While the ship trudged steadily towards the treasure over the following weeks, Eli developed an odd habit. He would stop by while Ambrose was brewing, and just…chat.

Every now and then he would assist with the potion-making—pulling ingredients off the shelves, stirring the cauldron while Ambrose prepared vials—but mostly they talked. Eli told stories of past adventures, and in turn, generously allowed Ambrose to babble about his potion courses back in London. It became such a common occurrence that Ambrose came to expect his presence daily, and was disappointed whenever the needs of the ship kept him away. He told himself that Eli’s regular presence was helping him move past that brief temptation with the coat. He could forget all of that, now that they were friends.

“Do you want to know what Banneker put in the suggestion box this time?” Ambrose asked as he stirred the potion. Eli leaned back in his stool by the cauldron.

“You realize we only built that suggestion box for him, right?”

“Oh, of course. Doesn’t mean he doesn’t fill it up.” Ambrose pulled a scrap of paper from his pocket and held it up with a flourish. “He wants…an invisibility potion.”

“Invisibility?” Eli repeated, eyes wide as he took the paper and scanned Banneker’s chicken scratch handwriting. “God, what a disaster. Can’t see your allies when boarding, can’t see them in the water…” He grinned and nudged Ambrose’s arm. “I love it, you should make it.”

Ambrose rolled his eyes. “Eli.”

But the man was already bent over the worktable, scribbling it out on Ambrose’s list. “At the very least, we’ll have fun testing it out on deck. After that, I give you leave to lock it away.”

Ambrose leaned over to watch him write. “I’m sorry, are you placing that at the top of the list? What am I going to tell Sherry?”

“You can tell her,” Eli underlined his writing, “that I’m the captain. Now, you wanted to hear the end of the mermaid tale from yesterday, right?”

Ambrose swiveled in his chair and smiled. “Yes, please. You left off right before they tried to come up on deck.”

“My favorite part.” Eli returned to his stool and leaned in towards Ambrose. Ambrose copied his motion. “So they take these ropes made of seaweed, and they start—“

A bell clanged frantically outside, slicing through the rest of his words and the gentle bubbling of the potion. Ambrose twisted in his seat.

“What does that mean?” he asked, but Eli was already out the door and sprinting to the mainmast. Ambrose fumbled to douse the flames below the cauldron before following.

“How far out?” Eli was shouting up to Banneker, who was scrambling down the rigging in a panic. Ambrose swallowed. He had never seen Banneker look so frightened.

“Not far enough for us to maneuver,” he panted as he staggered onto the deck. “It kept below the surface, the sneaky bastard—“

Eli grabbed a wand at his belt and aimed upward. Red fireworks shot into the clouds, their edges laced with black smoke to catch against the bright sky.

A moment later, pink fireworks responded from the deck of the Sunset, sailing a short distance portside. Before the flare could finish winking out, Eli was climbing up to the highest deck, trading his wand for a spyglass.

“Eli,” Ambrose called as he followed, “what’s after us?”

“Kraken,” Dawn’s voice answered. She was standing behind them, a gem-encrusted wand in hand. Teleport stones dimmed as she tucked the wand back in her belt. “My lookout saw it right after Banneker. What do we do?”

“Captain!” Grim called from the helm. “Sail together or apart?”

Eli raised the spyglass to his eye, but Ambrose needed no glass to see what he was cursing at. Off in the distance, one giant tentacle breached the surface, then slammed back down into the water.

Ambrose clutched the railing and tried not to vomit. He thought they weren’t real, he should have known they were bloody real, given his damned luck on this ocean—

“We sail apart,” Eli said, closing the spyglass with a snap. “The kraken will pick its prey, and the other ship can help flank.”

“Aye.” Dawn glared at the white foam that marked the kraken’s last location. “Veer off, keep an eye on each other,” she extended a hand, which Eli took, “and stay afloat. Davy Jones won’t have the pleasure of our company today.”

“No, he won’t.” Eli gave a firm nod. Dawn waved the wand and disappeared without so much as a puff. “Grim, hard to starboard, we’re sailing apart. Banneker, back up in the nest. Sherry, arms for everyone, and ready the swivel guns.” Ambrose was still clutching the railing when Eli spun back to him. “It’s all hands for this one, I’m afraid. Keep to the center of the deck and you’ll be alright.”

Ambrose’s arms shook as he watched the water churn behind the ship. This would just be another one of Eli’s stories one day, he told himself. Keep to the center of the deck, and he’d survive to hear it.

As the commotion on deck frothed, Ambrose ducked back into his quarters and began stuffing every available pocket of his bandolier with whatever might be relevant to kraken fights. His shield potions weren’t ready yet, but bone-knitting, true-aim, and long-shot all filled the slots just fine.

“Lifelines, Eli?” Sherry yelled outside the cabin.

“No, we can’t risk the entanglement!” Eli shouted back. “Just don’t fall into the water!”

Ambrose swallowed, grabbed every underwater breathing potion he had, and shoved them into his pockets.

“Take this, please!” He rushed out and started pressing the breathing vials into the crew’s hands. “It’ll last a few hours. Yes, it will feel odd, but I promise you it will work. No, you won’t turn into a mermaid, I’ve already told you that—”

In his scramble, he nearly slammed into Eli’s chest, and pulled back at the last moment to hold up the last breathing vial. “Take it. You can’t promise you won’t fall in, and Dawn will kill me if you die.”

“Fine.” Eli drank it and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “You took one, right?” Ambrose froze, and Eli’s gaze darkened. “Mr. Beake—“

“I’ll stay in the center like you asked!” Ambrose scurried off before the captain could berate him further. He wasn’t the reckless one, after all. If anyone was going to take a swan dive into kraken-infested waters, it was—well, it was Banneker, and Ambrose had already forced a breathing potion down that madman’s gullet.

He reached the safety of the mainmast’s shadow when Banneker made the call. “It’s picked us, cap’n!”

“I’m flattered!” Eli shouted back and dared a wink at the crew before sending one more red flare into the sky. Pink fireworks, much more distant this time, responded in turn.

Ambrose crouched by the mast and ran his hand over his bandolier once more, feeling the distinct shape of every vial. Healing potions by his shoulder, enhancement vials by his waist, reversals at his hip. Every potioneer organized their bandolier the same way, so a sailor could reliably reach for the right potion should the wearer themself be…incapacitated.

He swallowed, set his shoulder against the mast, and waited for the kraken to appear.

The first tentacle, he barely saw—it slithered quietly up the hull, as if testing out its prey. Sherry caught it with her swivel gun the instant it peeked up over the gunwale.

“Keep your eyes peeled!” Eli shouted from the helm. “It won’t be so cautious next time!”

And he was right. On the opposite side of the ship, another limb shot up out of the water and slammed onto the deck in retribution. The swivel guns bore holes in it once more, spraying blood across the gunwale, but it didn’t leave without its revenge—as the tentacle dragged itself away, the teeth within its suction cups dug deep and scored long, screeching marks across the planks.

The attacks came faster after that—multiple limbs at once, tearing up planks, reaching for the masts. One tentacle shot out and wrapped around the mainmast, right above Ambrose’s head. He dove out of the way, splashing into puddles of water and blood, as the wood creaked and splinters showered into his hair.

“Get down!” someone yelled. Ambrose ducked and covered his head. Sparks whipped over him, and a shower of red pelted his shoulders as the tentacle snapped back into the water. He dared one look up—the Sunset was beside them now, gem-laden staffs smoking at their ends.

“That’s it!” Eli was keeping up his encouragement from the upper deck. “Keep it mad! The fastest way to kill this thing is through its beak, and it won’t show its pretty face unless it’s raging!”

The deck grew slick with blood and writhing chunks of kraken as Ambrose slipped and slid his way towards sailors in need of potions. True-aims to those on the guns, healing for those caught in the tentacles’ path. Despite the relentless attacks, both crews moved as one, maiming every limb and keeping the kraken from getting any sort of dragging or crushing grip on their ship.

Then the ship listed heavily to port, throwing Ambrose towards the railing.

“Kraken’s moving!” Grim called. The pirates around Ambrose cursed—it was shifting away from Dawn’s ship, out of reach of her flanking staffs.

“Coward!” Dawn yelled. As the crew scrambled, Ambrose staggered to join the officers on the quarter-deck. Up there, Banneker had a daring look in his eye that he didn’t particularly like.

“It’ll breach soon,” Banneker hefted a carved brass sphere in his hand, “and that will be our one shot to blast it apart. If the beak punctures the side of the ship—“

“That won’t happen,” Eli said. “Get up the rigging and ready the grenade. Grim, follow below to be safe.”

Ambrose followed as well, fingers already reaching for his enhancement potions. “Banneker, do you need a—“

“I got it, Ames, no worries.” Banneker twisted the carvings around the sphere—rings, Ambrose realized, clicking in and out of place as he manipulated them. A few more clicks, and the sphere split in half, revealing a glowing blue crystal hovering inside. “Ready!”

As Banneker and Grim clambered up the ropes, the water beside the ship began to churn, and the kraken showed its pretty face.

Though the wild foam and gore streaming down its tentacles obscured the beast’s precise silhouette, there was no mistaking Banneker’s target—its beak, sharp, black obsidian against lily-white flesh. Large enough to swallow four men whole, and hungry for a taste of the ship.

“Banneker—,“ Eli yelled, but the beast wasn’t content to wait for the attack. It lashed out one more time, seawater pouring out of bloody holes in its tentacle, and curled around the rigging below Banneker and Grim. Sherry swung her gun around, but it was a second too late—the tentacle yanked, sending both pirates to the deck as it tangled itself in the rope.

The grenade, its blue crystal shivering, bounced onto the planks and rolled to Ambrose’s feet.

His heartbeat choked his throat and clogged his ears, and for a moment, everything felt distant. Banneker wasn’t moving. Grim had landed on the opposite side of the deck.

He looked down, and his hands went numb. The grenade was at his feet, still live, still glowing.

Over the railing, the kraken roared.

Ambrose scooped up the grenade with one hand and plucked two vials with the other. True-aim and long-shot weren’t brewed to be taken together, but he trusted his arm less than he trusted the ocean, and this was one throw he couldn’t get wrong.

So he downed both vials, hissed at the burning in his throat, and threw the grenade over the side of the ship.

The brass sphere arced upward, latched onto his intended destination—the beak, the horrendous, cavernous beak—and sunk straight in, the darkness swallowing up the glow of the stone.

Nothing happened right away. Ambrose didn’t move, the kraken didn’t move. He could have sworn even the waves froze as the grenade sunk deeper and deeper.

Then one pulse of a shockwave, and the beast blasted apart. The hull shuddered as flesh struck the side of the ship. Tentacles thrashed and whipped away. All around him, crew members shrieked and yelled in victory.

But Ambrose had forgotten about the last tentacle hanging in the rigging above him, and as the great creature sank, it fell.

The limb crashed on top of him, its weight shoving the air out of his lungs and dragging him down along the scratched and scored planks. He scraped the wood with his nails in a desperate attempt to latch onto something, anything—but he failed, and then there was nothing under him but air.

“Eli!” was the last thing he yelled before the ocean swallowed him whole.

The water was as capricious as always. The surface struck hard, pain snapping across his head and back—then the pain was gone, numbed by the sheer cold of the depths. Bubbles streamed gently past his cheeks, almost a reassurance, even as the gravity of the sinking beast tugged him into the black. His limbs froze, his eyes burned. God, why did it have to be the ocean he died in—

Right as the last of his breath left him and his lungs gasped in water, hands yanked him upward and into the air.

“Ames!” Eli called in the distance—or was it close? He couldn’t tell through the water swirling in his ears. “Ames, hold on, I’ve got you—pull me up!”

As Ambrose vomited seawater, everything stung—his lungs, his arms, his eyes. He tried to move, to hold onto Eli, but he hung there limp instead, both unmoving and unseeing. The long-shot potion, he thought vaguely, punishing his arms; the true-aim, his eyes. Some potioneer he was, breaking the most basic of consumption rules out of panic…

As Eli set him down on deck, he tried to point to the smallest vial on his bandolier—a reversal potion, sludgy and dark—but his fingers only managed a twitch.

“Ambrose, wake up.” Eli shook his shoulders, his voice unsteady. “I said I’d let you go when it’s time, it is not your time. Wake up, that’s an order—“

“Rev…” Ambrose croaked, barely audible. “Revers…”

“Reversal?” Eli finished. “Yes, of course.” He plucked the right vial out of the bandolier, slotted one arm under Ambrose’s shoulders, and hoisted him up to a sitting position. “Got it right here, take it slow.”

The thick liquid trickled down his throat, smoke escaping his lips as it struck the lingering saltwater with a hiss. Ambrose gasped against the knife-like pain, and Eli pulled him close.

“You’re going to be fine,” he mumbled into Ambrose’s hair, keeping him pressed against his red coat with a hand at his head. “Just keep breathing.”

The pain coiled into his head and arms, then sank, slowly untangling the toxic mess the two potions had created in his system. As Eli laid him back down on the planks, Ambrose’s eyes fluttered open, and he moved his arm to shield them against the bright sun.

“There he is!” Eli beamed down at him. “Kraken slayer Ambrose Beake. Welcome back, sir.”

Cheers rose all around him, and Ambrose kept his arm over his face out of embarrassment. “Banneker and Grim,” he whispered. “Are they alright?”

“Sherry handled them. Stole some potions from your cabin while you were off taking a swim.” Eli slipped his arms under him, and before he could protest, was carrying him towards the captain’s quarters. Several of the crew members ruffled Ambrose’s hair or squeezed his arm as they passed, and he managed a weak smile for their benefit.

“Eli,” he shivered and tugged on the man’s sleeve, “if you drop me off in my cabin, I could start brewing to replace the potions from—“

“Brewing? Do you hear yourself?” Eli pushed open the door with his shoulder. “You’re dripping wet, you’re covered in blood—“

“I’m fine, captain.”

“You nearly drowned.” His gaze was insistent as he placed Ambrose behind the folding screen and started tossing dry clothing at him. “Stop spouting nonsense and change.”

Ambrose did as he was told, shrugging into the new clothes with unsteady fingers. They were too large for him—the pants too wide, the billowy shirt swallowing up his arms—but they were serviceable enough. As he stepped out from behind the screen, Eli guided him firmly to his bed, and he found himself blushing. “Captain, I have a cot of my own, this isn’t necessary—“

“Ambrose Beake.” Eli sat him down, pushed him gently onto the pillow, and started surveying him for injuries. “You saved my ship and my crew. This is absolutely necessary.”

Ambrose settled onto the pillow and had to muffle the sigh coming from his lips—the captain’s bed was infinitely more comfortable than his cot. The mattress softer, the blankets thicker, the pillow downier. The sheer luxury quickly made him realize how exhausted he was, and he shifted deeper into the fluff, eyes closed.

“You don’t seem to be bleeding anywhere,” Eli murmured. “You’re very lucky the teeth didn’t get you.” To Ambrose’s sleepy delight, his hands were still skimming over him, carefully seeking out any hidden wounds. His fingers paused at the hem of Ambrose’s shirt. “Can I check your bruises?”

“I don’t have any—,” Ambrose shifted, and a dull pain shot up his chest. “Alright.” Eli carefully lifted his shirt to show him the purple bruises blooming across his ribcage. Ambrose winced. “Ow.”

“Yes, that’s what happens when a kraken falls on you. Take a deep breath for me, any sharp pain?” Ambrose inhaled and shook his head. Eli gently tugged the shirt back down, his fingers trying to be as light as possible. “I’ll get you a healing potion once you’ve woken up.”

“Eli, I…” His protest died when Eli shot him a look and stubbornly pulled up the blankets around his shoulders.

“Now, I’m leaving you in here to rest, Mr. Beake, and if I see you try to sneak back to your own cabin to brew some blasted potions,” he smiled and cupped Ambrose’s face with both hands, “I will lock you in here and send the key down with the kraken. Understood?”

Ambrose gave a small nod. When combined with the comfort of the bed, the warmth of Eli’s hands around his face made it very hard to process much of anything.

Then Eli’s smile faded, and he ran a thumb over Ambrose’s temple. “You really scared me today, Ames,” he mumbled. “Please don’t do it again.”

Ambrose’s heart swelled. “I won’t.”

“You swear?”

“I swear.” He gave a breathy laugh. “I swear it on the ship.”