Cogling (26 page)

Ike ran on to find the children. He would have to jolt them from their enchanted stupor and convince them to leave, unless the fire had already done that. By breaking the hags’ concentration, maybe the children had been freed.

When he burst into the machinery room, children fled through the broken doors into the swamp. The machines they’d been weaving blankets on burned and the children coughed. Above, something cracked. Smoke seared his sinuses and choked his lungs.

Ike blinked to clear his eyes. “Which one of you is Harrison?” The dirty children all looked the same: gaunt and unkempt.

A girl, not much older than five, limped past him. Tears streaked the soot on her thin cheeks. “Where’s my kitty?”

Ike scooped her up and fled with the rest. He had to hold her with one arm, her body resting against his side, so he could grasp the cogling box. He would have to locate Harrison outside.

“May the moon have mercy.” He didn’t know what Edna’s brother looked like. Ike could have cursed himself.

“All the buildings are burning,” a hag shouted from the back of the room.

As Ike reached the door, three Confident soldiers dashed inside. Water swirled in conjured balls around their hands and they threw the balls at the fires. Water splashed and sizzled around them, smoke thickening in the air. The child whimpered in his arms.

If he’d agreed to join the ranks of Confidents years ago, when they recruited children, he could have been one of the firefighters. Now he was only a thief. His heart aching, he ran to the front door.

When he entered the murky daylight, he slid to a stop before the captain of the Confidents. The man stood straight, his hands hanging limp at his waist. Water spiraled around him. He shifted, and the droplets coalesced into balls in his palms. More water sucked from the swamp around him to float in the air surrounding the Confidents.

The captain inclined his head. Ike held the little girl closer. Hags blurred by him, intermingling with the children dashibg toward the forest. He didn’t care how much the buildings burned, or if the hags burned with the grounds, but his heart skipped a beat when he realized the children would have nowhere to go in the forest. Some would suffer. Others would be brought back to slavery, to whatever remained of the factory and outbuildings.

Ike shoved the final thought aside and nodded to the captain. The child bounced against him while he ran for the cover of the swamp. She weighed no more than a stale loaf of bread.

Edna waited at the entrance to the clearing, where hags struggled through mud and sparks. Children moved by with glassy eyes, dazed expressions on their scrawny faces, soiled rags clothing their bodies. She grabbed a little boy’s arm. His mouth opened in a silent scream. No, the nose was too long to be Harrison’s. Her heart thudded. It should’ve been him. She released the child and grabbed the next. No, a little girl this time, with a scar on her chin. A sob rose in Edna’s throat.

“Harrison, where are you?”

An upstairs window in the factory exploded. Flames licked the bricks, creeping along the wooden windowsill. Hags shrieked, but the fire’s roar muted them.

“Burn,” Edna whispered. If she could have torn the buildings apart herself, she would have.

A child stumbled into her hip. Edna knew he was too short to be Harrison, but she grabbed his cheeks and tipped his face just in case. No. Too round to be her brother.

“Please, Saints, get all the children and foxkins out.” The foxkins chose to go in, but the children were innocent captives.

“Harrison!” Edna shrieked. “Harrison Mather!” She seized another boy and pulled him around. Beneath his filth, the child’s red hair shone with gray streaks. Tears stung her eyes while she stumbled away from the child. “Saints help us, he has to appear.”

“Edna!” Ike’s voice rang through the swamp. She turned, and Ike’s arm squeezed her so tight she gasped. A hard object beneath his coat jabbed her ribs.

She clung to his neck, breathing in the scent of him. “You’re safe.”

“We’re both fine, luv,” he whispered into her hair.

Yes, both of them were well, but…

Edna jerked away. “I have to find Harrison…” She grabbed another child. A girl with long gray hair. Again, not Harrison. The evil bit stronger at her fingertips.

“Harrison!” Ike’s voice boomed through the night. “Harrison Mather?”

The children didn’t look at them, fleeing for the swamp with mouths agape. More windows exploded, and something crashed as the factory caved in. Reaching for another child, Edna stumbled over a rock and crashed into a tree. She gritted her teeth against the pain flashing through her side, as if needles stabbed her nerves.

“Edna?”

A boy stood behind her, soot streaking his gaunt face and nightgown. Through the grit, his eyes shone. They weren’t as clear as she remembered, more gray than hazel, but the emotion behind them, the depth, made her squeal.

Edna yanked Harrison against her. The evil fled back to her heart at the contact.

“Harry-boy!” Tears burned paths down her cheeks. His bones stabbed her; so frail, as if he were a skeleton dressed in rags. He lifted his hands and patted her shoulders. She rubbed her knuckles across his chin to scrape his dirt onto her gloves.

A ball of light struck a tree above their heads. Edna pushed Harrison behind her to shield him. An ogre stood at the entrance of the swamp wearing only a kilt. Glowing symbols covered the rest of his thick body. Water swirled around his hands, and a ball of it shot off to strike the tree by them again. He bared his teeth and snarled.

“You won’t fell me now, not when I’ve got Harrison.”

Ike grabbed her arm. “Run!”

“Go,” the ogre growled. “Do not return.”

Was he like the hag in white who’d helped them escape the mansion? Having no time to ponder this question, she turned and ran.

Ike pushed Edna faster. She dragged Harrison at her side, other children and foxkins fleeing from the crackling buildings.

Edna gasped. “Is he going to come after us?”

“No. Keep running,” he panted. “Everyone needs to keep going.”

“Who was that?”

“Captain of the Confidents.” Ike pushed a vine aside. Their feet sloshed through the moist ground.

“Why would he not come after us?” She squeezed Harrison’s hand tighter.

“He wants us to escape.”

“Why?” Edna glanced at the foxkins and children following them. She would have to send a foxkin deeper into the swamp to fetch Rachel and the foxkins who’d been too weak to attack.

“He’s my grandfather.”

Come my pets, all dragons worthy.

dna sat on the edge of the Nix bed, which consisted of large leaves spread over smaller ones. Rachel rested alone in another cottage. The Nix had offered Edna her own bed, but she’d chosen to stay with her brother. Harrison leaned against her with his head in her lap. He snored, his chest rising and falling with each rattling breath.

She smoothed the dirty brown hair away from his face, strands sticking in her lace gloves. Magic sparkled along his graying skin. She rubbed his ear, but the silver residue didn’t fade. “What’ve they done to you?”

Harrison’s sleepy legs jerked so hard he kicked the wall. “Go away!”

Edna’s heart pounded, making her head light and her hands chilled. Her throat ached when she swallowed. “Harrison, wake up.” Edna shook him. “You’re safe.”

Her brother twisted away and panted, blinking. She stroked her fingers across his cheeks to calm him. “I’m not gonna let the hags at you again. I promise.”

The curtain of braided grasses parted across the doorway and Strossa entered carrying a bowl. Her hooves scraped the dirt. “I brought food for Rachel, and here’s some for the tyke.”

“Who are you?” Harrison backed away from the Nix until his back hit the wall. Edna enfolded him in her arms, wishing he felt thicker. He’d always been so solid before. Real.

“She’s a friend,” Edna reminded him.

“I don’t wanna stay here.” He turned his face against her shoulder. “Where’re Mum and Papa?”

“They’re waiting for us at home. They want you to be well.” She pictured their mother in her dancing dress and their father in his denim overalls, both crying as they welcomed them home. They would call her magnificent.

Strossa held up the bowl. “Swamp spinach stew. Good for the boy.”

Swamp spinach sounded gross, but maybe it would taste as good as the moss. Edna held out her hand. “Thank you.”

Harrison pressed against her and whimpered when the Nix drew near, but as soon as she left, he leaned away. Tears streaked his face, which she’d done her best to clean, but grime still coated his skin.

“We’re really going home?” he asked.

“We are.” Edna smiled for his account as she slid her finger through the thick, green mixture. “Here you go. I’m sure it tastes much better than it looks.”

Harrison paused before he opened his mouth to be fed from her fingers.

“When you were little, I used to feed you to help our parents. Sometimes you’d wrinkle your nose and clamp your mouth shut, or you’d spit the food back up. How does it taste?” The aroma lifting from the bowl reminded her of garlic more than spinach.

“I don’t taste anything.” His cheeks reddened. “The hags gave us leaves to chew. They killed our taste buds and made us never hungry. Or thirsty.”

Edna stiffened. “I’ll find a way to fix that. I’ll destroy those ogres all over again.”

“They’re gone. You burned them.”

Ike entered the room. “Some survived.”

“What?” Harrison blanched.

“I need to talk to you.” Ike touched Edna’s shoulder. “Elsewhere.”

“My brother needs me. I can’t leave him fretting here.” She did need to listen to Ike, though. He was still the guide who’d gotten her to the swamps, to Harrison. Edna pressed the bowl into her brother’s hands. “I’ll be back. I promise.” She rose to follow Ike, her heart aching for her brother.

Once outside the cottage, Ike kissed her cheek.

She blinked up at him. “What was that for?” Her heart flip-flopped—a strange sensation. They were partners against the hags, not special friends. Were they even friends? Yes, if someone asked, she would say they were.

He stepped back, his cheeks flushed. “I’m glad you’re safe. You got your brother back.”