Fifteen
I passed so many sleepless¹ nights wondering how I could ever escape him. And yet I
found the true fetters² 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 slumbering³ 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 ripple⁴. All the candles had burned down to puddles⁵
of wax. When she sat up and spoke⁶, 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 prodded⁷. She watched him blink into the filmy darkness,
searching for his glasses on the bedside table, as lightning turned the windows a pure, stark⁸ 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 dire⁹ 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.”

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