Page 70 of A Study in Drowning

“I don’t need a Northern girl to tell me how to weather a storm, my dear,” Ianto said. His tone was light despite the bitterness of his words, but there was the faintest gleam in his eyes—something knifing through the muddled paleness. Effy’s skin prickled. “What I do need are your blueprints. Wetherell has been hounding me for days. Where are they?”

She exchanged a look with Preston that she hoped Ianto didn’t see. Two days until the storm meant they had two days to discover the house’s secrets. They could not allow themselves to be trapped up here on the cliffs indefinitely.

Trying to keep her voice cheery, Effy said, “They ought to be done in two or three more days.”

Ianto let out a low breath. “Once the blueprints are done, we will still need to hire contractors, builders, search for supplies . . . I had hoped to begin construction before the end of the year.”

For all that she’d teased Preston, Effy felt a bit guilty lying to Ianto now. “That’s definitely still possible,” she said. “I promise. Two days, and it will be done.”

“All right,” Ianto said. But his pale eyes had grown sharper. “I hope you both had a . . . gratifying trip.”

He was trying to goad them into confessing something, but Effy wasn’t sure what. Could Blackmar have called Ianto and exposed them? Or did Ianto merely have a vague suspicion that they might be lying, and hope to hit a target just by chance?

Effy remembered the look of jealousy on Ianto’s face as he had watched them drive away. It was somehow the most sinister emotion she could imagine. Her heart pattered in her chest.

“I think we both found what we needed,” she said uneasily. “If you don’t mind, I ought to get back to work now . . .”

But Ianto didn’t shift. He kept staring at her with his glass-sharp eyes, his enormous fingers curled around the handle of his coffee mug.

“Mr. Héloury,” he said. “You can leave us. I’d like to speak with Effy alone.”

For a moment, it looked like Preston might argue. Silently Effy begged him not to. They were so close to proving something, and they only had to survive Ianto and this house for two more days. Now was not the time to prod the serpent.

Preston appeared to have reached the same conclusion. “Fine,” he said, rising to his feet. “I have my own work to do, anyway.”

He left, but he watched Effy over his shoulder until he was through the threshold. Effy held on to his gaze for as long as she could, until the tether snapped and she was forced to look at Ianto again.

“What did you want to talk to me about?” She tried to sound serene, pleasant. Tractable.

“I hope that Argantian boy didn’t do anything untoward.”

Effy couldn’t manage to keep herself from blushing. “No! Of course not.”

“Good.” Ianto inclined his head. The water had finally stopped dripping; the pool on the dining table was murky and stagnant.

He was silent for so long that Effy felt she had to say something. “Is that all?”

Ianto looked back at her at last. “You know, I’ve spent all this time trying to pin down what sort of girl you are, Effy. All women are either an Acrasia or an Amoret. Patroness of seduction or patroness of submission. But some women are far more one than the other. I believe you’re an Acrasia. A siren, a temptress. Men can’t help what they do when they’re around you.”

She tried to choke out a laugh, hoping she could brush off his words—but Ianto’s face was deadly serious, colorless eyes bright, no more murk.

Her heart ricocheted in her throat. She had her pink pills in her pocket. If she took one of them now, would it convince her he had said nothing wrong at all, that it was just her imagination that made her blood pulse with prey-animal panic?

In the pale mirror of Ianto’s eyes, Effy saw herself reflected back, only she was a child again, red-nosed and whimpering, as she had been on the riverbank. Impossible—a trick of this wretched house and her addled mind. She blinked and blinked until the image was gone, yet Ianto did not for a moment lift his stare.

She had disavowed Myrddin. She had left behind her hag stones in the pocket of her other trousers. She had sworn to herself she would be sane and safe without them. But that was the problem with annihilating her imagination. Her mind could no longer conjure that escape hatch, that crack in the wall. There was nothing for her to slip through.

Effy stammered her way through the rest of the conversation, then fled upstairs.

Preston was perched on the chaise, holding Myrddin’s diary, when she walked in. He looked up at her, with joy and relief, and said, “I got them.”

“Got what?” Effy was still breathless from her desperate scramble up the stairs, and Ianto’s voice was pulsing in her ears.

“The photographs,” Preston said. “I decided to take advantage of the opportunity when you were with Ianto downstairs, and—Effy, are you all right?”

“Yes,” she said, but her voice was shaking. Her legs threatened to give way beneath her. “Ianto just, well . . .”

Preston’s back straightened with attention. “Did he threaten you?”