Eli set his head against the glass of the porthole and closed his eyes. “Fuck.”

Ambrose slipped away from him just long enough to check the lock on the door and turn off the lights. Then he was back at Eli’s side, leading him to the bed and forcing him to lie down.

If they weren’t currently sailing away from their only escape route, Eli would have made some sort of joke about it.

“Do you know where the boat is going?” Ambrose asked Grim, keeping one hand on Eli’s shoulder as he leaned to glance out the window. Nothing greeted him but darkness and twinkling lights on shore.

“Probably just a loop,” Grim said. On the upper level, Eli could vaguely hear a man shouting joyride over and over. “Can’t go too far from the docks in case they need to re-stock, or if the Thisby idiot changes his mind.”

“How long of a loop?” Sherry pressed. “Can they wait on the boat until it returns?”

Eli opened his mouth to second her motion—after all, he was struggling not to fall asleep on the silky coverlet—but Ambrose shook his head. “If Thisby wants to hand out more icefall to his friends, he’s going to notice the broken safe sooner or later. I’d rather not be around when he does.”

The comms went silent.

“So we jump off.”

Eli blinked, then realized that he was the one who had said it. Ambrose turned to him, moonlight rippling across the worry lines in his frown. Eli managed a shrug in response. “You see any other way off?”

“You could steal one of the jet skis?” Banneker asked hopefully.

“Far too visible,” Grim said.

“Dangerous at night,” Sherry cut in.

Banneker gave an indistinct grumble—something along the lines of “no fun”—and began clicking. Ambrose stiffened. “I don’t think jumping is a good idea.”

“I mean, not right now,” Eli gestured to himself, “but I’m a good swimmer.”

“You might be,” Ambrose snapped, then withdrew. Eli froze.

“Ambrose, you…can swim, can’t you?”

Ambrose stood and began pacing. “Maybe—“

“Maybe?”

“I can doggy paddle!” He pointed to the window, then dropped his arm. “I think.”

“There’s something coming up on the starboard side,” Banneker said. “Some sort of data-collecting buoy. If you can jump and swim—or, doggy paddle—your way there, Grim and I can pick you up on the boat.”

Multiple voices overwhelmed the comms, Eli’s included.

“Wait, hold on,” he said, “if he can’t swim—“

Ambrose spun on his foot. “I can likely swim.”

“He is not jumping in the water!” Sherry hissed. “I shouldn’t have even let you take our boat out! If I had known—”

Eli forced himself to sit up, fingers itching to strangle the man. “Ames, why didn’t you tell us earlier?”

“We were supposed to be docked, it didn’t seem relevant!”

“Relevant for a yacht mission? On a boat? Surrounded by water?”

“Doesn’t matter now,” Grim interjected. “The longer you stay on the boat, the more danger you’re in. Beake, find something to float on. Valenz, you said you can swim?”

“You’re looking at a high school state champ—,” Eli tried to stand, then fell back on the bed, “just…give me a second. Banneker, how long do we have before we’re at the buoy?”

“Three minutes.”

“Shit.” Eli tried to stand again. This time, Ambrose caught his shoulders, his eyes searching Eli’s face with fear as he spoke to Banneker.

“That isn’t enough time,” he said. “Is there anything further out?”

“Tom can’t go that far. There could be, but I can’t guarantee it.” Banneker paused. “Guys, if you’re going to use that buoy, you need to get to the starboard side about now.”

Eli didn’t need any sort of icefall connection to sense the fear in Ambrose’s grip. He set his hands on the man’s waist and set his shoulders back.

“I’m not going to let you drown,” he said. “I promise.”

Ambrose shifted a strand of hair off Eli’s forehead. “I’m not worried about me.”

Eli rolled his eyes. “Maybe you should be, for once.”

Ambrose’s lips twitched upward. “Thought you said you wouldn’t let me drown?”

“Bastard.” Eli dropped his hands and half-staggered to the door, intertwining his fingers with Ambrose’s. “Guys, if he goes under, he goes under, I am not saving him—“

“Dead to me, Valenz.”

“Love you, Grim.”

As soon as they reached the stairs, Eli had to lean against the railing for support. Though the heaviness in his body was slowly fading, something as simple as walking up the steps made his knees shake. Ambrose immediately sifted through his remaining vials.

“Sherry, can I give Eli the healing potion?” he murmured, his gaze pinging between Eli and the noise of the party upstairs. “I can’t have him jump in this state.”

“Give him half of it. Eli, if you lose vision, tell us.”

“If I what?”

But Ambrose had already pressed the green vial into his hand. He drank half, choked on the bitter taste, then swallowed with a shudder.

“Wait ten seconds.” Ambrose pushed him to lean against the wall, then dipped his hand along his waistband. Eli jolted and gave a breathy, surprised laugh as the brush of his fingers tickled his skin.

“Do we, uh, need to step back into the bedroom?”

“Very funny.” Ambrose pulled his hand back and held up a vial of icefall. “Just taking these from your pouch. I know you don’t like carrying them.”

Ambrose worked more quickly after that, tucking the icefall into his own hidden pocket as the new potion chased away the shakiness in Eli’s limbs. The sudden buoyancy from its healing effects made him feel almost tipsy, and he leaned back to smirk at Ambrose. “Tease.”

“Sherry, he’s feeling better,” Ambrose muttered into his comm with a small shake of his head—though his cheeks went a little pink. “We’ll be on deck in a moment.”

“Yeah, once he gets his hands off me.”

Banneker groaned. “Grim, can we make a rule about flirting on missions?”

As soon as Ambrose had taken the rest of the icefall, they started back up the stairs. To Eli’s relief, the steps were no longer intimidating—he could easily take two at a time, to keep up with Ambrose’s long legs.

“Alright. I’ve got one spare invisibility potion left.” Ambrose lowered his voice as he juggled the two vials in his palm. “Banneker, on your cue, I’ll use the surge to create a distraction on the port side, then we’ll both jump.”

“Copy.”

They strolled over to the railing as casually as possible and leaned over the side. Black water churned into white at the edge of the boat, the string lights catching sporadic flashes of foam and spray.

“Wish I had a shield potion,” Ambrose muttered. “Could cushion the fall somewhat…”

Eli set a hand on his back as he thought of another pitfall. “You sure you need to go invisible for the jump? I can go first to help you, but if I can’t see where you land…”

Ambrose’s gaze drew back and roamed around the surrounding crowd. Though they were all drunk and in various forms of yelling, napping, or making out, the sheer numbers game on deck made his voice tighten. “Can’t afford to have anyone see me. Not while I have the icefall.”

Eli nodded. “Still want me to go first, then?”

“Jump as soon as the distraction goes off. I’ll…find something to float on and follow you.”

“I’ll pump the music to muffle the splash, too.” Banneker said, more than a hint of pride in his voice. “Managed to hack their speakers.”

Eli grinned. “Can I make a song request?”

“If I’m the one hacking, I get to pick the song.”

“Lord help us,” Sherry muttered. Ambrose squeezed Eli’s wrist, then slid away from him. Eli braced himself against the railing and scanned the water for the buoy.

“Yellow thing, parallel with the prow in ten seconds,” Banneker said, as if he were standing beside Eli. “See it?”

The device bobbed into sight a moment later. It was little more than a giant yellow puck littered with solar panels. Eli frowned. “And that’ll hold us?”

“S’bigger than it looks. Our boat’s just a minute behind you. If you can get Ambrose there, we’ll be fine.”

The nonchalance the healing potion had lent Eli quickly faded. That was a fair stretch of water between the yacht and the buoy. A cold breeze cut a numbing line across his cheeks, and the points of the waves in the party lights grew sharper. “I don’t know about this…”

Too late—the thumping dance music suddenly cut out behind Eli, and his stomach dropped with it.

“What the—?” A young man with bleached hair stood up from within the lower-level hot tub, an unjustifiably indignant look on his face. Eli grimaced. That was Thisby. “Turn the music back on, assholes!”

A steady drumbeat pounded back through the speakers, twice the volume of the previous song. Eli had to fight down laughter as almost tropical-sounding synths twisted Thisby’s face into purple rage. “Toto?” He directed his disbelieving grin out towards the lake. “You picked Africa by Toto?”

Ambrose’s hiss over-modulated the comm. “You know I hate this song—“

“Incentive to get off the boat, man!” Banneker said, clearly grinning on his end. “Now go!”

Something crashed on the other side of the deck—a heat lamp had toppled right into Thisby’s hot tub. The man gave an undignified shriek and tried to scramble out from underneath it, tossing waves of bubbling water over everyone around him.

As lovely as the sight was, Eli couldn’t stick around to watch it. After ensuring that every eye was fixed on Thisby and his antics, he hopped over the railing, took one more guiding look at the buoy, and dove into the water.

The chill was swift to strike, swallowing up the music, the lights, anything other than the freezing water and bubbles rushing past his skin. For a second, his veins iced over like they had with the neutralizer, and instead of kicking upwards, he curled in on himself and sank, expecting another wave of pain to follow.

“Eli?” a voice burbled and cut out from the comm. “You—“

The comm slipped up and out of his ear. Eli screwed his eyes shut against the last of the bubbles trailing up his face. In nothing but water, it was impossible to ground himself to anything other than his thoughts, so he curled tighter and focused inwards.

This wasn’t icefall. The pain wouldn’t come. Ambrose would be jumping at any moment and would need him—

He kicked up to the surface and whipped his hair out of his face. “Ambrose?” Against the roar and churn of the boat passing him, it was impossible to tell if he had already jumped. “Ames?”

Those standing closest to the lowest railing turned towards him. Eli gasped and dove back down into the freezing water, wishing he had worn dark clothes like Ambrose. As he cut a direct line away from the boat, he tried to count himself down in his head. If he surfaced too close, the guests would see. Too far, and Ambrose wouldn’t be able to find him.

He counted a slow, agonizing ten, then re-surfaced and whirled around. Here, the lake was quieter, though the waves still splashed up into his ears and dragged icy fingers down his neck. Ahead of him, the yacht chugged away at a steady clip, and the dingy yellow buoy bobbed close to his right.

But he couldn’t find any sign of Ambrose.

“Ambrose?” he dared another yell, now that those on deck were mere specks against the string lights. “This way!”

Still nothing. Eli’s hand whipped to his ear, but the comm wasn’t there.

He was alone in the water.

Heart hammering in his throat, he took a breath and swam towards the buoy, his thoughts more tangled with each stroke. If Ambrose couldn’t find the target, or had gotten caught in the churning foam by the boat—

A heavy splash off to his left made him lift his head.

“Eli!” a voice choked out. Then another splash, as if someone was slapping their hand hard against the surface of the water. “Help—“

Eli’s heart stumbled as he frantically searched the water around him. If Ambrose had brought any sort of flotation device, he couldn’t see it. And if the man tried to use him as a flotation device, they’d both sink.

He twisted back to the buoy and spotted a rope hanging off the side. “Towards me!” he shouted and kicked back towards the buoy. “Hold on, hold on…”

He surged forward, his strokes sloppy and desperate, until his palm scraped against the side of the bobbing yellow plastic. Blinking away water, he scrabbled along the edge until he found the rope, then threw the end behind him.

“Can you get it?” he called. More coughing and splashing in the distance, weaker this time. The rope remained slack. Eli pushed back off the buoy and dove along the line of the rope, his lungs and arms burning. “Where are you?”

No splashes in response. Eli couldn’t take in a full breath anymore. “Fuck, I said I wasn’t going to let you…”

He swam to the last place he had seen the splashes—just beyond the end of the rope—and shot his hand down into the inky water.

His fingers brushed the edge of Ambrose’s collar.

He latched onto the rope with one hand and yanked hard on the fabric with the other. Though Ambrose was still invisible, he could feel his weight crash into him, his ribcage spasming with coughs, his hand desperately grabbing Eli’s shoulder.

“Hold onto me.” Eli gritted his teeth and began to pull them along the rope. “Almost to the buoy…”

“Is that Eli?” Sherry’s voice half-shrieked from Ambrose’s comm. “Eli, do you have him?”

“Circling Tom back now—“

“Is Beake alive?”

Eli ignored the voices until he had grabbed the edge of the buoy and levied Ambrose’s body towards it. “Ames, can you grab the...”

“Yes.” Ambrose’s hand, now fading back into view, latched onto the plastic ledge. He coughed again—the hand slipped a little, but held. The screaming from the team only spiraled further.

“Are you at the buoy?”

“Beake, if I run you over with this damn boat…”

Eli fished the comm out of Ambrose’s ear. “He’s okay. We’re both at the buoy.”

Sighs spilled out from the earpiece.

“I’m gonna kill you, Ames!”

“Do you know how many times I let him drive the boat? And he didn’t say a thing about the swimming, not once!”

Ambrose’s coughing changed tempo, and Eli realized he was laughing.

“It’s not funny,” Eli tried to snap, but couldn’t muster the energy. “You should have told us!”

“I’m sorry…” Ambrose was fully visible now, water streaming from his hair, body shaking from the cold. But his faltering smile brought Eli a wave of relief as he patted his hip under the water. “Still got the icefall, though.”

Eli splashed him to hide his own smile. “I hate you. I’m not going on a date with you anymore.”

“Because I can’t swim? That’s very judgmental.”

“No, because you’re insane!”

“I recall someone volunteering for this mission—”

The sound of a thrumming motor skittered across the waves towards them, and from a large, dark silhouette, a flashlight blinked three times. As Eli waved, Ambrose leaned down to his other hand and kissed it. “Thank you for saving me,” he mumbled. “I would’ve been lost without you.”

Eli mustered a weak glare. “Still upset, Ames.”

“I know.”