Matthew put his gun into the waistband of his breeches and used a handgrip and a bootstep to haul himself up to the driver’s seat. From here the landship looked truly immense, as did the south ends of the horse team. Julian had left the reins tied around a railing beside the seat. With the snow flying into his face he took the reins and looked ahead at the road that curved to the right between stands of forest. How far they were out of London he had no idea, but there was no use dawdling; the further they got away from that city, the better.

He flicked the reins. “Giddap!” he shouted.

The horses didn’t move.

He tried it again. “Giddap!”

Two of them snorted gouts of steam in derision. One shook its mane as if saying no, and the fourth just stood there like a huge chestnut-colored statue.

Matthew remembered the driver’s command. He gave the reins a harder flick and shouted, “Hiiiiiyupppp!”

They started off with an irritated rumble and a force that jerked the coach. The power of the horses against the reins gave Matthew the first inkling of what his back and arms would feel like after a few hours of playing at being a driver. Still, they were moving … not very fast, but moving all the same, and Matthew tried to settle back against the cold-hardened cushion but found that the heavy pull of the horses was not going to let him relax one iota. It seemed they were in full command of this coach, and they knew it.

As he sat in obedience to the team, Matthew reflected not only on Elizabeth Mulloy’s tale but upon everything that had brought him and Julian to this point. He thought of Elizabeth saying had very nearly destroyed me and considered that she was likely more insane than she knew, for if anyone had been destroyed in the story of her life it had certainly been she.

And Julian’s comment: Very often it takes a bad man to do the things that have to be done. True, Matthew thought. If Julian’s nature weren’t what it was, they would neither have the book of potions nor Lazarus Firebaugh. Of course cutting the doctor as Julian had done was not a thing to be praised, but still … there would be no more attempts to escape, so the bad man had done his deed to its ultimate success.

And of ultimate success: on the road to Fell’s village was no promise that they’d get there, as Matthew was sure Lash was following in the other coach. How fast that coach was being driven was another question mark that seemed to hang in the snowy air before Matthew’s face.

And would Firebaugh be able to reverse Berry’s condition? Even at the point of a dagger threatening his other ear?