Cogling (40 page)

Edna blushed. “I’ve never worn clothes like this before. It makes me feel… noble, almost.” The lacey corset restricted her movements, but she felt grown-up. Over her arms, she wore a brown jacket that ended just below her bosom.

“Turn around.” Rachel held up Hilda’s hairbrush. “I would have let the hags do whatever they wanted with me, but you brought me back, so thank you.”

Edna glanced at the hairbrush. “You’re welcome, but—”

“Silly goose, I’m going to do your hair. You must look nice if you’re going to speak with the King.”

Edna pressed her hand to her lips. “I’ll also do your cosmetics.” Rachel shrugged. “I trudged through a sewer. Making you pretty is far easier.”

Edna pinned her cameo to her collar. “Ah, now that sounds like you.”

Rachel brushed Edna’s hair until it shone. She wove silk ribbons and strands of pearls through Edna’s kinky tresses, then coiled them atop her head into three buns. Edna returned the favor by helping Rachel fix a chignon, with loose curls framing her face. After they lined their eyes with kohl, applied rouge to their lips and cheeks, and powdered their necks, they left the bathroom.

Hilda clapped. “Don’t you look noble.”

Edna smiled at Ike. “Are we ready? Do I look beautiful without filth and terror?”

He rose from the sofa to take her hands in his and twirl her around him. “We will win this.” His gaze never strayed from her lips.

She leaned against him and closed her eyes, resting her head upon his shoulder. He held her for a second before stepping back with a cough. His absence left her skin cold, and the evil crept an inch from her heart. She yearned to pull him back, remind herself that she was free and safe.

“I stole some extra money so we can rent a private train car,” he said. “We’ll also get a coach once we get to the King’s estate.”

“Is the train safe?” Edna frowned. “Last time didn’t go too well with that.”

“A private car is perfectly fine. No one will pay attention to us if we’re alone.” Hilda filled a leather satchel with vials in the kitchen.

Harrison emerged from the bedroom. “Eddie, look at me! I look like I’m somebody.”

“You’ve always been somebody.” She hugged him. The haunted look clung to his features, but he was clean and wearing a crisp black suit, a miniature version of Ike’s.

She smiled at Ike again, over her brother’s head, and Ike opened his coat to reveal a pistol strapped to his waist.

Edna wished she had a weapon too.

You look in my eyes and say you see the true me.

ithin three hours, Ike paid for a private train car to take them to the capital. According to him, Rachel and Harrison were the children of a wealthy businessman. Edna was Rachel’s personal assistant and Ike was their advisor.

She wished Silver could’ve come along too, but Ike and Hilda agreed he was safer locked in her apartment than scaring the King with an unlicensed dragon. Dragons belonged with the police force, not hags and average humans.

The back of their train car contained bunk beds with brocade curtains. The front consisted of two nailed-down tables and two upholstered sofas. Harrison hopped from one to the other, and then threw a tasseled pillow at Edna. She batted it away, but couldn’t smile. The finery could be taken away in a heartbeat, replaced by the cold stone of a jail cell or the dirt of a grave.

“You sure this is safe?” she asked Ike.

He nodded, but didn’t meet her gaze. “Safest way. If we go by hired coach, we’ll be easier targets, since we’d be moving slower. Plus, most people don’t pay attention to businessmen. They don’t have noble blood, just money they made. Nobody will check our names.”

“You ever ride in one of these before?” Harrison threw a pillow at Rachel, and she tossed it back.

“It isn’t proper for ladies to ride in steam trains,” Rachel said.

“Another reason why they won’t look for us here.” Ike carried Hilda’s two satchels to the bunks.

“I never expected to ride in a train, but here I am, doin’ it twice.” Edna whistled. “I feel like somebody new now. Somebody I don’t know.”

“You’re still Eddie,” Harrison said before Rachel hit him with another pillow.

Ike returned from the bunk area to clasp Edna’s hand. “You are different. You saved your brother. All those children left the factories because of you. The Nix are helping them get to the nearest village so they can get home.”

“You helped.” She brushed her fingertips over his chin. Stubble tickled her skin. If she told him about the evil, would he condemn her? Harrison couldn’t find out, but Ike had as much a troubled past as she had within herself.

“I wouldn’t have known about what the hags were doing again if I hadn’t seen your watch.” He patted his torso, where the watch hung around his neck.

“You’ll have your job back after this.” Rachel poked Edna with a corner of a pillow.

“I missed too much time.” Edna pushed the offending cloth aside. “Besides, I ‘kidnapped’ you, remember?”

“But the King will make all that fine.” Rachel sat on the sofa with her pillow clutched to her chest.

“Would you be happy with that?” Ike rested his hand on her shoulder. “Can you go back to being a maid?”

“People will stare and whisper. We’ll stop the hags, but even the King can’t make everyone forget. I won’t be trusted. I’ll find something somewhere else. It might be enough so Harrison won’t have to work anymore.”

“What have you always wanted to be?” Hilda sat on the sofa beside Rachel and crossed her ankles.

“Being a maid was the best thing I could do. We don’t get a lot of options from our status. It’s either factory work or servitude.”

“Or singing,” Harrison added, “like Mum.”

“Right. Or other things.” She pictured the gin addicts begging on the streets. “Begging or whoring.”

“You think I have a choice?” Rachel poked herself in the chest with her finger. “I marry and become a housewife. I’m a good mother and a good widow, or I die young and my husband remarries. That’s my only choice, unless I want to become a spinster and live off my family’s wealth.” She narrowed her eyes. “Like you, I could always become a trollop. If I don’t obey my family, that may be my only course of action.”

“At least as a trollop, you know you’ll always have food.” Edna clenched her hands into fists. “Sometimes when we needed new clothes, we went to bed hungry.”

“And you’d always get medicine,” Harrison added.

“Only if I’m well behaved,” Rachel snapped. “Dishonor means the streets.”

“You were never well behaved.” Edna waved her hand. “What about your snide remarks or the times you spilled something just to make a maid clean the mess?”

Rachel folded her arms, her brow furrowed. “You’re the ones with the chance to be something you want. I was trapped in that house.”

“Cease.” Hilda glided between them. “We are doomed to be born where we are, but we choose where to die. I could have been one of those hags who enslave children. I could have been a famous godmother like Mother Sambucus. The Saints know I have the knowledge. Instead I chose to help the poor.”

Ike snorted. “And remain anonymous.”

Hilda straightened her shoulders. “I attended one of the kingdom’s best boarding schools. I could have done many things.”

“So could I,” Ike said. “Instead I’m here helping others.” He glanced at Edna. “Be anything you want. You saved your brother. Always remember that.”

Her heart leapt. “I did the impossible and rescued my human brother from the hags. Ike, you’re right. I can do anything.”

She really wanted to kiss him again. Even if he was half-hag and lived on the streets, she didn’t care; after they finished with the King, she didn’t want to split ways.

The train’s steam whistle blew twice. They stood still and silent until the train chugged forward, taking them from home again, away from prison, toward a place where they might be killed. Edna squeezed her eyes shut. Her heart ached as it raced.

“I’m going to lie down.” Rachel headed to the bunks. “Wake me when we get there.”

“It’ll be sometime tomorrow night,” Ike said.

“We’re safe in here.” Hilda retrieved one of her satchels and sat at a desk built into the wall, where she removed a leather-bound book, quill pen, and glass vial of ink. As she began to write, Edna glanced at Ike.

“She keeps journals,” he said. “All hags do.”

“Do you?” Harrison asked.

Ike sat beside the boy on the sofa. “Not anymore, but I used to. When my mother died, I burned all of them. I didn’t want to remember anything about that life.” Although his face remained impassive, his voice hitched. Edna’s heart ached for him.

“Harrison?” Hilda called. “Do you know how to write?”

“O’ course I do.” He puffed his chest. “Mum taught Eddie and me when we was kids.”

Hilda opened the top drawer in the desk to pull out sheets of blank stationary and a lead pencil. “Come keep a diary then.”

“Why is all this in there?” He took the supplies, staring at them with widened eyes.

“We’re rich, remember?” She winked. “These sorts of things always come with wealthy accommodations.”

Ike rested his hand on Edna’s elbow to guide her toward the bunks. “I want to talk to you somewhere private.”

“We never got blank paper at home,” Edna said as she sat beside Ike on the lower bunk. “We had to use slates or the wrappings from meat.” When he glanced at her, she added, “The clean sides.”

“Did Mother Sambucus give you that?” He grabbed her hand.

“What?” She blinked.

“The cameo. She gave it to you, didn’t she?” He scowled. “She knew I’d see it on you.”

“She didn’t give it to me.” Edna pulled her hand free.

His forehead creased. “Where did you get it?”

“A hag gave it me, but it wasn’t Mother Sambucus. This hag helped Rachel and I escape.”

“So she’s a friend.” He shut his eyes. “That would explain why she kept it.”

“Sometimes when I’m in trouble, I can rub it, and… things happen.” She wracked her brain for a better way to word the magic.

“Powerful hags sometimes make cameos into talismans. They put a little magic in them to use in case something happens, such as if they are too weak to call on their own powers,” Ike explained. “Anyone else who touches the talisman can also use the magic.”

“Always cameos?” Edna unpinned the brooch to study it. “Hag magic at my fingertips.”

“Yes, shaped in the hag’s silhouette.” Ike sighed. “That one was my mother’s.”

“What?” Edna dropped the cameo into her lap. “But your mother is….” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word.

“Gone.” He dug his heel against the floor. “The hag who helped you must have been one of my mother’s friends. She probably guarded the cameo for her.”

“Didn’t your mother have it on when she…?”

“I don’t remember. No, she couldn’t have. I buried her body.”

Edna squeezed his hand. “I’m sorry. No one should have to do that.”

“It happens.” He brushed her off. She wanted to hug him, but didn’t want him to pull away again.

“Do you want the cameo?” She set it on his leg. “I’m sure the hag wanted me to get it to you.”

“Keep it. You need the magic for now.” He fastened it to her high collar. When his fingers brushed her chin, her heart skipped a beat.

“Later, it’s yours,” she pressed.