Cogling (27 page)

“I couldn’t have gotten him without you.” Her broad smile stung her lips. “My world would’ve crumbled if I hadn’t saved Harrison. You led me along that path of salvation.”

“The Nix are looking after the other children. They can’t stay here, but we can find them homes once they’re better.”

She sighed. “They’ll reunite with their families. I was worrying—”

“The hags will find more children. They’ll make more coglings. Perhaps some hags died, but not enough. The hags are sick of being second. They
will
rebel.” Ike closed his eyes. “I’m going back with you to the city to get Hilda.”

Edna shivered. “Dragging more hags into the situation can’t fix things. What can she do?”

“Help me plan.” Ike ran his fingers through his hair. “I have to do something.”

“I want to help.”

He turned away. “You’re not a hag. There’s nothing you can do.”

Edna winced. “I just enlisted a bunch of foxkins to burn down the factory. How can you tell me there’s nothing I can do?”

“Go to Harrison. Right now, he needs you.”

Edna reached for Ike, placing her hand on his arm. “I’m here. Let me help. We can go to King Elias, with or without Hilda. He’ll terminate the evil hags and imprison the rest. Their freedom is over. They won’t hurt anyone again.”

Ike’s nose burned and his eyes were wet. What if he couldn’t stop the hags and everything his mother once tried for became naught?

“Are you Ike?” a male Nix asked.

He turned to the warrior imp approaching. “I am.” He clenched his fists to keep the doubts away.

“I have a note.” The imp held out a metal blimp the size of Ike’s hand with a paper attached to the bottom.

“Thanks.” Ike bowed his head as he accepted it, but his heart thudded. Only hags used miniature steam blimps to carry messages.

His fingers shook while he unfolded the letter. His heart raced even faster as he read, then reread, skimming the introduction to the central paragraph.

His grandfather requested a meeting for the next morning.

Ike stood beneath a weeping willow, using its coverage to shadow his body. The changeling pool shimmered in front of him. A hag, long ago, had cast a spell over the rainbow-colored waters to give them power. Whenever the pool’s water was placed in a hag’s machine, the contraption would become more lifelike.

Scowling, Ike kicked a stone into the pool. Rainbow ripples spread across the surface. Perhaps if the water had never been spelled, the hags wouldn’t have so many coglings. Perhaps humans would recognize they weren’t real.

Perhaps he would still be living with his parents rather than plotting the downfall of hags.

“Ike?”

He twisted at the sound of his grandfather’s voice. The ogre entered the shade of the willow tree dressed in his Confident uniform of silver skirt and arrow tattoos. His thick, wrinkled body made Ike thankful for his father’s human blood. Then he winced. His grandfather couldn’t help his appearance.
I’ve spent too much time amongst humans.

Ike bowed his head. Aside from their brief interaction yesterday, he hadn’t seen his grandfather since his mother took him to the Nix. Ike wanted to reprimand the ogre for not seeking him out, for not taking care of his mother, but the words shriveled on his tongue. His grandfather would’ve done anything for Ike’s mother, yet even he hadn’t been able to stop her death.

“I feared you wouldn’t come.” His grandfather nodded.

“I sent you a reply,” Ike snapped. “Since when do you care what I do?” The anger came so easily he winced again. As a child he’d adored his grandfather, consumed every word the ogre spoke.

“I’ve always cared about you. You’re my only grandchild. Family—”

“Family?” Ike snorted. “You let my mother die. You didn’t stand with us.”

“I’m the Captain of the Confidents.” His grandfather thrust his wide chest out, reminding Ike of a proud peacock. “My first duty lies with the hags.”

Yet he’d let Ike and Edna and the children escape. “Then don’t tell me you care about family!” Ike stormed past his grandfather, heading for the swamp. The Confidents had taken his mother down, and even if his grandfather hadn’t attacked with them, he symbolized their worth. He’d taught them how to destroy his own daughter. Bile rose in Ike’s throat, gagging him with its sourness.

“I wasn’t going to,” the Captain interrupted. “I was only going to remind you of something. You’re only half-hag. Don’t turn your back on your father.”

Ike pictured his father, the human who’d taught him to ride a horse, but never came after him and his mother when they left. “My father doesn’t care.” He could’ve stood at her side as well. Instead there’d been only Ike, too young to help.

“But do you care about him?” His grandfather’s bushy eyebrows furrowed.

Ike removed a knife from his pocket. He pushed the button on the ivory handle to make the blade pop out. “I’m not a child. You taught me how to take care of myself and my mother taught me how to fight. My father taught me honor.”
Even if he left me.
Ike tossed the blade in the air and caught it. He wasn’t a helpless child anymore, raised in elegance.

“If you’d been a full-blooded hag, you would’ve been an ogre. You could’ve followed in my footsteps and led the Confidents once I pass away. Your human blood kept you from that path. Now I ask you, my boy, and I want you to answer honestly: why did you return?”

Ike tossed his knife again. The blade flashed in the light. “Question for question?”

The ogre grinned, showing his broad teeth. “Yes, we can play that way.”

“I came back because I recognized a cogling.”

His grandfather flinched. “How?”

Ike tossed the blade hard enough to make it spin twice before he caught it. “You put those watches on the coglings to make them run. I saw the watch on Edna’s little brother.”

“Edna,” his grandfather mused. “The girl who burned our factories. What did you think you’d accomplish by coming here?”

“To finish what my mother started. The hags and ogres won’t control humanity. I won’t let you hurt the humans. My turn for a question. Why did you let me escape?”

“Because you’re right.” His grandfather held up his massive hand. “You know how to fight. You have honor. Who am I to keep you in a cage?”

Ike frowned. “Then what do you want?” Hadn’t his grandfather come to drag him back amongst the magic folks?

“I want you to run. Go far away and live where you’re safe. When the hags find you, they’ll blanket your mind. You’ll never be able to think straight. That’s not the future you deserve.”

“I can’t let the hags enslave the humans.” His grandfather could never understand. He’d lived his life with hags and ogres and only dealt with humans once, when he’d visited Ike and his mother. Ike had been three, but he would never forget the way his grandfather had glared at his father, both men refusing to speak in the other’s presence.

“It’s not your place to tell them what not to do.” His grandfather lifted his Confident skirt four inches to reveal a leather pouch strapped to his thigh. He unhooked it and held it out to his grandson. “There’s enough money here to take you wherever you desire. Go where you’re safe.”

Ike dropped the pouch into his coat pocket. “Thank you, but I can’t leave.” The money could prove worthwhile though, just as the ogre intended.

I have your blood as well as my father’s. We never back down.

With his face expressionless, the ogre walked past Ike.

“Wait,” Ike called. His heartbeat quickened. “Why did you mention my father? Did he come for me?” Ike’s mother had sent a message to his father the first time the hags plotted their attack. His father had replied the humans were stronger. Hags were no threat.

Had he learned of her death? Had he finally arrived to reclaim his son?

The ogre shook his head, nostrils flared. “The hags plan to strike him next.”

Ike stared at Edna where she curled around her little brother. She held one of his hands, her kinky brown curls brushing his neck. Tears shimmered on her cheeks as she watched him sleep.

When Ike and his mother had first lived with the Nix, they’d slept like that. He’d never felt so safe as when his mother brought him close, promising to protect him from the world. He’d been a child then. Now at seventeen years old, he couldn’t long for safety.

“The Nix are getting us an automated coach,” he said.

“Those’re expensive.” She wiped drool from the corners of her brother’s lips. “We don’t have money left.”

“The Nix are going to steal one.”

She stood, but her legs quaked. Ike cupped her elbow.

“Edna?” Harrison grabbed the hem of her skirt.

“Go get Rachel.” She smiled. “We’re going home. Then we’ll go to Flynt City to convince King Elias the hags are using coglings to stage a revolt.”

Will you help me, I ask of thee?

dna clutched Harrison’s hand as they hurried through the swamp. “I love the cottages and seeing the kingdom, but once we get home, we’re never leaving Moser City again.”