Three conditions, just like in one of Myrddin’s fairy tales. Effy’s heart
began beating very fast. Almost unconsciously, she reached up to grasp at
her knot of golden hair, tied back with its customary black ribbon. She
smoothed down the loose strands that floated around her face in the drowsy,
sunlit air of the college lobby.
“Excuse me,” someone said.
Effy’s gaze darted over her shoulder. Another architecture student in a
brown tweed jacket stood behind her, rocking back and forth on his heels
with an air of obvious irritation.
“Just a minute,” she said. “I haven’t finished looking.”
She hated the way her voice shook. The other student huffed in reply.
Effy turned back to the poster, pulse ticking even faster now. But there was
no more left to read, only the address at the bottom, no signature, no cheery
best of luck! sign-off.
The other student began tapping his foot. Effy reached into her bag and
pawed through it until she found a pen, uncapped and clearly
unceremoniously abandoned, the nib thick with dust. She pressed it against
the tip of her finger, but no inkblot appeared.
Her stomach twisted. She pressed again. The boy behind her shifted his
weight, the old wood under him groaning, and Effy put the pen in her
mouth and sucked until she tasted the metallic bite of ink.
“For Saints’ sakes,” the boy snapped.
Hurriedly she scrawled the address on the back of her hand and dropped
the pen into her bag. She tore away from the wall, and the poster, and the
boy, before he could do or say anything more. As she walked briskly down
the hallway, Effy caught the end of his muttered curse.
Heat rose to her cheeks. She reached her studio classroom and sat down
in her customary seat, avoiding the gazes of the other students as they
shuffled to their places. She stared down, instead, at the bleeding ink on the
back of her hand. The words were starting to blur, as if the address were a
spell, one with a tauntingly short life span.
Cruel magic was the currency of the Fair Folk as they appeared in
Myrddin’s books. She had read them all so many times that the logic of his
world was layered over hers, like glossy tracing paper on top of the original.
Effy focused on the words, committing them to memory before the ink
could run beyond legibility. If she squinted until her eyes watered, she
could almost forget the boy’s whispered slur. But her mind slipped away
