Edna ran after her. Could it be true?
They entered a large opening with lit torches set in brick walls. Dampness solidified on the cracked, dome ceiling and dripped onto metal cages. Had Mother Sambucus intended to lock Edna and Rachel inside two of them? Shapes stirred within. Edna stepped closer and gasped. “Foxkins!”
The creatures turned dark eyes upon them, gook sticking to the hairs that crept down their snouts. They gripped the bars with their tiny red paws and mewed, tails limp.
Rachel recoiled. “Disgusting.”
The air reeked of feces and urine. The foxkins must have soiled their torn clothing. Edna’s heart ached for them.
“Magic pelts. Magic brains.” The hag floated into the enclosure. “Storage cell. Other entrances.”
Edna nibbled on her fingernail. Other entrances meant hags and ogres could appear from places she hadn’t noticed. “We can’t just abandon these animals.”
Rachel wrinkled her nose. “Let’s go before the other hags come.” She continued down the tunnel, where the dirt walls started again.
“Not until we set them free.” Edna studied the closest cage. The oval lock involved buttons and levers, but no keyhole. “We haven’t time to let the animals go,” Rachel snapped. “Your brother’s waiting, remember?”
“We can’t leave them here!” Edna pushed buttons. The lock chirped, but didn’t release. If she released a little of the evil, it might be able to explode the lock.
“You know why they’re here, don’t you?” Rachel whispered.
“You should help help instead of rambling. Just because you’re nobility doesn’t mean you have to be insensitive toward the plight of others.”
Rachel braided her hair without looking at Edna. “When you press their teeth against a cut, it will heal faster. The ligaments make strong strings for violins.”
Edna shuddered. “That’s barbaric.”
Rachel tugged her braid. “The meat is filling for long trips. The blood is great for shrinking pores. Hags sell vials of it, mixed with herbs.”
The hag hummed. “Top button thrice, lever twice.”
Edna glanced at her. “Is that the combination?”
“Locks open.” The hag spun in a circle.
Edna pushed the top button three times and wiggled the lever twice. The lock popped out. A grin spread across her lips, and she flashed her teeth at the hag. “Thank you!”
The foxkin staggered out, blinking at Edna. It twitched its three tails.
“Rachel, help me.” Edna ran to the next lock.
“This is filthy.” Rachel earned a hiss from her foxkin, but she performed the combination and opened the cage.
As Edna completed the code on the final lock, a ticking sounded above. Glancing upwards, Edna’s breath stilled in her throat. Metal spyders crawled across the rafters below the ceiling.
Spyders, ready to report to the hags.
Her stomach twisted and she tugged on a curl. “Rachel, look up. Spyders. They’re going to know we’re down here. Fast.”
“May the king save us.” Rachel bolted toward the door.
“If only King Elias considered the swamp dangerous enough to post patrolling officers.” Edna ran with Rachel, foxkins hurrying at their ankles, furry bodies bumping against their legs. The hag floated behind.
The tunnel curved upward. Edna stumbled over her hem and collapsed to her knees. A foxkin bounded onto her back and leapt off. She scrambled up and caught her dress around her calves. Blood pumped in her veins. She imagined spyders meandering across her skin, recording her every move.
Mother Sambucus would discover what they’d done and they would be trapped again, no better off than the foxkins. She ran, with Rachel at her side, the hag floating close behind. They burst outside through a small cave opening at the edge of the swamp, leading into the forest. Rachel collapsed, panting. The scrawny foxkins crowded around them in the weeds, chattering amongst themselves.
“You had to waste time with the animals,” Rachel growled.
“Where do we go?” Edna asked the hag as she bent over with heaving breaths. “I have to free Harrison and Ike.”
The hag touched her throat. In a burst of blue sparkles, a pink cameo appeared on her high, lace collar. She unpinned it and handed it to Edna with a smile.
“Will it protect us?” Edna’s hand shook as she accepted the brooch.
The hag shook her head. “One needs it.”
Edna nodded at Rachel. “Her?” Of course, Lady Rachel would get the fancy bauble.
“My son.”
“The ogre? We don’t have time to return a brooch.” Edna tried to press it back, but the hag shook her head. “You helped us, but I don’t know how to help you.”
The hag spread her hands. “Fire burns.” Facing them, she floated backwards into the tunnel. Her white dress glowed before she vanished.
Edna pinned the brooch to her collar. She would have to keep it for now. The evil surged before it stilled, as if reacting to the cameo. She had to concentrate more on keeping the energy away.
“She could’ve been more helpful,” Rachel wailed.
Edna folded her knees and sat, picking at the dirt streaked across her skirt. A foxkin crawled into her lap, so she stroked the fuzzy head to calm her tremors. “I have no idea where civilization lies. We have no food, no weapons, only each other. Maybe the foxkins can hunt, but we would need fire to cook the food.” The story about how the hags became servants to humanity replayed through her mind.
“Fire!” Edna caught the foxkin in her arms and leapt up. “I know how to save Harrison and Ike! We have to burn down the factory.” They could make fire using sticks and stones – she’d done it before to save money on matches.
The foxkins tipped their heads toward her, pointy ears drawn back.
Rachel sniffled. “The factory’s made of bricks.”
“The house we were in wasn’t, and there’s wood inside the factory. We can throw torches through the windows. We’ll make sure the fire starts away from the children. We’ll get them out while the hags deal with the flames.”
A large foxkin stepped forward. In a tiny voice it said, “We will help.”
Edna bit her knuckles to keep from grinning, tasting the dirt on her gloves. Even though she knew they could, she’d never heard a foxkin speak. Few humans earned that privilege. She crouched to be eyelevel with the critter. “Can you help me get the children out and throw the torches?”
The foxkin blinked. “Will hags die?”
Edna narrowed her eyes at the dirt. Can I kill a hag? Harrison appeared in her mind.
Yes.
She’d do whatever needed to be done in order to save her brother.
A rendezvous lies before you.
ke stuffed his makeshift key into the pocket of his trousers. His wrists throbbed with an impression of the chains and his back stiffened. With a final glance around his cell to make sure spyders hadn’t snuck in, he eased the door open enough to peer into the hallway. A soot demon scampered by, but otherwise the corridor lay empty. He pushed the door open further and slipped through the crack. Back in Moser City, it had been easy for him to manipulate locks and steal what he needed to survive.
He closed the door and locked it, the tiny mechanisms clicking into place. Ike touched the wall and closed his eyes, opening his mind to sense movement through the stone. An ogre wandered above and children slaved in the rooms downstairs. A memory slipped to the forefront of his mind:
Mother Sambucus forced him to sit on the loveseat in her room that reeked of vanilla, the odor she added to her poisons to hide the noxious fumes.
The muscles in his arms pulsed from grinding herbs in her clay bowls. When he paused to breathe, she slapped his back.
“Get to work. You’ll never learn if you’re lazy.”
Ike fought back tears. She would hit him harder if he cried, and call him a human boy. He hated grinding herbs because she used them to hurt others. He became an instrument in her vendetta ag
ainst humanity.
Mother Sambucus moved away to her table where she siphoned powders into glass vials. He wished he could use magic to alter the compounds in his herbs, to ruin their toxins. Someday, when he was older and knew how…
The door blew open. Mother Sambucus squawked as her vials and bowls slid off the table. Colored powders clouded the air.
Ike’s mother stormed into the room, her eyes flashing beneath her wild hair. “What are you doing with my son?”
Mother Sambucus folded her hands against her round stomach. “You have no right to enter in such a manner, without an invitation.”
“Leave him be.” His mother yanked the mortar and pestle from his hands to throw them across the room, where they thumped the wall. Herbs scattered.
“You aren’t a ruler here.” A muscle ticked in Mother Sambucus’s jaw. “You were not a queen for the humans either, were you?”
His mother stiffened. “If you touch Ike again—”
Mother Sambucus sniffed. “He needs to learn.”
His mother gripped his shoulder and her nails pinched his skin, but he didn’t cry out. She was angry, not vicious, like Mother Sambucus. He wanted to say he was glad he wasn’t full-blooded. Otherwise he’d be an ogre, huge-boned and thick-skinned. Now he looked like his father. Every time he glimpsed a mirror, he could remember the man he loved, and wish he hadn’t had to leave.
“He will still have magic.” Mother Sambucus stepped toward them. His mother lifted her chin. Ike wanted to run, but he reminded himself he wasn’t imaginative enough for that. He should protect his mother, not have her defend him. Shame scalded his senses.
“I’ll learn. I won’t cause trouble.” The words escaped his mouth.
Mother Sambucus smiled. “He could be a good boy.”
“Go behead yourself,” his mother said, “before I do it.” Still gripping his shoulder, she dragged Ike from the room. He had to jog to keep up with her pace.
“She didn’t hurt me,” Ike insisted. They passed a young hag who glowered at them even though she was friends with his mother. He thought her name was Simone.
“I don’t want you to ever know what she can teach you.” Tears trembled in his mother’s eyes. He squeezed her, despite being too old for such affection.
Ike winced. Even though his mother hadn’t wanted him to learn from Mother Sambucus, the hag hadn’t lost an opportunity to teach him dark magic.
“Thank you,” he muttered to fate. He could use what magic he did know against the hags his mother had despised, and he would never allow it to twist his heart.
He headed toward Mother Sambucus’s workroom to get an unused cogling, his hand still on the wall. It told him most of the hags were in the cellar, where spyders congregated for review. He could wonder why later.
Edna crouched in the weeds surrounding the factory, holding a thick stick with a flame at the tip, the evil a hairsbreadth from her fingers. Foxkins darted to her side carrying smaller sticks in their front paws. They passed the flame from torch to torch until each furry face glowed.
“You understand the plan?” Edna asked.
The foxkins twitched their noses.
“We follow your idea,” one said.
“Fire burn.” Another squeaked a laugh, revealing sharp teeth.
Edna gave a curt nod, then twirled on her heels and charged into the clearing. By the time the hags were defeated, she would have actual muscles on her scrawny limbs.
The flame flickered but didn’t go out. The heat tickled her face, mingling with the scent of smoke. She licked her lips, savoring the earthy taste of blood, dirt, and perspiration.
Edna charged toward the dilapidated mansion Mother Sambucus had imprisoned her in, and foxkins darted past. They grabbed stones with their paws to throw at the factory windows. Glass became slivers of rain as the windows shattered. The foxkins tossed their burning sticks through the holes where the windows had once been, empty eyes now, seeing demise but unable to prevent it.
Edna threw her stick onto the front porch. “Burn!” The fire transferred to the ancient boards with a sizzle.
Ike tiptoed into the workroom, leaving the door open to provide light from the hallway. Wooden shelves covered with metal boxes lined two walls. The third wall contained drawers. He eased open one slowly to keep it from squeaking. The drawer contained vials of liquid. He opened others, finding rags and cogling watches. He stuffed a rag, vial, and watch into the pockets in his jackets.
Holding his breath, he lifted one of the boxes and recognized the cherub engraving on the top: an unused cogling. He closed his jacket over it, keeping it in place with one arm, and slipped from Mother Sambucus’s workroom. With no hags, ogres, or spyders in sight, he headed toward the stairs.
Below, a hag screamed, and another shouted, “Fire!”
Ike froze with his foot on the top step. “Impossible.” Hearths were enchanted to make sure fire never spread. Ike headed for the stairs at the opposite end of the hallway.
A soft click, like a nail against wood, made him glance over his shoulder. A foxkin, in a ragged black jacket, dashed by holding a burning stick. The animal’s three tails had smoke caught in the red fur.
“What in the name of the Saints…?”
“Are you Ike?” The foxkin drew back his ears.
“Yes,” Ike sputtered, “you… know my name?”
The critter waved his stick. “Eddie-Na says to run to the woods. Everyone must run to the woods.”
“Wait,” Ike called when the foxkin continued down the hallway. The animal didn’t pause.
Edna waited in the woods, with foxkins? Could the foxkins be trusted?
Ike pulled the Confident’s knife from his belt. He would find Edna and make sure she was safe. Then they could plan their next step together.
Will you travel or stay behind?
n the first story of the factory, foxkins rushed by in copper blurs, trailing flames and smoke. The doors blazed with fire. An oncoming foxkin ran too close, so Ike spread his legs to allow it between his feet. One of the foxkin’s tails brushed Ike’s shin, the touch feather-soft against his pants.
“Set fire to the ceiling,” a foxkin screamed.
Even though the factory was constructed of stone, the ancient timber framing would burn fast and mercilessly. He had to get out before escape became impossible, and he had to take Edna and the children with him.
Ike increased his pace, but rounding a corner, he skidded. A hag pummeled toward him, her face melting beneath the onslaught of heat licking her clothes. Flames danced across her body, igniting her hair. Her shriek made the hairs on his arms stand on end. If the hags could stop fire, they could live, but fire was a substance they couldn’t control—a fact the humans had once used against them.
Smoke burned Ike’s eyes and he coughed into his elbow. His foot crunched something hard—a spyder. He scowled and kicked it. The metal body bounced off the wall before it scurried away, a shrill squeal emitting from its battered being. Spyders transferred information they heard to their owners. If there was one, there might be more; Mother Sambucus would know he’d escaped, but she had more worries now.
Ike ran on to find the children. He would have to jolt them from their enchanted stupor and convince them to leave, unless the fire had already done that. By breaking the hags’ concentration, maybe the children had been freed.
When he burst into the machinery room, children fled through the broken doors into the swamp. The machines they’d been weaving blankets on burned and the children coughed. Above, something cracked. Smoke seared his sinuses and choked his lungs.
Ike blinked to clear his eyes. “Which one of you is Harrison?” The dirty children all looked the same: gaunt and unkempt.
A girl, not much older than five, limped past him. Tears streaked the soot on her thin cheeks. “Where’s my kitty?”
Ike scooped her up and fled with the rest. He had to hold her with one arm, her body resting against his side, so he could grasp the cogling box. H
e would have to locate Harrison outside.
“May the moon have mercy.” He didn’t know what Edna’s brother looked like. Ike could have cursed himself.
“All the buildings are burning,” a hag shouted from the back of the room.
As Ike reached the door, three Confident soldiers dashed inside. Water swirled in conjured balls around their hands and they threw the balls at the fires. Water splashed and sizzled around them, smoke thickening in the air. The child whimpered in his arms.
If he’d agreed to join the ranks of Confidents years ago, when they recruited children, he could have been one of the firefighters. Now he was only a thief. His heart aching, he ran to the front door.
When he entered the murky daylight, he slid to a stop before the captain of the Confidents. The man stood straight, his hands hanging limp at his waist. Water spiraled around him. He shifted, and the droplets coalesced into balls in his palms. More water sucked from the swamp around him to float in the air surrounding the Confidents.
The captain inclined his head. Ike held the little girl closer. Hags blurred by him, intermingling with the children dashibg toward the forest. He didn’t care how much the buildings burned, or if the hags burned with the grounds, but his heart skipped a beat when he realized the children would have nowhere to go in the forest. Some would suffer. Others would be brought back to slavery, to whatever remained of the factory and outbuildings.
Ike shoved the final thought aside and nodded to the captain. The child bounced against him while he ran for the cover of the swamp. She weighed no more than a stale loaf of bread.
Edna waited at the entrance to the clearing, where hags struggled through mud and sparks. Children moved by with glassy eyes, dazed expressions on their scrawny faces, soiled rags clothing their bodies. She grabbed a little boy’s arm. His mouth opened in a silent scream. No, the nose was too long to be Harrison’s. Her heart thudded. It should’ve been him. She released the child and grabbed the next. No, a little girl this time, with a scar on her chin. A sob rose in Edna’s throat.
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