Preston hesitated. When he spoke again, his voice was gentle. “Writers take things from their real lives all the time. It’s not as though the phrase is copyrighted.”
Logically Effy understood that. But it still felt wrong; all of it felt so wrong. “I wish we could talk to her. Blackmar’s daughter.”
“That would be the simplest solution,” Preston conceded. “But we’ll have to make do with speaking to Greenebough’s editor.”
The sense of wrongness sat in her belly like a stone. She could not evict the image of Myrddin from her mind: lying in bed beside a young girl while she spoke aloud Angharad’s most famous line.
She wished she could return to that day in her dorm room, when she had stared at his author photo in the back of her book, when this had been just a blank space upon which she could hurl her desires like paint on a canvas. She didn’t want answers anymore. Every new clue she uncovered was like a blow to the back of the head: brisk, sudden, agonizing.
She and Preston searched thoroughly under the bed in case there were more straggling letters, but found nothing but dust.
Right before they were about to give up and go down for breakfast, Effy’s fingers closed around something hard and cold. When she brought it out, her palm and fingers were covered in tiny nicks. A knife.
It was as small as something you might use to cut fruit in the kitchen, but its handle was silver and there was a faint rust around the blade. She and Preston looked at each other as she gripped it close to her chest. Neither of them needed to speak to know that it was iron.
They dressed and went downstairs, Effy still feeling queasy. There they discovered that an entire buffet had been laid out in the dining room. The black-clad domestics looked even fancier and even more resolute than the day before, skulking around like somber monks, dusting furniture penitently. Finding no traditional breakfast food （much to Effy’s dismay, as she’d hoped for tea to settle her stomach）， they ate stuffed olives and tiny fruit tarts that dissolved in sugar on her tongue.
It was odd that Blackmar had left a banquet for them, with only supper food, but after last night’s unaccompanied brandy, Effy supposed it was in character for the old man. She was reaching for a second tart when Blackmar himself strode in, wearing a suit with a sensible pocket square.
“What are you doing?” he cried in dismay. “This food is for the party!”
Preston choked on his pastry. “What party?”
“The party,” Blackmar repeated impatiently, “that I am hosting tonight. I did tell you, didn’t I—that’s why Greenebough’s editor in chief is coming. For the party.”
“No,” Effy said. She tried to swallow the rest of her tart without him noticing. “You didn’t say anything about a party.”
“Well, I do hope you’ll join us, after coming all this way. It will be your opportunity to speak with someone from Greenebough. I believe he’ll be able to give you better insight than I can. Like I said, my memory isn’t what it used to be.”
“But we don’t have formal clothes,” Effy said, gesturing to her trousers and oversize sweater.
“Nonsense.” Blackmar waved a hand. The woman mopping behind him flinched, as if he’d cracked a whip that had struck her. “My daughter left behind plenty of things in her wardrobe. You two look about the same size. And Preston can borrow one of my suits. I have several I can spare.”
And so it was settled. Blackmar sped off （as fast as anyone his age could get anywhere） and Preston and Effy trudged back to their chambers. She could not stop thinking about the letters, the last one in particular. It was swirling in her mind like dark water. Halfway up the stairs, her knees quivered so terribly that she fell forward, catching herself on the railing.
“Effy?” Preston turned around. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know,” she managed. “It’s just that last line. That last letter. ‘I will love you to ruination . . .’”
She trailed off, fingers curling white-knuckled around the wood. Preston just looked at her in bewilderment.
“For all we know, it’s something Blackmar’s daughter read in one of her father’s poems,” he said. “I could look through them again and see if anything stands out to me. It’s the beginning of something, isn’t it? More evidence that Myrddin isn’t as ingenious as he’s supposed. More evidence tying Angharad to Blackmar—”
“No,” she said quickly, surprising herself with the vehemence of her voice. “That’s not what I mean. You don’t . . . you don’t need to attribute everything to Blackmar, necessarily. Maybe Angharad was a joint effort between the two of them.” Preston opened his mouth to reply, and Effy hurriedly added, “This isn’t me trying to defend Myrddin, just because I’m a fan. I don’t even know if I am, anymore.”