The Griffin’s Claw Potions & Tinctures shop sat high on Rosemond Street, sunny and bright and sparkling with potions of all colors and shapes. As a welcome sign for those on account in the pirate haven of Scarsport, the shop was filled with subtle pirate regalia: a cutlass on the wall, a salt-sprayed navy coat hanging by the door, a single gold coin hanging around the owner’s neck. The owner himself was not a pirate, all the scurvy dogs of the port agreed. He was soft-spoken, even-keeled, with too sharp of a mind to ever have dulled it on a ship. But he always seemed to know precisely what they needed when they came in, and for that, they owed him their unquestioning loyalty.

Now, the tavern owner across the way—he had the swagger of a pirate, and the smile to go with it. Some said he was once the dreaded Captain Valenz, and many tried to get him to let slip his last name. But even when people asked his favorite customer, the great Dawn Kerighin, about him, she only ever shrugged and smiled.

Every now and then, the tavern owner changed. The black-haired man would disappear, and a red-haired loon would take his place for a few weeks. He was far more generous with his pours, but set the kitchen on fire nearly once a day. And at any rate, the potioneer down the street seemed to smile more with Eli around.

Now and then, someone would ask how they met, Eli and Ambrose. They’d laugh and say something different every time. Met at an academy, met at a ball, met as merchants in another town.

But there was one story of Eli’s that never changed, one that he’d only tell to his lingering customers when he was absolutely sure that Ambrose had doused his shop lights and gone to bed. That was when he drew a chair up to the table, passed everyone a free round, and asked with a glint in his eye, “now, who’s ever heard the one about the pirate and the potioneer?”