Cogling (46 page)

“Mother Sambucus looked for you,” the hag said to Ike. “You killed the ogres. That was very naughty.” She tsked.

Edna wrinkled her nose. “Harrison is more mature than this flighty hag.”

“Mother Sambucus tried to put me in a cage,” Ike countered. “That was very bad.”

Edna stifled her giggle at his mockery.

The hag pursed her lips. “You and the human girl must return to Mother Sambucus.”

“Just what we had in mind.” Ike flashed his teeth in a smile.

Mother Sambucus might know what they’d done, but they could still be in control. Edna gulped, her mouth dry. If only she could be as smooth and confident as Ike. Her resolve slipped away as sweat beaded on her skin. Before Harrison’s kidnapping, she wouldn’t have imagined facing a palace filled with furious hags.

They followed the hag through winding hallways, Edna’s heart racing faster with every step they took. Heels echoed off the polished floors. From doorways and window seats emerged other hags. They didn’t speak, but they stared down their noses at Edna and Ike.

She’d pictured hags to be like the healers in her city—they wore dark, dowdy clothes and carried baskets. Since humans were above them in the caste system, they had to serve. These hags, young and old, wore elaborate outfits that even Lady Rachel would have been envious of. Edna realized the hags had chosen their best for their rebellion.

“Have the hags ever tried to talk to the humans about how they feel?” Edna asked Ike, loud enough for the crowd to hear. They might not answer if she asked directly.

“I don’t know.” The question hung around him.

An elderly hag spoke up. “What good is it to talk to humans? They don’t listen, don’t care about nothin’ but themselves and their pockets.”

“There will always be an answer for everything.” Ike settled his hand on the back of Edna’s neck to steer her forward. They entered the throne room, where dazed nobles still hung from the ceiling in their cages. Edna shivered, imagining they were porcelain dolls.

Mother Sambucus sat on the gilded throne with its high back, her hands clasped in her lap. With her head bowed, she resembled one of the elderly women who lived in Edna’s tenement, the kind who knitted or looked after children. It seemed forever ago when Edna met the hag in Waxman Manor. If she’d known what Mother Sambucus intended, she would’ve stuck one of Rachel’s hatpins through the hag’s heart.

“Ike, why won’t you join us?” Mother Sambucus mocked. “Do you hate us that much?”

“Yes.” Ike drew the childhood sword hanging at his waist. It was small, but Edna had helped him sharpen the blade in his bedroom.

“Is it because of your mother?” Mother Sambucus lifted her hands over her heart. “You’re the reason she’s dead.”

Ike swept the sword at the crowd. “This is about more than that, though. You cannot ruin humanity for your own gain.”

“That’s what they did to us.” Mother Sambucus sniffed. “You’ll come to my terms. Your mother did.”

Ike’s nostrils flared. “She never switched to your side.”

Mother Sambucus waved at a side door. The gathered hags parted to admit a woman garbed in a white robe.

Edna gasped. “That’s the insane hag who gave me the cameo.”

Ike’s lips parted and he choked on a gasp. “
Mother
?”

Edna whipped her head around. “She can’t be your mother. You said she was dead! Mother Sambucus is playing a trick on us.”

Ike stumbled toward the woman. “I saw you die.”

“When it rains.” His mother lifted her hands overhead and twirled. Her robe billowed around her stick-thin legs. Beneath it she wore a white skirt with layers of frills. “Rain and sunlight. Protection from evil.”

Edna clutched the cameo. If she really was his mother… “You gave me this because you knew I’d be with Ike?” He was the son she’d mentioned.

Ike sheathed his sword to grab his mother as tears dripped down his cheeks. “The Nix buried you.”

“Always go, always live,” she chortled. Edna’s heart broke as Ike’s face fell. Still clutching her, he whirled on Mother Sambucus.

“What did you do to her?”

“We found a human who looked like her. Mutilated the body and left it for the Nix to find.” Mother Sambucus drummed her fingers against her knee. “We erased her memory. She kept her powers, but she remained on our side.”

Edna pressed her hand to her forehead to still the rising nausea. “You tortured Ike. He suffered thinking she was dead. You filthy, conniving hags!”

“Boy.” His mother swayed against him.

“Her basic instincts remain,” Mother Sambucus amended.

“We’ll do that with you too, lad,” a hag said from the crowd. “You won’t remember, so you won’t be angry. It’ll work.”

“Cease.” Mother Sambucus snapped her fingers at Edna. Coils of air clamped around her ankles. She gasped, writhing against the invisible bonds. Her heartbeat echoed so loudly in her ears, she barely heard the hags backing away from her.

“If you can’t remember Miss Mather, you won’t care when she dies.” Mother Sambucus smiled at Ike.

Ike pushed his mother behind him as he drew his sword. “Your fight’s with me.”

“Miss Mather ruined my factories.” Darkness crept over the hag’s silver eyes. “That cannot be tolerated. Now she will experience what it feels like to have her heart ripped out.”

Edna swung her gaze from Mother Sambucus to Ike. They’d known the Dark Mother would try to rebel, but to have Edna’s heart ripped out… Dizziness gnawed at her consciousness and she fought it down. She couldn’t crumble; too late to escape or back down. If Ike could stand tall, she could too.
The Saints have mercy on me, I have to stay brave.

Edna met Ike’s mother’s stare. The hag didn’t flinch, nor did her face swim with innocent madness. Instead the hag pursed her lips and nodded.

Edna brushed her fingertip against the cameo. Fire sizzled against her skin and the magic soared from her heart to fill her body. Her glove smelled of burning lace, but it stayed intact. The coils around her ankles thinned.

“What’s that?” Mother Sambucus hissed. “A hag’s cameo? Guards, take it off her. Bring it to me.”

“Everything burn,” Edna said. “Burn to the ground.” Just like in the ancient lullaby. “
Flames and smoke all leaping high, upon which we all might die.”

Flames leapt out from her skin, spreading across the floor in strips to the doorway. The hallway crackled as the fire consumed it. The hags in the hallway screamed as they burst into sparks. The heat beat against Edna, drawing perspiration to her skin. The magic beat harder from her heart and, with a breath, Edna released the hold over it to allow it full reign.

Over the fire’s roar and the panicked cries, Ike’s mother echoed Edna, “Burn to the ground.”

You say you see I am wicked.

he fire continued to roar in the hallway as Edna stroked her cameo. The faster she moved her fingertip, the more the flames devoured the walls and floor, and the heat lessened against her as the magic shielded her from its force. She told herself to remain standing tall. “I won’t back down, I won’t waver.” The magic flowed from her, a sense of peace settling over her mind as if she’d truly acknowledged herself.

“Simone, stop her!” Mother Sambucus waved her hands. Air brushed Edna’s cheeks, but the cameo glowed, forcing away the hag’s magic. Edna’s lungs tightened as she fought for breath. No matter what Mother Sambucus did, Edna couldn’t surrender.

She had to keep fighting.

Ike’s mother laughed, clapping. “Burn forever!”

A hag, the one called Simone, lunged toward Edna, but the cameo enveloped Edna in its light. Simone screamed as the glow consumed her hands. Her skin shriveled into ashes until all that remained were singed stubs on her arms. Simone had never bettered the world through living, but maybe it would be purer without her.

Another hag leapt toward Edna with a curved dagger. Ike bounded into her path and swung his sword, decapitating the older woman. Blood splattered against their faces in hot bursts of scarlet, making Edna’s stomach clench. Her rubbing faltered and the flames dimmed. Breathless, she resumed, faster than before.

Ike flicked his sword to dislodge blood from the blade.

Mother Sambucus rose from the throne. “I have more followers scattered throughout the country. You cannot burn us all. My hags will avenge those who fell, and they’ll fight harder.”

Ike lunged toward another attacking hag. She opened her mouth in a shriek, black cloak flapping around her like bat wings. Ike drove his sword through the hag’s heart without flinching. Her death cry echoed through Edna’s head.

Mother Sambucus raised her fists. “The hags hate the way we’re suppressed by the humans just as much as I do. You defend the wrong side.”

“Then I’ll talk to my father. I’ll put an end to it.” Ike paused as an ogre charged him. Ike pivoted on his heels to bring his sword against the ogre’s club.

Mother Sambucus laughed. Edna rubbed her cameo with shaking hands. Flames beat throughout the castle. When the fire entered the throne room, she would die with the hags.

Hilda held out her arms to block a maid’s path to the palace. “You cannot enter.”

“Move,” the maid snapped.

“The palace is on fire.” Hilda glanced across the crowd to where Harrison tried to block the King from view.

“It’s not—” the maid began, when a loud
crack
sounded from the palace. Glass shot out from a downstairs window and flames licked up the brick wall. “Saints!”

From the crowd of servants and nobles came a high-pitched squeal. Most of the people pressed their hands over their ears, crying out in pain, but others stood stiff as boards. The squeal ceased, but those who’d suffered from the sound looked around with frowns, and those who had remained straight lifted their right hands in a salute to the sky. Rachel’s stomach churned.

The stiff servants, guards, and nobles had to be coglings. They had been activated.

“What’s going on?” a cook asked.

“Yow.” A rapier jutted through the chest of a servant nearby. He gurgled, stiffening. The nobleman cogling who’d slain him stepped back with a flourish and sheathed his weapon in the leather scabbard hanging from his bejeweled belt.

Hilda gulped, but planted her legs hip’s width apart.