Cogling

by Jordan Elizabeth

  “But we’ll take out Mother Sambucus. She’s the head of this.” Edna rubbed his hand. “The humans will be safe. Your father will be safe.”

  “You’ll be safe.” Ike pressed his mouth over hers. The cord bumped her cheek, but Edna didn’t care. She wrapped her arms around his neck to pull him closer.

  Ike eased his lips away. “It’s strange how little everything changed in a few years,” Ike whispered against her forehead. “I always thought I couldn’t go back, but here I am, and almost everything is the same.”

  “Does it hurt?” She leaned her cheek against his arm.

  “No.” He turned to face her. “Hilda will do her job. We can’t help her now. All we can do is listen for her call. Edna, for now, will you be with me?”

  “I am with you.” She traced the dark circles beneath his eyes before she yanked his head down and nipped his lower lip.

  “Hurry, get out!” Hilda grabbed a maid’s arm.

  The startled woman dropped her feather duster. “Why?”

  “The palace is on fire. You must get out now. Make sure everyone else gets out too.” Hilda pushed the woman toward the entrance to the library.

  A hag emerged from behind a bookcase. Hilda recognized her copper hair and tiny nose—they’d gone to boarding school together. “Seven Saints.” At least at boarding school, Hilda had been courteous and studious. Hopefully the hag wouldn’t think her capable of rebellion.

  “Hilda?” The hag frowned. “I didn’t know you were here.”

  “Hello, Simone. Mother Sambucus wants all of the humans out.” Hilda lowered her voice to seem conspiratorial. “Tell them the palace is on fire.”

  “Mother Sambucus,” Simone repeated, her green eyes wide.

  Hilda nodded. “This is of grave importance.”

  Simone wrinkled her nose. “Very grave indeed.”

  Edna leaned against the doorway of Ike’s bedroom. “Your room is so unlike mine. Mine’s always been small and cramped with Harrison’s things.”

  Ike trailed his finger over her neck. As he opened his mouth to speak, the cord on his hat bleeped. “Hello?”

  “All set,” came Hilda’s voice through the cord. “The humans are out and I even got this other girl to help me enchant the room. She believes Mother Sambucus wants it done.” Hilda chuckled.

  “Good job.” Ike glanced at Edna in the doorway.

  “Tell her to wait outside,” Edna whispered. “This is our turn.”

  You say you see fear, but you are mistaken.

  dna stood at the top of the stairs. She straightened her clothes, smoothing wrinkles and jarring dirt. A few stains remained from her journey since leaving Moser City, but she’d removed most of the spots in Ike’s water closet. She could become a graceful young lady again, one who knew her place in the kingdom, one who could control her own fate.

  “This will work.” Ike brushed his hand over her back. Her lips still tingled from his kisses and warmth from his embrace lingered on her skin.

  She tried to smile, but her numb lips wouldn’t turn up. The future loomed too large. Before, it had seemed distant. Now she had to face it. She couldn’t hide in Ike’s old bedroom. Ike pressed his finger to her mouth. “Let us descend on our party.”

  They held hands as they walked down the palace’s grand stairway. She watched him from the corner of her eye, imagining what he had looked like as a young prince. Regal stubbornness shone from the strong set of his jaw. His eyes glittered with confidence and his skin seemed to glow with magic.

  The king’s subjects had treated Ike and his mother with condescension. Hags were less important than humans, even a half-hag who was the king’s son and a hag who was his lover; even a hag like Mother Sambucus, renowned for her healing and blessings. She’d crawled into the palace and created a plague. Once she’d exchanged the king and his nobles for coglings, it must’ve been easy for her to station her hags throughout the palace. His mother had been scorned, but Mother Sambucus had reigned.

  As they neared the bottom of the grand staircase, a hag stepped into view. Yellow ringlets bounced around her face, trapped beneath a wide-brimmed blue hat. She wore a frilly dress of pink silk, a strand of pearls about her neck. If Edna saw the woman on the streets, she would’ve guessed her to be a noblewoman, not a hag, yet a green glow framed her stout body. Edna silently thanked the cameo for helping boost her inner magic, providing her with enchanted sight. The hags wouldn’t make her a fool.

  “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.

  “My coglings will destroy everyone you tried to save.” Mother Sambucus stabbed the air with a ruby-hilted dagger. “I have coglings at the gatehouse. They’ll keep the gates shut until everyone is dead.”

  Ike stepped toward her, swinging his sword to whistle through the air. His hat had slid back from his forehead. “Edna, keep going.”

  Edna shivered as she kept stroking her brooch, concentrating on the fire. Smoke choked her lungs and stung her eyes. Windows burst and wood crackled. Somewhere within the palace, a ceiling caved with a thudding whoosh. The throne room shook. Pictures and crests slid from their hooks to smash the floor. Silver magic bit at her—Mother Sambucus tried to stop her.

  Two ogres struck at Ike with their clubs, but he dodged and swung. One club slashed inches from his head. They grunted and Ike swore. Edna held her breath as a hag threw herself upon Ike’s back. He flung her off and thrust his sword through her heart. The tip of his blade pierced the tile floor, pinning her down.

  “Burn.” The voice next to Edna’s ear made her jump.

  Ike’s mother knelt and wrapped her arms around Edna’s
legs, pressing her cheek against Edna’s thighs.

  “Watch out, the cameo will…” Edna’s warning trailed off. The cameo couldn’t hurt Ike’s mother since she’d made it to help protect her son.

  “This is for what you did to my father.” Ike slashed his sword through an ogre’s pelvis. Edna shut her eyes, but couldn’t block out the sound of a sword slicing through flesh.

  “I’m the King.” A cogling swung a sword. Hilda clenched her hands into fists; the machine resembled King Elias, but the real king stood dazed beside Harrison and Rachel by the fence. This stiff creature was only a machine.

  Hilda pointed at him. “You’re a mess of cogs and gears. You’re not the King any more than I am.” The crowd gaped; some wept, others trembled, and a brave few stood with their fists clenched. “The hags created coglings to deceive you. They want to destroy the humans.”

  The crowd screamed and whispered as the coglings drew their weapons, metal faces expressionless. Hilda staggered against the whir of anxiety booming in her ears. She had to convince the group the coglings weren’t their superiors, or they might not fight back.

  Mother Sambucus started down from the throne. “I’ll dirty my hands with your blood. I’ll drink your sorrow.”

  Ike rolled across the floor beneath the final ogre’s swinging club and his foot splashed through a puddle of blood. As he stood, he pulled a bejeweled dagger from inside his boot.

  Beneath his breath, Ike whispered, “Lethan.” Magic tingled upon his lips, before flying from his mouth to encase the polished metal.

  He threw the dagger with the technique Mother Sambucus had taught him to destroy enemies, and held his breath. His mother would hate to know he’d learned it, but the magic carried it through the air toward his target. Mother Sambucus screamed before it sliced into her throat, and she staggered backwards as it pinned her against the throne. Her own training had returned to terminate her.