The song, of course, did end. But Preston didn’t let go. He allowed his arm to drop from her waist, yet he held on to her hand. He kept his gaze trained on her, unblinking. It wasn’t until Effy remembered the clock, ticking closer and closer to midnight, that she reluctantly slipped her fingers from his.
Together they hurried out of the dining room, down the hallway, and through the door, out into the cold, damp night. They had already packed their trunks, with the letters and diary safely inside. Effy never even felt the chill prickle her bare arms; she was all adrenaline and heat as she opened the passenger-side door and fastened her seat belt.
The gates of Penrhos creaked open, and Preston sped them away down the gravel road.
Thirteen
It is theorized that the goddesses Acrasia and Amoret were once a single female figure, rather than the two-headed goddess worshipped in Llyr today. When did Llyrians begin to see love as strictly dichotomic, rather than of a vast and multitudinous quality? Why was this dichotomy characterized by submission versus dominance? I put forth the argument that this doctrinal transformation is tied to the evolving role of women in Llyrian society, the fear of female advancement, particularly in the decades immediately following the Drowning.
From The Social History of a Sainthood by Dr. Auden Davies, 184 AD
Preston drove fast down the unlit roads, the green hills invisible in the dark, only fat smudges like thumbprints on a windowpane. They passed by with dizzying speed, the blackness racing alongside them. Effy did not sit in cars often, and when she did, they were almost never going at such a pace. She leaned back in her seat, feeling vaguely nauseous.
She couldn’t blame Preston for not taking notice; he was staring straight ahead with intense, almost unblinking focus, headlights carving tunnels through the dark. She trusted him, of course, but this had to be the most reckless thing either of them had done so far—including sneaking around right under Ianto’s nose and, for her, jumping out of a moving car.
That car had been going a lot more slowly.
Effy closed her eyes. Again and again, in the theater behind her eyelids, she watched the progression of the photographs, the satin robe pulling apart, the girl’s breasts bared to the cold room. She watched the letters trembling in her shaking hands, Myrddin’s hasty scrawl rolling past: My sly and clever girl. My foolish and lovely girl. My beautiful and debauched girl.
Call her by her name, Effy wanted to shout, but at no one in particular, because Myrddin was dead. The girl probably was, too. Blackmar’s daughter. Myrddin’s . . . conquest. She had been lost to the ages, just like those drowned churches.
In all her time at Hiraeth, Effy had never heard the bells.
Suddenly she was crying. The tip of her nose burned, her eyes grew fierce with water, and a strangled sob forced its way out of her throat. She clapped her hand over her mouth, trying to stifle the sound, trying not to distract Preston from his task, but her breaths were coming hot and fast, and tears were running paths down her cheeks.
“Oh, Effy,” Preston said. And then, absurdly, he pulled the car over. “I’m sorry. There’s very little worse than when our heroes fail us, is there?”
“I didn’t know Myrddin was your hero. I thought you didn’t like him.”
“I do like him,” Preston said. “I mean, I did. I still like the words that are attributed to him. I like that he wrote about death as decay. Deaths that last years and years, the same way the Drowning—well, never mind. Those words still mean something, even if Myrddin didn’t write them. Even if he did.”
“It’s just . . .” Outside the darkness settled around them, slowing like low tide. “Preston, I’ve read Angharad a hundred times. You know I can quote it word for word. It saved me, believing all the things Myrddin wrote—or didn’t write. Every story is a lie, isn’t it? A story about a girl who’s kidnapped by the Fairy King, but defeats him through her courage and cleverness . . . if that’s not true, then everything I’ve always believed is a lie, too. You told me that the Fairy King never loved Angharad. That he was the villain of the book. I think you were right.”
“Effy.” Preston drew in a breath, but he didn’t go on.
“There’s no Fairy King at all,” she said. Speaking the words aloud terrified her. They felt like walls closing in, crumbling on top of her. “I thought Angharad was some ancient story made new, and Myrddin was some otherworldly genius, magic like the rest of the Sleepers. But he was just some lecherous old man, and Angharad was just some shrewd attempt by his publisher to make money. There’s no magic in it at all. Or at least there isn’t anymore, because I’ve stopped believing in it. Now it’s just another lie.”