Cogling (19 page)

Ike pursed his lips. “Humans go around building steam trains and steam ships, traveling the world exploring and colonizing. All the hags have is a swamp and whatever work the humans offer.”

“Hags use nature.” Edna knelt across from him. “They manipulate it to help us when we need charms and medicine. Only a few are evil, right? Without hags, no one would have potions when they were ill. They can’t all be trusted, though.”

“About a thousand years ago, when the hags first mutated, they ruled, and the humans were their slaves.”

Edna frowned. “I’ve heard that.” She pictured the storyteller in Moser City, with his bells and wagon.

“The hags could control them with their spells. They stuck to herbs and blessings, but the humans started inventing. They made machines and weapons, and they brought the hags down. An enchanted scarf to keep your neck hot can’t stop a bullet. The machines were fireproof, and the hags weren’t.”

“The humans burned hags because they were evil.” Edna pulled Silver onto her lap. Ice crawled over her skin, and she felt as though the statue watched her. Condemned her. “What about your mother?”

Ike shut his eyes. “She was a hag.”

Edna blinked at him. “That isn’t funny. If you’d said she was a Nix, I might’ve laughed. Hag blood? Never.”

He reached for her hand, but Edna leaned back. “No more teasing.”

Silver purred, the sound deep in his throat.

“I’m half hag-blooded. My father’s human.” Ike picked at the hem of his long coat.

“Sane people don’t joke about being related to hags.” Hags had magic; they only helped people who brought them things, and—

“You want me to prove it?” He flexed his fingers. “If you touch me, I’ll send you a vision.”

Edna stared at his outstretched hand. Scars crisscrossed his palm. White patches showed where the dry skin peeled. He took jokes to the extreme. “Nothing will happen, because you’re not really a hag.” They didn’t have time for his joshing, but the statue’s presence compelled her to slide her fingers through his. Her heart knew something would happen and the evil twittered, but her mind stuck to denial. He
couldn’t
have hag blood. He was too normal, too human.

“Close your eyes,” Ike whispered. “I’m going to put a scene in your mind.”

“That’s impossible.” Edna’s eyelids lowered as if they had a will of their own. Blackness, tinged with orange from the light surrounding them, filled her vision.

“This,” Ike said, “is my mother.”

A woman appeared in front of Edna, as though she’d opened her eyes to witness it happening. Long brown hair curled around the woman’s pale shoulders, bare where her pink corset didn’t cover them.

“Where is she?” Edna tried to shatter the vision, but her lids refused to lift. The woman glanced past Edna and laughed. Light twinkled in her pale eyes, framed by dark lashes. “None of this can be real. More imagination, another fantasy.”

No,
taunted the evil. All this time, she’d been with someone who had hag-blood. Edna moaned, so he tightened his grip on her.

Ike had meant it when he said he would return to the swamp, because his ancestors were hags and ogres. Edna shivered; he’d hidden it from her, hadn’t trusted her enough with the secret of his heritage.

“When the humans rebelled against the hags, the leading families became nobility,” Ike said. “Same went for the hags. Those who’d fought back the hardest, even though they lost, kept themselves in high esteem. My mother was one of those decendants.”

“She was a princess?”

Ike’s mother twirled like a dancer. Edna had never seen a hag as beautiful and graceful. Her love for Ike’s father must’ve made her pure.

If Ike could give Edna this image, what else could he do?

“Hags don’t have royalty. It’s an unspoken hierarchy,” he said. “She was supposed to mate with a human lord and spread her bloodline through those high ranks. The hags want everyone to have a bit of their blood so eventually everyone will be part hag or ogre. Humans won’t exist.” He blew a breath through his lips. “My mother was supposed to return to the swamp after she had me, but my parents fell in love.”

In Edna’s mind, a man ran to Ike’s mother and caught the woman around the waist. His brown hair brushed his shoulders, and he wore a white silk blouse with gold cufflinks. He lifted her, then spun in a circle, and she laughed, twining her arms around his neck. He looked like Ike, with the same strong nose and broad forehead.

A part of him looked familiar, too, as though she’d seen a painting of him somewhere.

“She married a human.” Edna’s heart melted at the loving gazes Ike’s parents swapped. She’d never been touched by magic before, but it felt warm, comfortable, as though their affection made it wonderful. Even though his mum was a hag, Edna sensed no evil. Yet it felt familiar, akin to whatever dwelt within her.

Ike sighed. “They couldn’t marry. There’s been a lot of illegitimate children born of humans and hags. The parents can’t wed. It’s against the laws of both races.”

Tears pricked Edna’s closed eyes. “What happened to them?”

“My mother moved in with my father in Flynt City for a while, but humans shunned her—and me. I was nine when we returned to the swamp.”

“Your mother moved here to the Nix? No wonder you’d acted as though you knew the creatures already.”

“After we got to the swamp, she discovered the hags were planning a revolt. They’d found a way to mix magic with machines and could fight back against the humans. That’s when they invented the coglings.”

Edna gasped, but the vision changed, Ike keeping her focused on the love his parents shared. Slowly, deliberately, he softened her heart toward the hag in the vision. The other hags, however, had kidnapped Harrison and replaced him with one of those
things
. Ike had known what he spoke about when he’d explained the watch to her in Moser City.

Ike’s mother bent to lift something off the ground and cradle it against her chest. She tipped her head, her smile that of a new mother. The tenderness choked Edna; Ike’s mother had adored him with a genuine love. Edna had never thoughts hags capable of such affection, of such humanistic feelings.

Ike squeezed her hand. “The hags went after the Nix because they helped her. My mother fled here, and she staged her own revolt against the hags. The Nix tore apart the coglings before the hags could finish building.”

“That’s why she lived here,” Edna murmured. “Why the Nix built her a statue.” She’d once hated all hags, but she couldn’t bring herself to loathe the graceful lady who’d mothered Ike.

“It’s also where she died. One of the hags slipped her an enchanted scarf. It suffocated her.”

Edna shivered. She and Ike wanted revenge for what hags had done to their families. He was more on her side than she’d thought. “How’d you end up in Moser City?”

“I figured hags wouldn’t look for an orphaned thief. They’d expect me to use magic to better myself. The only hags who leave the swamp are the ones who get to work for humans, giving out potions and herbs. It’s a brutal life, always being looked down upon as inferior even though you’re helping the
better
race.”

The image of Ike’s parents faded from Edna’s mind. She opened her eyes to blink in the rush of sunlight. Tears glistened in Ike’s eyes and he turned his head away.

She reached out for him, but dropped her hand. “What would the hags do to you?” That must’ve been what he meant when he said the police wouldn’t let him go. The hags probably had a warrant out for him.

“Kill me like they did my mother.” Ike scowled.

“I’m so sorry you have to live like that.”

Ike winced. “Back when you said you’d been shot with the arrow? You were. The Nix warrior thought we were threats.”

Blood drained from her head. He’d let her believe she’d imagined it. “I knew it wasn’t fantasy. It went through me?”

“If you’d been dying, I couldn’t have saved you even with magic. I stopped the arrow as it pierced your chest.”

Edna pulled her hand free of his and rubbed her forehead. “Without your hag blood, I’d be dead?”

Ike licked his lips. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but I thought if you knew I had magic, you wouldn’t trust me.”

“I’m not even sure if I can trust you now.” She sounded ungrateful, especially after he’d admitted to saving her. She might not hate him, but he was a thief and a liar. “You kept your heritage hidden. What else didn’t you tell me?”

“Have you told me everything?”

Edna wound a curl around her finger and nodded. The evil didn’t count. “What about that hag you took me to in the city? What was her name, Hilda?”

“Hilda’s my cousin,” Ike said. “She was the only hag to not shun Mother and me when we lived in the swamp, but she’d moved to the city a year before the revolt. That’s why I chose your city. I knew she was there and I knew she’d help me, without raising the call of where I was. I’m here to help you save your brother, but I’ll understand if you don’t want me around.”

Edna stared at Silver in her lap. The dragon had curled into a ball while she experienced the vision, and now he slept, his scaly chest rising and falling, as peaceful and harmless as a cat. A cat with scales.

“Do I have a choice?” She couldn’t bring herself to look at Ike, knowing if she did, she’d see magic in his eyes, and she didn’t trust herself not to overreact. It didn’t matter if he was half-hag, so long as he helped.

He was right—she did keep a secret of her own. If it helped save Harrison, she would tell Ike about the evil. If not, it deserved to stay buried.

Ike drew a deep breath. “When I saw the pocket watch of yours, I didn’t just want to help you save your brother. I knew I had to come back and see what the hags were up to.”

“Because they’re building coglings and trapping kids?” Ice coated her voice. “Once we save Harrison, we must go tell the king. This can’t go on, and it can’t happen again. This is his kingdom. He has to fix it.”

Ike flicked a spider off his knee. “You’re right. If they’re building coglings again, I’m worried they’re planning a new revolt.”

The house of seasons, here we are.

dna gasped. “They can’t revolt! This goes beyond kidnapping children to work in factories. If more people are replaced, it might be hard to tell cogling from human, especially if most of the coglings work better than the one meant to pose as Harrison. The king must be told!” She paced the ground, leaves crunching beneath her feet.

Ike walked along the path until he stopped beside his mother’s statue to touch her bronze hand. “I’m sorry, Edna.”

Her world spun. “Sorry for what, Ike? Did you help a hag replace Harrison?” She chewed on her fingernail, dreading the answer.

“Sorry for not just wanting to help you save your brother.”

Sighing, Edna stroked Silver. “We’ll stop the hags together.” She pictured Harrison crying for her, lying in a cold cell, tears drenching his bruised cheeks, wondering why his family didn’t come. “You’re still helping me, and if there’s anything I can do to help you, I will. I mean it, Ike…”

“We’ll study the factory first.” Ike started away from the statue.

“Don’t you know the layout already?” Her legs shook when she followed him.

“Things change. We’ll have to leave Silver here and get him on the way back.”