From An Epistemological Theory of Romance by Dr. Edmund Huber, collected in the Llyrian Journal of Literary Criticism, 199 AD
After spending so long at Hiraeth, Effy had almost forgotten what it was like to live in a regular house. She bathed in Blackmar’s perfectly proper and mundane claw-foot tub. She wrapped herself in a borrowed silk robe.
All of it was very pleasant. The floorboards were not particularly cold, and the windows let in no drafts of early winter wind. When she finished bathing, she went back into the bedroom, feeling clean and bright-eyed, and flopped down on the unmade bed. She could hear the sounds of Preston running the water in the other room and felt, for some reason, suddenly flushed.
All that had happened the night before （though nothing had really happened—they hadn’t even so much as brushed fingers） nearly distracted Effy from her task. While Preston bathed, she stood up and began to pick her way around the room.
She opened desk drawers and found, disappointingly, nothing. Someone had cleaned this room thoroughly a long time ago, and let it lie fallow after that. She wondered whose room it had been.
There were a number of musty-smelling dresses in the wardrobe, but no false back, no secret room behind it—Effy even pulled it out from the wall to check. She peeked behind the opaque black curtains. The immaculately manicured lawn of Penrhos looked as untouched as an oil painting.
It felt almost too silly to look under the bed, too facile and childish, but she dropped to her knees anyway. Instantly her nose itched. It was too dark to see beneath the bed frame, so Effy reached out her arm and felt around.
Her fingers closed around something: a scrap of paper. Two, three.
She snatched them up as quickly as she could, afraid for some reason that they might just vanish, float away. Effy held them to her chest, breathing hard. They felt like a secret, just the way the diary had, just the way she had felt when she paged through those ancient books in the university library. She was about to look at them when she heard the door open.
Effy whipped around, but it was only Preston, his hair damp and mussed from the bath, wearing one of Blackmar’s dressing gowns. It was too short on him, and Effy felt, momentarily, very lascivious for taking notice of that at all. What young girl of this century was left feverish by the sight of a man’s calves? She was like one of those protagonists from a novel of manners, swooning over a glimpse of their betrothed’s bare ankle.
“Effy,” said Preston, “what are you doing on the floor?”
“I found these,” she said, holding out the papers. “Under the bed.”
She had been planning to stand up, but before she could, Preston knelt on the floor beside her. There was still water glistening on the sharp planes of his face, one damp strand of hair curling down over his forehead. Even wet, it appeared untidy. Effy drew in a breath, now fully irritated at herself for becoming attuned to these inane details.
The papers were very old; she could tell as much right away, without even looking at the dates at the top. Their edges were curling, ink slightly faded, and they seemed overall as if they had been forgotten—as if someone running away had let them slip out of their grasp and lie gathering dust under the bed, or a maid who came in to clean had simply been unable to reach them with her broom.
Effy held the first page out so that she and Preston could both read it.
17 April 189
My sly and clever girl,
You must have gotten my address from papers in your father’s study, or else how would you know where to write me? I shall not underestimate your shrewdness again, and perhaps I shall even expect you, one day, to show up at my door. I would not protest it. I might be very happy to see you scowling at me in the threshold.
The poems you sent me were, I think, rather good. I particularly enjoyed the one about Arethusa. I did not think that a girl of Northern blood would have any interest in our myths and legends, but I suppose your father did not give you a Southern name for nothing.
Please do send me more, should you feel so inclined. When I am at Penrhos again, I would very much like to discuss Arethusa. She is generally seen as an aspect, or rather, an equivalent, of Saint Acrasia, who, as you know, is the patroness of seductive love. A very interesting subject for your poem.
Yours,
E.M.
“Arethusa,” Effy said. Her mind was still reeling with the effort of trying to understand all she’d just read, but Arethusa she knew. “She’s the Fairy King’s consort, at the beginning of the book.”
“Yes,” Preston said. “She’s initially presented purely as a foible for the protagonist—seductive and active where Angharad is submissive and passive. Like your two-headed goddess, Saints Acrasia and Amoret. As Myrddin mentioned in the letter. But eventually Arethusa becomes an ally. It’s a very clever subversion of the trope of the malevolent seductress.”