her belly. “Sure.”
Preston lit another and held it out to her. She took it, but she was no longer looking at Preston. Some force had pulled her gaze away from him, back to Ianto, standing in the gravel path, arms folded over his chest.
It was neither the cloudy-eyed, jovial Ianto nor the bright-eyed, dangerous Ianto. It took Effy a moment to decipher the look in his pale eyes as they skimmed from her to Preston and back again. But it was worse than she had ever imagined: worse than fury or loathing or wrath.
It was envy.
Even in winter, the Southern countryside was green: emerald-colored hills and patches of tilled farmland like plaited yellow hair. Coniferous trees stood in dense clusters along the hillsides in a darker green that gave a look of fullness to the landscape. There were streaks of purple thistle flowers and lichen-webbed rocks that jutted up from the grass. Some superstitious Southerners believed the hills were the heads and hips of slumbering giants.
Effy stared through the passenger window, everything crisp and sharp.
“It’s so beautiful,” she marveled, putting her fingers to the glass. “I’ve never been south of Laleston before.”
“Me either,” Preston said. “I’d never been south of Caer-Isel, actually, until I came to Hiraeth.”
In leaving Hiraeth behind, it felt as though they had walked out from under the sea. Everything that had been blurry beneath the film of water was now bright and clear. No more fog on the windows or dampness dripping from the walls. No more mirrors clouded over with condensation. The sky was a magnificently bright blue, clouds drifting pale and puffy across it. Black-faced sheep speckled the hillsides, looking like tiny clouds themselves, the land a green inverse of the sky.