“What about the gunpowder charge?” pressed Grentham. “Is it strong enough to break the ice?”
“Put a cork in it.” Fitzroy looked up before adding a belated “sir.” His brows twitched. “I don’t insult you by implying that you don’t know how to do your job.”
Grentham’s reaction was a chuffed laugh. “Point taken.” A pause. “However, I’ll have your guts for garters if it doesn’t work.”
“Kindly shift a bit to the right,” responded Fitzroy as he cut off two lengths of the fuse and held them up to check that they were a perfect match. “You’re blocking my light.”
The sleigh swervedoff the main road with a jolt, the runners slowing in the deeper snow of the less-traveled way.
“The horses are tiring,” remarked Saybrook as the sleigh sloughed through a drift.
“Just a little farther.” Fitzroy was hunched over the grenades, removing the protective caps and fitting the fuses into the touch hole. “And then they may continue on to the palace at a leisurely walk.”
Arianna took another look out the window. The sleigh was beginning to descend down a twisting turn, and in the dappled moonlight she could make out the snaking contours of the snow-covered river.
“We’re nearly there,” she announced.
A few minutes later, the sleigh slowed to a halt. Prescott unfastened the storm lantern from its bracket and jumped down from the driver’s box. The beam skittered over the river’s edge, searching for the stakes that marked the crossing path.
“Here!” he called, the light shining on a well-packed swath of snow. “It’s been used recently, which bodes well.”
Saybrook and Grentham joined the major and waved José forward, guiding him onto the ice.
Shouts rang out from the hill above them, and a flickering of lantern lights through the fir trees indicated that their pursuers were on their trail.
At Fitzroy’s direction, José urged the horses into a gentle trot. They were a little more than halfway across when Fitzroy stopped and turned in a circle to gauge his position.
“Keep going,” he ordered, then crouched down to begin digging a shallow well for the grenades.
“Richard . . .” Arianna felt her throat tighten as she cracked the door and called to him. He looked so alone and vulnerable, a mere speck of black against the vast expanse of white. One tiny miscalculation . . .
“Go! Go! Crack the whip!” called Fitzroy to José. A spark flared as he struck his flint and steel together. “Get to the other side now! I’ll follow in a moment.”
“Arianna . . .” Saybrook jumped up on the iron foot rungs of the sleigh and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t distract him.”
“But—”
He placed a hand on her shoulder and eased her back into the cabin, then climbed in after her. “Your brother knows what he is doing.”
Arianna knew Saybrook was right, and yet she couldn’t keep from pressing her face to the glass and watching Fitzroy slowly recede, a dark silhouette limned in the red-gold flames of the lit grenades.
“He’ll be fine,” said Wolff, coming to crouch beside her. “He reminds me of you—grit, courage, determination, and a tenacious refusal to allow Evil to go unchallenged.” He chuckled. “Trust me, the Devil wouldn’t dare let your brother come to harm. Fitz would make Hell much too uncomfortable for all the demons and djinns.”
“Is that thought supposed to make me feel better?”
“No,” answered Wolff. “It’s supposed to make you laugh.”
She forced herself to smile.
A series of rough bumps signaled that the sleigh had reached the riverbank and was back onterra firma. José reined to a halt. The chase was over. Their fate lay in the two burning fuses and Fitzroy’s grenades.
By some unspoken agreement, they all climbed out into the night to watch the drama play out.
Grentham and Prescott had lingered with Fitzroy, keeping watch on the procession of pursuing sleighs sliding down the hill.
As the lead sleigh skidded down to the riverbank, Grentham raised his pistol and squeezed off a warning shot.
“Halt,” he shouted. “We’ve lit explosives. The ice will break up before you can cross, taking all who are on it to a watery grave.”
