There was nothing but the rocks and the rain, and her own sodden footprints in the mud. Effy curled her cold fingers into fists and squeezed her eyes shut.
She had taken her pink pills dutifully this morning. She had resolved not to believe in such things anymore. What had gone wrong? Had she lived in the unreal world so long it was impossible to pull herself out of it? Had she spent so long believing the stories, the lies, that her mind now rejected the truth?
Perhaps she was beyond saving. Perhaps no pink pills or wheedling doctor could rescue her from drowning.
Effy stood there in the shadow of the enormous house, swallowing her tears. There was one thing left, her last desperate resort. Something she could still hang her hopes on. Maybe when they uncovered the truth about Myrddin at last—unearthed the final, irrefutable clue—the Fairy King would die with him, with his legacy.
It was all she had to believe in, or else the rest of her life would be locked rooms and padded walls and pill after pill after pill. She would sink to the seafloor like one of Myrddin’s selkie wives and never surface again.
So she tried to narrow her mind like the edge of a knife, focused on one singular thing—the key, the key, the key. But her thoughts kept wandering to Preston. Specifically the memory of his fingers cupping her hip. She had replayed the moment over and over again in bed the night before: his hand sliding up her thigh, under her skirt. He had wanted her, too, she had felt it, the proof of his wanting right there between her legs. And yet—
She shook her head, smoothed her hair back from her face, and forced herself to think of anything else. Anything but the Fairy King she did not want yet could not escape, and the boy she did want but could not have.
As she approached the house, Effy heard a ringing sound. At first she thought it was the bells, the fabled bells she’d been longing to hear, but it was something clearer, something above the surface. Metal against metal.
Above her, Hiraeth itself seemed to sway and groan, rocking perilously against the bruise-colored clouds. Effy picked her way around the house, her boots completely waterlogged now, in search of the ringing sound.
To her surprise, she found Ianto there, kneeling at the base of a large black tree. He had a hammer in one hand and he was striking a small piece of metal repeatedly, driving the stake into the root of the tree. His hair was loose and wild around his face, his brow drenched with rainwater and sweat.
He didn’t see or hear Effy until she cleared her throat and said, “Ianto?”
He turned around, colorless eyes murky and depthless. “Effy.”
“What are you doing?” She had to raise her voice to be heard over the wind.
“The trees have to be staked down,” he said. “Or else the wind will tear them up by their roots and hurl them right through the north wall of the house.”
Effy looked around. There were hundreds of trees, branches whipping violently, their leaves coming loose and curling up into the air. “Do you need any help with that?”
Ianto gave a mirthless laugh. “Not from you, my dear. This isn’t women’s work.” But his voice was light, and there was no cruel, glassy gleam in his eyes. There was a long metal chain on the ground beside him, coiled like a snake ready to strike. “Well. I suppose you could bring me my jacket. It’s draped over one of the chairs in the dining room.”
“Of course,” Effy said. She was trembling already, overwhelmed by the opportunity she’d been given. Where Ianto’s collar slung low, she could see just a glimpse of the leather cord.
She hurried up the stairs to the house and heaved the door open, breathing hard.
The foyer seemed darker than usual, one rusted candle stand in the corner giving off a bubble of filmy light. Effy splashed through the puddles on the floor, ignoring the water dripping from above and the ceiling sagging like an old man’s jowls.
Wetherell stood in the threshold to the dining room, looking even grimmer than usual.
“What will you be doing to weather the storm, Ms. Sayre?” he asked. His lips barely moved as he spoke.
She did not want to tell him that she planned to leave; he might warn Ianto. “What is there to do?”
“Board up the windows. Tie down the trees.” Wetherell’s eyes shifted under their heavy lids. “If you were smart, you would leave now, while you still can.”
Effy blinked in surprise. “You’re going to leave? You’re in charge of Myrddin’s estate . . .”
“Myrddin’s estate is more than just this house. It’s all the money in his Northern bank account, the royalty checks owed by his publisher, the letters that I gave Mr. Héloury. This house is nothing but an ugly, rotting testament to the late Myrddin’s cruelty, and the price Ianto is still paying for it.”