Cogling (48 page)

The hag frowned. She opened and shut her mouth as though struggling to find the words. When she spoke again, she did it slowly, precisely. “I cease spell.”

“Can you tell me how?” Edna knelt beside the woman. Ike stiffened without looking, as though he couldn’t bear to see her lucid and then crumble again.

His mother grimaced. “Show.”

Edna’s heart raced and fatigue clouded her mind. Rubbing the cameo had drained her energy. Dizziness clung to her senses. She snapped the wristband of her glove to keep alert.

“She doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” Ike said.

“Will she be all right?” Edna brushed the woman’s hair away from her smooth face.

Ike wiped his hand across his mouth. “Hags mutilated her brain. We have to heal it.”

Edna shuddered. “I can’t imagine the pain she’s endured. I wish there was something…”

“You’re not a hag. You can’t help, and the cameo can’t do it either.” Ike returned to the cage’s lock.

She cringed at his harshness. The murder around them must have clouded his senses.

“Are you sad they’re dead?” Edna walked to him, although he didn’t turn around.

“No.” He finished picking the lock and moved on to the next cage.

Edna rested her hand on his shoulder. “Are you sorry you had to be the one to kill them?”

He clenched his teeth. “I’m bloody glad it was me. It was up to my kind to finish them off, not the humans. My father taught me to keep battles close to home, and that’s what I did. I kept it personal.”

“You never killed before.”

A hand grabbed her arm and Edna twisted to see Ike’s mother. She ripped the cameo from Edna’s throat. Edna clamped her hand to her torn collar.

“I show.” His mother waved the cameo. Her fist held it so tightly that rivulets of blood slithered down her ashen arm as the jewelry’s edges cut her skin. She chanted under her breath, the words heightening.

The wildness in the hag’s face froze Edna in place. Ike slid his arms around her waist, pulling her back against him. She couldn’t imagine what he felt about his mother. The strong woman he’d loved and mourned, acting as senseless as a child, but still with a pure heart.

He must have desired to protect her too, as she hurt herself on the cameo. They watched as an unruliness possessed her face, her mouth agape and her glazed eyes wide.

Hope swelled in Edna’s chest. Maybe the King would be saved after all. Maybe they could all be saved.

Ike’s mother screamed. A green glow shot out from the cameo to burst against the walls, sparks sizzling over the bodies. The nobles in their cages jerked, moaning.

Edna gasped. “Odds bobs, she did it!”

King Elias blinked and moaned, rubbing his forehead. “What happened?” He licked his lips, staggering, so Harrison took his hand. The crowd turned to face them.

“Where is Mother Sambucus?” King Elias asked.

“Dead by now.” Rachel curtised. “Allow me to explain what the hags have done, Your Majesty, and how your son came to warn you.”

The king rubbed his mouth. “Isaac shouldn’t have returned.” His lips twisted in a frown.

“May the Saints save us,” a newly-freed servant exclaimed. “The palace is on fire!”

Rachel winced. “I’ll explain that too.”

Hilda kept watch at the palace gates to make certain hag survivors didn’t escape. When night fell, King Elias approached her. The crowd parted to allow him space to move, and he nodded without smiling.

“Majesty.” Hilda bobbed her head. She knew she should curtsy, but her legs ached and nausea bit at her belly. She’d already helped save him. That should count for enough respect.

“Open the gates. The hags are gone.”

“We must make certain.” Hilda straightened the high collar of her blouse.

“Many of my servants live in the city. I would allow them to go home.”

“Ike and Edna aren’t out yet.”

“My palace is gone. The hags wouldn’t have survived. We’ll open the path and keep watching for Isaac… and Edna.”

“As you wish, Majesty.” Let the consequences fall on him. She’d done her part. He could look after his own subjects.

As soon as the gates opened, many servants retreated to their homes in the city. Others who’d kept apartments in the palace stayed to watch it burn. Families from the city brought buckets of water to pass through the parched crowd.

“We could do a fire brigade,” a cook suggested.

“It’s gone too far,” King Elias said.

Flames danced against the dark sky; soot smothered the moon and stars to block their light. Soon the palace would be nothing but ash.

Shapes emerged from the smoke. Three people picked their way through the rubble: a hag, a young man, and a short young woman with kinky curls.

Hilda’s eyes widened. “Is that them?”

“Eddie!” Harrison raced toward his sister and bounded into her arms.

She held him close, kissing his face. “Harry-boy.” Her lips left soot marks on his cheeks and forehead.

“Father.” Ike hooked his thumbs into his belt.

The king rose from a stone bench. “Son?”

Ike ran to King Elias, pulling his mother with him. She stumbled, swinging her free hand.

“Elias?” The hag traced the King’s face with her fingertips as a blind person would. “Elias?”

“Victoria!” The King held her face in his hands. “Ah, Victoria, my love.”

Ike’s mother stared at the clouds and laughed, but quieted when King Elias kissed her. Her arms remained at her sides, but she leaned into his chest, sighing. Rachel wove through the crowd toward Edna and Harrison, while the newly-freed nobles stumbled from the ruined palace behind them.

“Is it over?” Rachel asked.

Edna rubbed tears off her cheeks. “Finally.”

I look in your eyes and see all of your secrets.

dna kissed her prayer beads before stepping through the sheer white curtain. It parted and swished behind her as if she floated through clouds. She might have been in the sky, for all the gold and candles that illuminated the ballroom of Reynolds Castle, the King’s summer home.

Men in suits and women in gowns of silk and lace spun across the marble floor, polished to shine and reflect. Violin music reverberated off the walls.

Edna closed her eyes as she swayed to the soothing rhythym.

“Edna?”

She turned, gulping, to find Ike behind her. He’d cut his black hair close to his head; it made the angles of his face stronger, his pale eyes brighter. Ike held out one hand as he bowed.

“Hi.” She coughed when her voice squeaked.

“Overwhelming, isn’t it?” He caught her hand and lifted it to kiss her knuckles, his breath warm even through her indigo satin gloves.

“You grew up in all this.” She chuckled, but her voice was still hoarse. The scent of jasmine clung to her as if ready to strangle, other perfumes mixing with the incense to make her head spin.

Ike wiggled his eyebrows. “Sweet Edna, do you really think a bloke like me could enjoy this?”

He rested his other hand on her waist to spin her out into the crowd. The orchestra started up a new dance, one more lively. She tipped her head to spot someone she recognized—there, Rachel stood beside Ike’s mother. The hag wore her white bridal gown, her face hidden by a veil that brushed the floor.

Rachel flicked her fan toward a group of gentleman and laughed.

“Leave it to Rachel to shirk her duties,” Ike muttered. “Isn’t she supposed to be entertaining my mother?”

“I can go do that.” It sounded safer than stumbling over unfamiliar dance moves, but when Edna started to pull away, Ike pulled her closer, his lips touching her forehead.

“Stay with me, Edna. You make the dance pleasant.”

She pressed her face into the shoulder of his jacket to hide her flushing cheeks. “Th-thank you.” Would his comments and touches ever leave her normal, rather than with a racing pulse and roaring in her ears?

“There’s Harrison,” Ike murmured against her curls, the brown tresses pinned atop her head.

“Where?” She turned against him, his hand still on the small of her back. Her brother stood near a group of other boys drinking punch at the refreshment table. “I’m so glad he’s going to attend a private school. He’s already made friends with those boys.” Harrison would live with the sons of lords, rather than peel potatoes in a damp cellar.

“I thought I saw your parents earlier at the wedding ceremony.”

“They sat in the back.” She’d had to stand in the front beside Ike’s mother, with her head down and her cheeks aflame. Although no one had spoken to her, she’d felt at the center of attention.

Edna Mather, the girl who burned down the cogling factory and reunited the King with his lost love.

A horn trumpeted and the orchestra stilled their notes. Ike cupped Edna’s chin to draw her up to his mouth, his lips closing over hers. She clutched his velvet lapels to keep her legs straight. With his other hand, he massaged the back of her neck.

Through the haze forming in her mind came the King’s voice: “A toast to my beautiful bride! Where are her new maids-in-waiting?”

Ike pulled away enough to kiss the corner of Edna’s smile. “That’s you.”

“Hmm?”

“Edna, where are you in this huddle?” Laughter tinged the King’s voice.

Ike pivoted her on the heels of her slippers to face the front dias. “That’s you, luv. Go claim your prize.”