Cogling (20 page)

“No.” Edna squeezed Silver so hard the dragon squeaked.

Ike threw a glance over his shoulder. “I thought you didn’t like him.”

“I….” Edna didn’t want to admit Silver made her feel safe when she held him. “The Nix might hurt him.”

“They won’t, and they’ll be able to feed him.”

Edna gazed around the misty surroundings. “Days ago, I never thought I’d ever come to the swamp. This should be a dream.”

Muck sucked on the thick soles of Edna’s boots. Breath hitched in her throat. The factory loomed through trees draped with vines, a reddish splotch amongst greens and browns. Her arms missed holding Silver and her muscles twitched, so she stroked her prayer beads.
Saints protect us.
She needed to do something other than hide, yet fear kept her from dashing into the building. She might ruin their plan.

The swamp mist around them congealed into shapes, as it had done for her onboard the blimp. A blackened ship with midnight sails soared through a gray sky. A man stood at the helm wearing a white blouse with a red jerkin, the edges trimmed in yellow silk. A hag in a black robe leaned against him, her hair as dark as the garment, and her skin so white Edna could see the veins beneath it. The man lowered his head to kiss her lips as the mist scattered, ruining the image.

Ike removed two scarlet items from an inner pocket in his coat—knit headbands with a green stone in the center—and handed one to Edna. “This will disguise you from the hags.”

“You mean it’s enchanted?” Edna dropped the headband as if it scalded her. The perfect life would be one without magic.

Scowling, Ike picked the headband up, then wiped it on his coat. “We can’t walk in there like this, so put the headband on. It’ll disguise us. These used to be my mother’s. The Nix still have her trunks.”

Edna’s stomach clenched. “Hag goods. Is Harrison forced to make these?”

He lowered his gaze. “Maybe.”

No matter how her belly churned, she had to do this for her brother. She placed the band around her forehead. The tight material pinched her skin. She waited for a spark, but only the pressure beat against her veins.

Ike put on his headband and twisted the stone in the center. His face shimmered.

Edna blinked, her mouth drying. The young man across from her wasn’t Ike anymore. Unlike her friend, her new companion was a man of at least twenty years, with a brown face and long white hair. He wore a leather jerkin and fringed pants tucked into the tops of worn-out knee boots.

“It’s still me.” The voice sounded gruffer than Ike’s. “I’ll be a hunter, and you can be my younger brother.”

Edna tore her gaze away from him. “We shouldn’t complicate the mission. Sneak in, grab Harrison, go to the King.”

“Hags hire hunters to eliminate the creatures they hate, so they like it when hunters pluck off a few Nix.” Ike twisted the jewel in her headband and a jolt sizzled through her nerves.

“Ouch!” She lifted her hand to pull off the headband, and noticed her skin had hair on it. Her fingers had thickened, the nails broader, although still broken. Instead of her dress, she wore a beige tunic. Edna slapped her hand to her waist to find the watch. Rather than feeling the wide leather belt around her shirt, she felt her sash. She sighed in relief when she located the watch.

“It’s an illusion.” Ike grinned. “The hags created the jewel from nature and wishes. It sends a frequency that disrupts the viewer’s mind and makes the person think of something else when they look. We stroll inside and act as if we aren’t scared. I’ll do the talking. If you see your brother, pinch me.”

She wrapped her arms around her stomach as it gurgled from nerves. “Then what?”

“We look around the factory, figure out where we are, and leave after we talk to some of the hags.”

Her skin tingled and the evil danced along her arms. “It seems unreal I can be so close to Harrison, yet hags and a factory tower between.” She trembled as she followed Ike toward the building. The damp air tickled her nose and she sneezed.

Ike increased his pace. “I can’t touch you. That would look weird, since we’re both hunters.”

Edna gaped at the factory, counting six floors of barred windows. The brick exterior of the building crawled with moss and vines. Chimneys rose from the roof and smoke coiled into the swamp. Slabs of stone formed a makeshift walkway to the door. It looked more like a factory from Moser City than a hag’s domain. She’d pictured caves.

Edna’s hands had never felt so cold, not even when she wandered through the forest from the gin house. She held them beneath her armpits, shivering, the joints stiff.

Ike rapped his knuckles across the door and stepped back, his face smooth. She envied his composure while her teeth chattered, but remained silent lest she say something to give them away.

A robust woman stepped through the door. Flowers hung from her copper curls and feathers dangled from her mauve kirtle. Edna gaped. Could this woman really be a hag? She looked beautiful, like someone the Music Hall would hire.

“Can I help?” Her blue eyes twinkled, but her lips were held so tight the edges whitened. Edna shrank against Ike. She had to pretend she didn’t know about the coglings, or what went on inside the walls. The hags had to think her innocent. Ike swung his hands into his pockets. “My brother and I are hunters, Mum, and I wondered if you might have some work.”

The hag’s gaze flickered between them before she nodded. “I’ll take you to Mother Sambucus. She handles such affairs.”

“Mother Sambucus lives in Moser City, not the swamp. I saw her at Waxman Estate,” Edna sputtered.

The hag narrowed her eyes. Ike coughed and stepped in front of Edna.

“Aye?” he prompted.

“Hmph.”
The hag sniffed, stepping into the factory. She shut the exit to the swamp behind them. Edna whimpered. Her ears picked up a strange whirring, and she hoped the headband hid her fear.

Before Ike told her about the coglings, she’d never heard about the factory. Maybe the humans didn’t care so long as they got their potions and goodies. She longed to see Harrison running toward her, but instead the hallway, with its blue wainscoting and green edging, contained only dust and bits of sparkling magic.

I’m coming, Harry-boy.

I will walk in through the door.

ne of the last places she’d ever wanted to be: sealed within a hag fortress.

Shrill voices whispered through Edna’s ears, fleeting and urgent. She twisted her head to find their source, but only saw brick walls. Conversations thrummed in languages she didn’t recognize, with only a few terms spoken in the kingdom’s tongue.
Run. Labyrinth. Massacre
.

The voices sounded just like the evil within her.

Ike walked ahead beside the hag who’d opened the door for them. Her shoes clicked against the stone floor, while the boots Ike and Edna wore squished with muck. Gas lamps hung from the ceiling. Dim light reflected off brass sconces in the walls, casting leaping shadows.

Edna wanted to run back to the swamp, to plan and prepare longer, but part of her yearned to charge deeper into the factory, screaming for her brother. She hoped the hags couldn’t sense the watch’s presence, but maybe Harrison could, since the cogling had been linked with his breath.

They passed a doorway. Edna slowed her steps, glancing sideways from beneath her eyelashes.

Towering machines hummed, levers creaked, and gears rattled. Children ran between the equipment. Rags clothed their scrawny bodies, faces red from the exertion and the hot room. Other than their flushed cheeks, the children’s skin appeared gray, their hair limp. Gray, just as Polly had warned. Fear rooted Edna to the floor. One of those children might be Harrison.

A little girl hurried by carrying a wicker basket of golden gears. Edna grabbed the girl’s arm and she looked up without emotion in her gray eyes.

“Do you know a boy named Harrison?” Edna whispered.

Some of the child’s matted gray hair slipped over her shoulder. The tips of the girl’s ears were elongated and the skin over them glistened silver. Somewhere in the kingdom, a mother or father fawned over a cogling, thinking it was their daughter. They fed the cogling, dressed it, put it to bed at night with stories, and the cogling didn’t know to appreciate that life. While here, the true child suffered, mutating into something inhuman. Her family would never know.

Edna gasped, yanking her hand back, and the girl darted into the smoky interior. Edna wiped her trembling hand over her eyes.

Not smoke, but a fine, fluorescent powder floated in the air. She tipped her head back to study the ceiling. Wires crisscrossed, shimmers dancing along their edges, as if the structure caught the floating power.

“Got a problem with your boot?” Ike asked.

“I…” Edna nodded while she ran to catch up. She couldn’t become distracted.

The hag studied her through hooded eyes. “You look frightened.”

Edna drew a deep breath, praying her voice wouldn’t waver. “I… thought I saw something. In the air. Like… dust.” she trailed off as Ike hissed at her.

“Dream residue.” The hag giggled. “Be careful not to breathe too much swamp gas.”

“Why?” Edna jerked away from Ike when he pinched her. Even a hunter could be naturally curious. Edna needed all the information she could gather.

The hag led them around a corner to a stairwell. As she ascended, she called over her shoulder, “You’ll find out if you breathe too much, eh?”

Edna looked to Ike, but he shook his head. Maybe the hag tried to scare them, a joke about the dust. Edna followed him up the narrow steps, hoping they wouldn’t start to change too.

Each brick on the walls and steps appeared faultless, an evenly toned rectangle of reddish-brown. The creamy mortar beneath was smooth. Edna paused to run her finger over the perfection on the wall. Even in the city, nothing looked so grand. Things in the swamp should be grotesque and run-down, smothered by the fumes and mist.

The brick rippled beneath her fingertip and the flawlessness faded into rough, crumbling stone. Huge holes appeared in the mortar. A spider crawled near her hand. Cobwebs clung to the ceiling.

Edna pulled back. Once her fingers left the wall, the perfection returned. Unlike the vision of Ike’s parents, this magic left her with a sour taste, as though she’d bitten into a rotten apple.