Effy Sayre, a student at an architectural college, sees a notice advertising a unique opportunity to design a house for the estate of Effy’s favorite author, Emrys Myrddin. After being insulted by another student, Effy considers her situation as the school’s only female student and the rumors circulating about her and one of her teachers, Master Corbenic. She finds herself unable to focus for the rest of the day.

In class, she works on her assignment to redesign the local Sleeper Museum, a tourist attraction and sacred center in which seven prominent storytellers are preserved in glass coffins. Later, she goes to the library to check out books on Myrddin and learns they’ve all been taken out by someone named P. Héloury. She reels from the injustice of an Argantian student showing an interest in the national author of her home country, Llyr. Leaving the library, Effy considers the heritage of the two neighboring lands and the divide between North and South Llyr. The more superstitious southerners believe that the power of the Sleeper Museum protects them from invasion. Effy chooses to believe in magic, particularly that of Myrddin’s most famous epic, Angharad.