i passed so many sleepless nights wondering how i could ever escape him. and yet i

found the true fetters were ones of my own creation. those nights i kept circling the same

ancient questions: why had the fairy king chosen me? what had i done to deserve this?

those questions were powerful magic indeed, for they kept me trapped there, motionless,

my husband slumbering beside me. until i broke the spell my mind had cast, i could not

ever be free.

from angharad by emrys myrddin, 191 ad

effy woke in darkness, her heart clanging like a bell. thunder rolled against the stone walls of the

guesthouse, and rainwater made the windows ripple. all the candles had burned down to puddles

of wax. when she sat up and spoke, her breath clouded out in front of her face.

“preston,” she said. “the storm—we have to go.”

he sat up with a start, as if he’d been prodded. she watched him blink into the filmy darkness,

searching for his glasses on the bedside table, as lightning turned the windows a pure, stark white.

he grasped them at last and put them on.

she could feel the pulse of fear that radiated from him, a skin-prickling heat.

they both dressed in silence. nothing could be heard over the sounds of the wind and rain, but

effy was afraid to speak anyway, afraid to voice how dire everything felt. when she couldn’t stand

it anymore, and when she had tied back her hair with shaking fingers, she said, “what if it’s too

late? what if we can’t make it down?”

“we can,” preston said, his voice fierce. “we are not getting trapped here.”

“i’m so stupid. i shouldn’t have asked you to stay. we shouldn’t have slept—”

“effy, stop it.” he reached her, took her hand. “what’s done is done, and i don’t regret—i

would never regret . . . it doesn’t matter. we’re taking this box and we’re driving down to saltney.

we’ll get some locksmith to break into it, and . . .”

he trailed off as another peal of thunder reverberated through the little house. effy glanced

over at the box, chin quivering. it looked so huge and heavy, and the padlock gleamed faintly

under layers of algae and rust.

something occurred to her then, with a terrible start. “the letters. the photographs and letters.

they’re still up at the house.”

preston’s face paled. his chest swelled and then deflated again as he drew one heavy, steeling

breath. “damn it. all right. that’s fine; i’ll go up and get them. you just wait in my car.”

“now you’re being stupid.” lightning flashed. “i’m coming with you.”

at least preston had learned not to argue with her. they put on their coats and went to the

door.

for some reason, effy felt a pull of grief as she considered leaving the guesthouse behind. it

had served her well, in her time at hiraeth. the iron on the door had held; the four walls had not

come down, even as the water trickled in. whether he was real or not, it had kept the fairy king at

bay.

a last-minute thrill of fear compelled effy to grab the rest of the hag stones off the desk and

shove them into the pocket of her trousers.

preston did not even appear to notice. his teeth were clenched, a muscle feathering in his jaw.

when she joined him at the door again, he slid his hand into hers.

“i meant what i told you, before,” he said softly. “i want to take care of you. when we get

back to caer-isel, the horrible professors and the horrible students . . . i never want you to have to

weather it all alone again.”

effy’s throat tightened. “they’re cruel. they’ll be cruel to you, too.”

“it doesn’t matter. i’m not afraid to care about you, effy.”

if there had been more time, she would have folded into his arms and let him hold her there

until the storm passed. instead she only squeezed his hand. together, they pushed open the door.

at first it seemed impossible to take a single step forward. the wind blew past them with such

fury that effy had to close her eyes and put up her hand in front of her face, and even then it felt so

brutal and sharp that she thought it might chafe her skin. the rainwater drenched her an instant,

soaking through her coat. leaves and branches were flying through the air at dizzying speeds.

preston put his hand up, too, and he had to yell to be heard over the wind. “we have to hurry! i

won’t be able to drive down if it gets any worse.”

effy wondered how he would be able to drive down now, but it seemed too defeatist a thought

to be worth speaking aloud. fingers still locked, they charged through the storm, up the path,

which was now covered over with fallen trees and which had turned, mostly, to mud.

it was only preston’s tight grip on her that kept effy from falling down. when she had to stop

because the mud was sucking desperately at her boots, he hauled her forward again and up the

small incline.

but reaching the edge of the cliff was worse. from there effy could see the sea, and the sky,

almost indistinguishable in gray-white rage. together they rose up, and then bore down on the

rock, and at last effy understood why the southerners, in the very ancient days before the

drowning, believed that there were only two gods: the sky and the ocean. the land itself was just

something caught and pressed between their warring furies.

she remembered, suddenly, what rhia had told her: that the southerners believed the sleepers

were the only thing stopping the second drowning. that myrddin’s consecration was keeping

them safe. had she and preston done this, somehow? had uncovering myrddin’s lies whittled

away at the magic of the sleepers, just as effy had initially feared it would?

preston yanked her back as a bit of the cliff crumbled beneath her, swallowed up in an instant

by the foaming mouth of the sea. effy couldn’t help but stop and watching while something else—

even if it was just nameless, weatherworn stone—was lost to the ages.

yet in the midst of the chaos, no dark figure stood in the house’s shadow. of all times, effy

thought it was now that he might come, with the seal between reality and something else broken.

as they stumbled up the path, hiraeth appeared in the distance, a black bulwark against the

gray sky. maybe ianto was right; maybe her task had not been insurmountable after all. maybe

there was some old, silent magic protecting it, something not even their discoveries could shatter.

the trees, the mountain ash—despite ianto’s best efforts—were being torn from their roots.

the rowan berries were stripped off their branches and smashed into pulp. all the wards

obliterated. yet still the fairy king did not appear.

effy was too bewildered to know whether she should feel relief. shingles blew off the gabled

roof like birds taking flight.

just as they reached the steps, an enormous tree went flying past them, trailing its chains. effy

staggered back, gasping, and preston stammered out a curse.

“saints,” he said over the wind. “i’m starting to think the naturalists were right about the

second drowning.”

effy didn’t mention the southern superstitions, or the sleepers. her mouth had gone dry and

her stomach was roiling with the same ferocity as the sea.

they clambered up the steps and through the door. preston heaved it shut behind them, while

effy leaned back against the wall, trying to catch her breath.

“if this is a second drowning,” she said, each syllable carefully and painfully rendered, “what

are we meant to do?”

preston wiped the rainwater from his glasses. “get out of here as quickly as we can.”

there was nothing else to say. they charged upstairs as around them, the house groaned

deafeningly, water bleeding through every crack in the walls and ceiling.

some of the paintings along the stairwell had been shaken down; the glass holding the fairy

king had shattered, and he stared up at her with his colorless eyes from among the broken shards.

the frame no longer bound him. effy felt a jolt of fear before preston hurried her along again,

beneath the archway carved with the faces of saint eupheme and saint marinell. the archway was

crumbling, their wooden faces rotted. no saints to protect her now.

your prayers are no use, the shepherd had said. they won’t protect you against him.

the second floor was worse. the walls were drenched with water, wallpaper peeling away in

long tongues of faded green. all the naked glass bulbs had broken, and the floorboards creaked

beneath them with every step.

perilously, they made their way toward the study, while half the ground behind them fell

away, ancient wood finally crumpling under the weight of so much water.

“it’s all right,” preston was mumbling, more to himself, effy thought, than to her. “it’s all

right, it’s all right . . .” he flung open the door to the study.

ianto stood in front of myrddin’s desk. he had a length of chain thrown over his shoulder, and

his musket was lying on the desk behind him. he was drenched, shirt sticking to his body, black

hair dripping puddles onto the floor.

effy froze, stomach lurching with dread.

ianto said, very calmly, “welcome back.”

“wh—what are you doing here?” preston stammered out.

“well,” said ianto slowly, “just last night, as i was about to crawl peaceably into bed, i got the

most unexpected phone call from an old friend. blackmar is ancient and half-demented, and at first

i thought i was going to have to silently nod along to the ramblings of a toothless lunatic. but he

actually began to tell me that recently he had hosted some unexpected guests, two students from

the university in caer-isel. he said they told him that they had been working on a project centered

around emrys myrddin, and had asked him quite a lot of suspicious questions. specifically about

the publication of angharad.”

effy’s legs began to go numb. then her arms, then her whole body. she could scarcely feel

preston’s fingers gripping hers.

“how curious,” ianto went on, putting one hand under his chin in an exaggerated gesture of

perplexity. “curious, curious, curious—that’s what i said to blackmar, when i told him that i was

also playing host to two students from the university in caer-isel, one of whom professed an

interest in my father’s life and his works. i was utterly taken aback by blackmar’s insistence that

these wholesome students, whom i had graciously allowed into my home, could have any

nefarious intentions. i don’t like to assume the worst of people, you know. but i also don’t like

being taken for a fool. so i decided to come over to the study myself and ask—and oddly enough,

i found it empty.”

his eyes. they were crisp and translucent, no more murk. they were sharp enough to cut and

clear enough to see her reflection.

“i warned you away from him, effy,” he said.

“ianto . . . ,” she started, but her voice was trembling too much to go on. at its edges, her

vision was rippling, fear thickening her belly.

he shifted, rattling the chains that he’d thrown over his shoulder. “saint acrasia is your

patroness indeed. i see the mark of his mouth on your throat. defiling yourself, and for an

argantian, of all people—i expected better from a good northern girl like you.”

this was the ianto from the pub, the one who had grasped her hand and held on to it until it

hurt. if there was any trace of the genial, lighthearted, hopeful ianto, she could find none of it in

his gaze.

“please,” she said. bile was rising in her throat. “please stop.”

it was as if ianto didn’t hear her, as if she hadn’t spoken at all. “and you, preston héloury—

well. i don’t know how you managed to seduce effy into your little scheme, but now i know why

you’re really here. you claimed you had nothing but respect for my father, for the legacy of emrys

myrddin.” ianto reached onto the table behind him, and effy let out a small, strangled noise of

terror, thinking he was reaching for his musket. but instead he picked up a scrap of paper.

“‘execution of the author: an inquiry into the authorship of the major works of emrys

myrddin.’ this is an assault on my father’s legacy.”

“it’s not like that,” preston tried hoarsely. but ianto only shook his head and held up his hand,

rattling the chains again.

“i might have believed your wheedling lies, had i not found these.” with a flourish, he

gathered up the photographs of the girl and then dropped them, letting them flutter to the ground.

effy saw a flash of the girl’s naked calf, her pale hair. “you’re no better than a sleazy tabloid

journalist, looking for evidence my father was leading some lascivious double life. i don’t know

where you got these, or where you managed to find his diary, but it ends here. this is my father’s

house. this is my house. and you’ve come here to wreck it, to ruin it—”

his words were cut off by an enormous crash of thunder, so loud that effy winced, and a

fantastic bolt of lightning that cast the entire room in a clear white light.

the house groaned miserably around them, and from somewhere far below, there was a further

crashing sound: more rocks crumbling into the sea.

“ianto,” effy said, once the thunder ceased and there was only the howling of the wind. she

tried to make her voice low, pliant. what else was left but to try to reason with him? she had

really thought the truth might save him, but perhaps it had not come soon enough. “please—this

house isn’t going to survive the storm. we all need to leave, now.”

“shut up,” ianto said savagely. his pale eyes were darting back and forth between them, manic

and wild. “i called the university in caer-isel. it took a bit of convincing, but eventually the dean’s

office pulled their files on both preston héloury and effy—excuse me, euphemia—sayre.”

it was the first time she’d heard her full name, her true name, in ianto’s mouth. there was

another clap of thunder, and something large and black slammed against the window, hard enough

to form an enormous fissure in the glass. a tree branch. rainwater trickled in.

“it appears you were a bit of a problem for the architecture college, euphemia,” ianto went on.

“some funny business with your adviser—you start to think that’s why the university used to bar

women from attending at all. they’re all temptresses or blushing maidens, unfit for higher

thinking.”

effy squeezed her eyes shut. “stop it.”

“perhaps i didn’t peg you right. perhaps you’re amoret, not acrasia. perhaps you lay there

limp as your adviser had his way—”

it was preston who shouted then, over the sound of the wind and the thunder. “stop it! you

don’t have any idea what you’re talking about, you—”

“they pulled your file, too,” ianto cut in. “preston héloury. what an odd, in-between name.

your mother is a blue-blooded llyrian, but your father is some argantian mountain peasant. was.

it took a while, searching through all those newspaper records in argantian, but i found the

obituary. so unpleasant. i can’t think of a much worse way to go, a mind decaying, bleeding

water.”

preston’s grip on her hand tightened. behind his glasses, his gaze grew hard.

at last the window at ianto’s back shattered entirely, letting in the rain and wind. the shards

of glass were swept up and effy’s hair blew around her face, tears stinging her eyes.

“please,” she said. if the truth could not save ianto, perhaps burying it would at least save her

and preston. “you can keep the diary, the photographs, everything. we’ll never write a single

word about your father. just please—we all have to go or we’ll die here.”

“oh no,” ianto said. “this isn’t a place for leaving. things live and die here, but they don’t

leave.”

another deafening howl of wind, lightning crackling across the sky. “you’re mad,” preston

said.

and ianto did look mad, in a way—his eyes glassy and overbright, his wet hair sticking to his

scalp and shoulders, the enormous chain rattling with every movement. but in another way, effy

could tell that what he said made sense in his own mind. there was a logic to it—a sick logic,

perhaps—that someone like preston would never understand. that only people who believed in

fairy tales and magic and ghosts could see.

people like her and ianto.

effy remembered a ghost story her grandfather had told her once, about a prisoner who had

been forgotten about and left to starve in a dungeon cell. for all the rest of the lord’s life, he heard

the rattling of chains at night, moving down the halls of his castle. with each passing night, the

sound grew closer, until at last, one morning, the lord was found dead in his sheets, the bloody

marks of strangulation around his throat like a garish ruby necklace.

if he stayed here, ianto would become a ghost, too. only there would be no house left to haunt.

she had to leave him here, in his madness, or she would be dragged down with him.

“preston,” effy said urgently. “let’s go.”

hands still joined, they took a cautious step backward. but before they could flee toward the

door, quick as a flash ianto had his musket in his hands, the black mouth of the barrel staring down

at them. effy’s throat went dry. she froze in place.

and then, most unexpectedly, ianto asked, “do you know the tale of llyr’s very first king?”

neither of them managed to speak, but that did not deter ianto. he took another pace toward

them, musket still aimed high. his chains shook like lots being cast.

“llyr’s very first king was just a tribal chieftain who won all his wars,” he said. “he had the

beards of all his enemies to prove it, and he wove them together into a great cloak of hair. he had

tents and huts and even houses, but when his kingdom was at last united, he wanted to build a

castle. he found the best builders among his new subjects, and they began to dig a foundation. but

every night when they went to sleep, they would find that the foundation was flooded with water,

even though they could not remember hearing any rain.

“the king, understandably, was bewildered and vexed. angry. but his court wizard, a very old

man who had seen many tribal chieftains live and die, told the king that the land was angry with

him in return. all the trees he had cut down in his quest, all the grass he had burned—why should

the land allow him to build anything, when he had treated it so cruelly? the court wizard told the

king that if he wanted his castle to grow tall and strong, he would have to give something back to

the land. a sacrifice.

“and so the king ordered his men to go find him a child, a fatherless child. he tied the orphan

boy to a stake within the foundation of his castle, and then went to sleep. when he returned in the

morning, he found that indeed the water had come, and the boy had drowned, but when his

builders went to repair the foundation, the next night it stood strong and dry. the castle was thus

built, and to this day no storm or conqueror has been able to tear it down.”

all through ianto’s speech, the wind had not ceased its wailing, and rainwater pelted his back.

from somewhere down below, effy had begun to hear creaking, crashing sounds: floorboards

crumbling inexorably against the cliffside and into the sea.

“that’s a myth, a legend,” preston said, voice edged with desperation. “it isn’t true; it isn’t

real. but death is real, and we’re going to die if we stay.”

ianto gave a low and bitter laugh. “all this time spent in the bottom hundred and you still

don’t understand. what your scientists and academics call myths are as real as anything else. how

else could a land and a people survive drowning?”

effy shut her eyes against the stinging wind. when she first came to hiraeth, she had believed

that, too. believed in angharad and rowan berries and mountain ash and girdles of iron. but

stories were devious things, things with agendas. they could cheat and steal and lie to your face.

they could crumble away under your feet.

“you are mad,” she said, opening her eyes to the barrel of the musket hovering ever closer.

“call me mad if you like,” ianto said, and as he stepped forward, the chains rattled, “but all i

see before me are a drowning foundation and two fatherless children.”

the gun was jammed against her back before effy had even made sense of his words. preston

was stammering out protests as ianto herded them back out into the hallway, around the holes

where the floorboards had at last given way, and down the stairs. water was dripping down the

ruined faces of saint eupheme and saint marinell, making it look as though they were weeping.

a torrent of water slid down the steps beside them, carrying the shattered painting of the fairy

king with it. the glass had cracked, but the painting was untarnished behind it, the features of his

face still sharp and clear. it was as if the water couldn’t touch him at all.

ianto stopped them in front of the door to the basement. he shook the end of the musket as if

he were giving a reproachful wag of his finger. “i noticed that my key was missing, euphemia,” he

said. “you hardly needed to be so deceitful about it, you know. i would have given it up to you,

for a price.”

his hand grasped at her face then, cupping her chin and turning it up toward him. his eyes

were cloudless, crystal clear. he held her face so tightly that it hurt, and effy gave a quiet

whimper.

“don’t touch her,” preston snarled.

ianto let go of her roughly, fingernail scraping down her cheek and drawing blood. “i’ve heard

quite enough from you. smug and smarmy since the first day i let you into my home. i think this

will be a fitting way to go—just like your father. a death by water.”

“no!” effy cried as ianto swung the door open. black water was pouring in from all the cracks

in the wall, inching farther up the steps.

without letting go of his musket, ianto shifted the chains from his shoulder. effy saw now that

there was a stake tied to the end of them. he seized preston by the arm, swinging him forward

toward the dark water. preston’s boots scrabbled against the slick stone, hands flying out to catch

himself on the threshold, but ianto grabbed the front of his shirt and held him so he didn’t fall.

effy realized only then that he wasn’t going to hurl preston down. instead, he began wrapping

the chains around preston’s wrists.

“stop!” effy threw herself against ianto’s back, but she was like a small wave lapping at solid

stone. he shrugged her off with a mindless twitch.

though preston struggled against his bindings, ianto’s grip was tight, and the musket was still

aimed at his chest, barrel gleaming in the half-light.

ianto jerked preston by his chains down the steps, where he took the stake and drove it into the

wall, then began hammering it into place with the blunt end of the musket. time seemed to bend

and slow around effy, like river water around a rock, and there were no thoughts in her mind,

nothing but the pure and brilliant surge of adrenaline in her veins.

she splashed down the stairs after them and took hold of ianto’s wrist, making him fumble

with the musket and stumble backward, nearly plunging into the dark water.

“you stupid girl,” ianto growled as he righted himself. water was pouring through the walls,

between the cracks in the brickwork, like hundreds of weeping eyes. “you have no idea what

you’re playing at.”

and then, with one huge, sweeping arm, he hurled her against the wall, so hard that her head

hit the stone with a terrible crack. effy felt the pain in her teeth and jaw, and then a hot, blooming

agony seeped throughout her skull and down to her throat.

she managed to reach up with one numb hand and feel the back of her head. her fingers came

away smeared with blood.

ianto was a large man, but not that large. not large enough that two people couldn’t wrest the

gun from his hands. the strength he had was impossible. inhuman.

preston was shouting, but she couldn’t hear him. she was deaf to everything but the roar of

blood in her ears. legs trembling beneath her, effy slumped down onto the steps, submerging her

lower body in the sleek, dark water.

“please,” she heard preston say, when her hearing briefly returned to her. “i’ll do anything—

just let her live.” his voice was shaking, syllables dropped between his sobs.

“oh, don’t worry about that,” ianto said. “the foundation only needs one fatherless child. i

have no intention of letting her die.”

effy tried to pull herself back up, but the pain was obliterating. her vision was starry and

fading. she heard the sounds of the musket beating against the stake again, grim metallic clangs,

and the brief rattle of chains.

and then everything but the water was silent.

he took effy by the arm and dragged her up the steps, as if she were as light as a doll, some

child’s plaything. the water sloshed around them, and upstairs the house was groaning and

groaning.

effy’s last glimpse of preston was through half-shut eyes. she saw only the rusted chains

around his wrists, binding him to the wall, and his gaze flashing fearfully behind his glasses.

she tried to cry out his name but couldn’t, and then ianto slammed the door shut after them.

ianto dragged her into the dining room. effy’s vision returned in increments, enough to see that the

doorway had half collapsed on their way through, splintered wood sticking out at strange angles

like the branches of a stripped pine tree.

it took her a moment to realize it wasn’t just the blow to her head: the entire room was slanted,

tipping down toward the sea. the dining table had slid against the far wall, the chairs crammed up

alongside it, and against all odds the glass chandelier still swung perilously overhead, like the

heavy pendulum of a grandfather clock.

she was propped up in one of the moldering chairs, gaze still fuzzy. ianto moved with

graceless determination around the room, hurling furniture, flinging open cabinet doors viciously.

as if he were looking for something. the musket still gleamed at his side.

“please,” effy managed, around a mouthful of blood. “i’ll do whatever—whatever you want

from me. just don’t let him die, please don’t let him die . . .”

she couldn’t tell if ianto heard her at all. he didn’t turn around again for several moments, and

when he did, there was something clutched in his fist. a crumpled piece of paper and a pencil. he

thrust them at her, and in her bewilderment, effy took them.

“here,” he snarled. “finish the damn blueprints.”

effy just stared at him, mouth hanging open. “this house is going to fall into the sea.”

ianto laughed, and it was a terrible, rasping sound, like stone scraping against stone. “when

the water fills your lover’s lungs, when he turns pale and swollen with it, when his body floats like

the carcass of a dead fish—this house will stand. it must.”

her heart was throbbing in her throat, hatred burning a hole in her belly. “then why should i

draw anything for you, if you’re just going to let him die? i won’t do it. i won’t.”

fury rolled like dark clouds over ianto’s face. he jammed the end of the musket under her

chin. “i don’t want to have to kill you, effy. you do know that, don’t you? i have always wanted

to keep you here. safe from the world.”

“i don’t know that,” effy said. her vision was still black at the corners. “i don’t know what

you mean.”

ianto gave a laugh that, this time, was remarkably soft—almost tender. “you can’t really think

that the most qualified person for this project was a first-year architecture student failing half of

her classes. didn’t you ever question it, why the estate of emrys myrddin would hire a mewling

little girl, with nothing to offer the world but a pretty face?”

effy tried to reply, but her voice failed her. she managed only a small whimper.

“i didn’t need to read your file, effy.” ianto’s voice grew softer now, and he lowered the

musket, bringing up his hand to cup her chin instead. “i knew what sort of girl you are. i’ve

always known. a beautiful girl, but a weak one. one that no one would miss. who would ask after

you, if you vanished from your classes, from your dorm room? you were the perfect choice for

this house. for me. a girl who could so easily slip away.”

once upon a time, effy had believed herself to be that girl. she had been terrified of anything

that might hold her where she was, that might chain her where she couldn’t flee. she had

fashioned herself into an escape artist, a magician whose only trick was vanishing. permanence

was dangerous. it had always felt like a trap.

only now things were different. perhaps her classmates would not ask after her, nor her

professors. perhaps even her mother would be glad to finally be done with her. but if she did slip

away, through one of those tricky little holes in the foundation of the world, effy knew that

preston would spend the rest of his life searching for her. she could not leave him alone. she

could not let him drown.

and yet—she didn’t know how she could stop it.

slowly, effy unfolded the paper in her hand. her fingers shook as she put the pencil to the

page.

“there,” ianto said, somehow even softer than before. “that’s a good girl. build something

beautiful for both of us. i don’t want to wait much longer. i’ve spent twelve mortal years looking

for you, and now, finally, you’ve come home.”

tears bloomed in the corners of her eyes. that old fear sensation was starting in the tips of her

fingers and toes, the somatic terror that gripped her at night, that had hunted her like a dog all her

life. it was the fear that her body felt before her mind could comprehend it.

“ianto,” she tried, even as she moved the pencil tremulously against the paper, “please. i

don’t . . .”

“no whimpering now,” he said, clucking his tongue. “you’re a girl, not a child.”

and then there was a sudden, immense groaning sound. a wrenching rattle. behind ianto, the

chandelier at last loosed from the ceiling and fell to the floor. in one splendid, brilliant moment, it

shattered, bits of glass flying out in all directions. a shard of it cut her cheek; another lodged itself

in her calf, cutting right through the nylon of her stocking.

effy gave a quiet utterance of pain, but ianto scarcely seemed to notice at all. the whole floor

was a constellation of shattered glass, glittering like hoarfrost. even as blood tracked down her

cheek, all she could think of was preston, downstairs, drowning.

“i can’t do it,” she whispered. “please, ianto, please. just let him go.”

“love is terrible, isn’t it?” ianto said, over the sound of the churning water below. “that’s why

the one line became so famous. ‘i will love you to ruination.’ i think we all understand what it’s

like to be wrecked by it. even me.”

ianto leaned close to her, so close that she could smell the salt and rot that wafted from him,

the damp-earth scent of something not quite human.

his fingers gripped the back of her neck, fisting handfuls of golden hair. he jerked effy’s face

toward his and pressed their lips together with such violence that it was like seawater striking

stone.

time slowed around her again. effy sat silent and still, green vines growing around her wrists

and ankles, trapping her in that chair.

she knew that if she tried hard enough, she could escape this: she could go somewhere into the

deep caverns of her mind and hide until it was over, until her body was hers once again.

but preston was downstairs. drowning. while ianto took her lower lip between his teeth and

bit hard enough to make her bleed, effy reached into the pocket of her trousers and found the hag

stones.

when ianto broke their kiss for just a moment, effy crammed the stones into his face, into his

mouth, with as much brutality as she could muster. he staggered backward in shock, choking on

the rocks, garbling curses.

“you little whore,” he spat, hag stones dropping to the floor. “you were meant to have kept

yourself pure for me.”

she had one last hag stone, gripped between her index finger and her thumb, in the hand that

was missing its fourth finger. trembling, effy raised it to her eye.

the world around her rippled, as if it were a reflection on water. and then a shuddering

metamorphosis took place: where ianto’s torn white shirt had been, there was now a vest of black

bramble, and under it just muscle and sinew and pale, pale skin, all wrapped around bone. his hair

had grown longer, sleeker, reaching the middle of his back. his face had been handsome before,

but too rugged somehow, too obviously weatherworn and human. now it was impossibly,

unreasonably beautiful, cheekbones as sharp as blades, eyes so pale they almost looked like they

had no color at all, just the white and a black iris, like an eclipsed sun.

his fingers ended in claws, and he reached out to effy with one hand, beckoning.

the shock of it nearly stopped her breathing. effy lowered the hag stone, yet there the fairy

king still stood. he wore a coronet of bone. his hair was dripping with fetid water. she blinked

and blinked and blinked, but nothing could erase him from the room.

“i really am mad,” she managed, choking on the words.

“no,” the fairy king said, and his voice was the sound of shears through silk. “you are seeing

truly, the way you always have, euphemia. you were offered to me on the riverbank, and then

withdrawn. i don’t like to be forsaken. i have spent twelve years chasing you, but you hid yourself

from me with your banal mortal tricks. no more. i come to claim what is mine by right. once

offered, a sacrifice cannot be revoked.”

it could not be real. and yet effy knew that it was—it must be. there was no escaping this. it

was what her entire life had been lurching toward. she had hidden behind her pink pills, behind

her saints, behind the scolding of the doctor and her mother. she had convinced herself out of it.

and it had almost worked.

but here in the bottom hundred, in this ancient, sinking house, there was nowhere left to hide.

“why?” she cried out, over the sound of the thrashing water below. it was the question that

had plagued her more terribly than anything else. “why me?”

the fairy king laughed, a lovely and awful sound. “i am not as cruel a creature as all the

stories say, euphemia. i do not come for girls just because they are beautiful. you were a pretty

young child, with your golden hair, but there are many pretty children, safe in their beds, who i

cannot touch. i come for the girls who are left out in the cold. they cannot belong anywhere else

but with me.”

somehow, her missing finger began to throb, as if she had only just remembered that the loss

of it was painful. a phantom pain, eerie and old, but a pain nonetheless. effy gripped the hag

stone, even though she knew it would not save her.

“the world has not been kind to you, euphemia,” he went on, in his silk-sharp voice. “but i

can be. if you obey, if you give yourself over to me entirely, i will be so kind, it will make you

weep. when you were young, all i could take was your finger. now i will have the rest.”

“no,” she said, even as her breath came in rough, panicked spurts. “no. i don’t want to go

with you.”

the fairy king cocked his head, and for a moment he looked quizzical. almost human. “and

why not? what is tying you to this insipid mortal world? here you are just another beautiful girl

who has been treated meanly. with me, you could be something so much greater. with me, you

could be a queen.”

part of her had waited her entire life to hear those words, fearing them and yearning for them

in equal measure. effy let out a tremulous breath, the phantom pain of her missing ring finger still

throbbing.

the belief, the hope and the terror both, had kept her alive. at last effy understood the magic

of hiraeth, its curse and its blessing. hiraeth manor, the grand thing that ianto had wanted her to

build, would always be an imagined future, a castle in the air. the magic was the impossibility of

it. the unreal could never disappoint you, could never harm you, could never falter under your

feet.

but now the real and the unreal had snarled together and it no longer mattered which was

which. effy was staring down the fairy king in all his immense power, and she was just a girl

clutching a hollow stone.

“i’ll do it if you save him,” she blurted out. “save preston, and i’ll go with you. i’ll do

whatever you like.”

the fairy king looked at her with a treacherous fondness. “i don’t make slanted deals with

mortal girls. mortal girls make their desperate bargains with me. you have walked into my world

already, euphemia. you took the bait and sauntered right into my trap. i will have you no matter

what, my darling girl. you will not elude me again. but it would make me so much happier if you

took my hand and came with a lovely smile on your face.”

it would have been painless. effy knew that. if it was a kind of death, it would be much

quicker than drowning, easier than falling into the sea along with this ruined house.

in some way, she had always yearned for this, to slip through the final crack in the world. but

she had a rope to tether her now, and walls that stood, and a foundation that was strong.

a seed of something began to bloom in effy’s mind.

“how would you have me?” she asked carefully, trying to make her voice sound low and

sweet. “would you have me on my knees?”

the idea seemed to surprise the fairy king, if he were a creature capable of feeling such a

thing. he smiled his beautiful smile.

“yes,” he said. “it would make me very happy, to see you kneel.”

very slowly, effy lowered herself to the ground. the broken glass dug into her knees, but she

swallowed the pain of it. as the fairy king stalked toward her, she scrabbled through the

wreckage until her hands closed on a long, broad shard of glass, about the size of a small dagger.

“euphemia,” the fairy king said, his voice a warning.

“don’t,” she bit out. “don’t speak my name.”

and then she held up the shard, the bit of mirrored glass that took in the fairy king’s form and

reflected it right back at him.

he stared at himself for a long moment, seeing, for the first time, his own lovely face, his black

hair, his bone crown. the moment felt so heavy that effy nearly let her arm drop from the weight

of it.

just as she was about to give up, there was a second shuddering metamorphosis: in the mirror,

the fairy king changed. his beautiful face turned waxy and sallow, cheeks hollowed like

porcelain bowls. his hair grew silver and brittle and then fell out.

his skin sagged around his bones, creasing with wrinkles, and in the span of seconds he

became a very, very, very old man, pitiful and mortal after all.

the fairy king opened his wizened mouth, but he could not speak a word. he crumbled away

like a sandcastle on the shore, run over by the mindless tide. his eyes shriveled in his skull. even

his bone crown splintered into tiny pieces.

and then, at long last, he was nothing more than dust.

with difficulty, effy got to her feet. she staggered over to the ruin of him, her knees aching

and her stockings spotted with blood. for a final time, she raised the hag stone to her eye.

but through the hole, all was the same. the fairy king was still ash on the wind. and hiraeth

was still crumbling around her. effy let the stone fall from her hand, but if it made a sound, she

didn’t hear it. there was only her own heartbeat, her own breathing, the gentle but ceaseless

reminder that she lived.

effy let the shard drop, too, some of her blood falling along with it. then she limped through

the ruined threshold of the dining room, back to the rotted basement door.