Georgie sprang into action. She raised the sail and swung the boom around so the cloth caught the breeze, then took the tiller and turned the bow so they faced the open water gate. She glanced up at Benedict, who had risen to his feet and was looking back at the burning warehouse with a satisfied expression.

“Where’s Johnstone?” she asked uneasily. “Is he still in there?”

Benedict’s jaw hardened. “I don’t know. Shadwell and Daws are both dead, but Johnstone managed to slip away. I don’t know what happened to Finnegan.”

As if in answer to that, a hulking figure emerged from the rear doors of the smoking warehouse. In the blink of an eye, Georgie saw him raise a rifle to his shoulder and aim it directly at her chest. She choked out a cry of alarm at the same moment Benedict threw himself in front of her. The gun discharged with a crack. Benedict’s staggering weight almost pitched them both over the side, and he gave a grunted curse as they fell to their knees on the deck. When he pulled back, a red bloom was seeping through the white of his shirt, near his shoulder.

“Benedict, you’ve been shot!”

He clapped his hand to his arm and glanced furiously back at the warehouse. “It’s nothing. I’m fine.” He pushed down hard on the back of her head. “Keep down.”

The gunman, Finnegan, had managed to reload. Georgie saw Seb sprinting back along the dock to intercept him, but Finnegan lowered his head and aimed again. The crack of another shot echoed over the water and she ducked instinctively, but it pinged against the side of the ship with a spray of wooden splinters. Seb leapt toward Finnegan and took him to the ground just as series of mighty explosions tore through the warehouse.

Windows shattered, and an enormous fireball billowed into the sky as the gunpowder barrels exploded in a chain reaction of sound. Georgie felt a flash of heat against her face and then debris rained down, splashing into the water all around them. For some bizarre reason, all she could think of was the story of Guy Fawkes and his plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament.

“Seb!” Benedict bellowed, shielding his eyes with his hands. He scanned the ground around the burning building, and his shoulders dropped in relief when his friend crawled out from beneath a fallen advertising placard and sent them a shaky wave.

Seb stood, tried to brush the dust and debris from his coat, then gave up with an expression of acute irritation. “That’s another coat ruined!” he yelled across to them. “It was a Weston too. You can damn well buy me a new one, Wylde!”

Benedict gave an amused chuckle. “Fair enough,” he shouted back.