Faya looked in awe as Weylan fought like a madman.

  Blades, blood, and broken rhythm. Unpredictable. Untouchable. He moved with furious precision, ducking and diving through a storm of fanged tentacles. His sword flashed, biting at rubbery flesh, his cloak shredded, his limbs slick with sweat and blood.

  Faya clenched her jaw.

  Anger flared, but she pushed it down. It wouldn’t help. Not here. Not with Darken unconscious, Selvara still missing, and that thing, that grotesque, poison-laced horror, still between them all.

  She didn’t hate monsters. Not as a rule. But this one...

  This one used venom that rejected healing. That would not stand.

  And it was ugly.

  Not just unsettling, offensive. A mass of limbs and slick flesh, whispering through the dirt like decay given hunger.

  Faya recognized the thought for what it was. Judging creatures for ugliness wasn’t just unkind, it was stupid. Survival didn’t care about aesthetics.

  But this once? She let herself feel the revulsion.

  She turned back to Darken, cradled his head, and uncorked their team’s healing potion. She dribbled the glowing liquid into his mouth, then followed it with the antidote. Hoping the two would reinforce, not cancel each other.

  Darken jerked once, gasped... then stilled. His breathing evened. Shallow, but steady. Unconscious. Stable. For now.

  She let out a tight breath, then pulled the verdant hare from her satchel.

  “Malvorik?” she whispered.

   came the familiar voice in her mind, dry and low.

  Faya’s head snapped up. “You can see her? Where?”

  

  She looked.

  Weylan had just downed a stamina potion and somehow managed to get even faster. The kraken missed him by inches, three times in a row. But even as he spun and twisted through impossible gaps, she saw the truth Malvorik had already voiced.

  That kind of speed couldn’t last. They had to help.

  “Alright,” she said aloud. “I need something. Anything.”

  

  She glanced briefly at the rabbit in her hands and then at the backpack. If she were to work with its contents, she needed her hands free, but still maintain skin contact with the rabbit. Without further ado, she stuffed it head-up into her cleavage and then grabbed the backpack.

  

  Out tumbled Darken’s eating utensils, bottles, a waterskin, a mug, a tin bowl, vials, a wooden compartmentalized box full of ingredients, odd coins, chalk, and bundles of dried herbs.

  “Okay,” she muttered, hands flying over the pieces. “Let’s think.”

  

  She pulled out the cork-like stopper and held the opening under Sir Cloverton’s nose. The hare tried to pull its face away and wrinkled its nose in disgust.

  

  Her hands flew under his direction.

  

  She blinked. “Right. That should get enough heat to boil the mixture.”

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  A flare of orange smoke rose as she tossed them in.

  She fanned it gently, nose wrinkling at the acrid scent.

  

  “I wasn’t planning to.”

  She reached for the next component, already gritting her teeth. “Goddess, what am I making? Poisonous soup?”

  

  She kept stirring the boiling mixture, while glancing nervously at the nearby fight. Stone cracked, dust rose, a flower tumbled with broken stem.

  The mixture hissed and bubbled in the blackened bowl, the fireberry smoke curling like angry spirits around her fingers.

  Faya wiped her sleeve across her brow, glanced once at Weylan again… still dodging, still bleeding… then grabbed the half empty spirit bottle to empty it.

  

  Faya grabbed the nearest glass container she could find. A wine bottle. Half-empty, cheap, and smelling vaguely of cherries and regret.

  “Sorry, Darken,” she muttered, uncorking it and dumping the contents onto the ground. “We need the bottle more than you need the buzz.”

  The bubbling soup poured into the bottle, thick and greenish with oily streaks. She shook it once to seal the mix, then stepped to the edge of her cover.

  Weylan was doing his best, still darting like a fox between snapping maws, but the kraken’s movements were tightening. It was learning his patterns.

  Selvara still wasn’t moving.

  There was no more time.

  Faya took aim at the main body, at a section that was already cut and bleeding blue blood, and hurled the bottle with all her strength. It flew clean, spiraling through the air in a perfect arc.

  The bottle hit the monster’s rubbery hide, made a muted thwock, and rebounded off with a wobble, landing uselessly on the ground a few paces away. Entirely intact.

  Faya stared. “Are you kidding me?!”

  The kraken didn’t even notice.

  But Weylan did. He glanced her way mid-dodge, his face pale and blood-smeared, eyes wide in disbelief.

  Faya threw her arms up in despair.

  From behind her, she heard a groan and found Darken stirring. The antidote had worked, and the healing potion had repaired most of the internal damage.

  She turned. “You’re awake?”

  “Define ‘awake,’” he muttered. His voice was rough and slurred, but his eyes opened.

  Faya rushed to his side, words tumbling out in a rush. “Weylan’s fighting the beast alone, Selvara’s unconscious on the ground, and the poison bottle I threw didn’t break. Can you do something?”

  “What…” He caught sight of his bag’s contents scattered on the ground. “What were you making?”

  “Improvised contact poison.”

  He blinked, looked around, and stood. His eyes lit up with excitement. “Is any of it left?”

  She pointed to the bowl, which still held a few meager dregs of the mixture.

  “Perfect.” He grabbed the half-empty spirit bottle and poured some of its contents into the bowl to dissolve the residue. Using a spoon, he loosened the dregs and carefully poured the bowl’s contents back into the bottle. He sealed it, then began shaking it in a precise rhythm, muttering under his breath.

  The glitterdust in the mixture began to glow and sparkle. The once pale and uselessly diluted blend now took on a menacing hue and thick, viscous texture.

  “If you want potency,” he said, “you have to dilute it just right. Succussion, rhythm, intent. Like cures like. Or in this case, like destroys like.”

  “This is poison, not hay fever,” she snapped.

  “No difference,” he said, eyes gleaming. “If you mix it to the right rhythm... it remembers how to kill.”

  He handed her the bottle and readied his hand-crossbow. “Now throw it like the wrath of a misunderstood science. If it resists shattering again, I’ll help with a well-placed bolt.”

  She took the bottle, turned, and looked at the monster.

  She drew back her arm, heart thundering in her chest, and hurled the bottle with everything she had. It spun in a tight arc, sailing through the glowing blue light of the canyon...

  ...and struck the kraken dead center.

  Thwock.

  It bounced.

  Again.

  Faya’s mouth dropped open. “Oh, come on!”

  A twang cut her off.

  Darken’s crossbow snapped, the bolt whistling through the air with perfect aim. It struck the bottle mid-bounce, shattering it into a burst of glass and glittering poision. The mixture splashed across the kraken’s hide in a sizzling spray, soaking into the pulsing flesh.

  The monster recoiled.

  A tremor passed through its limbs. Glitterdust clung to its slick surface, igniting in bursts of tiny magical flashes as the poison seeped in. It hissed, not with its mouths, but from its flesh, sizzling like acid on skin. It hurt. For the first time, it hurt.

  Weylan saw his chance.

  He sprinted forward and leapt, blade raised, landing directly atop the kraken’s massive form. Tentacles snapped toward him, but too late and too uncoordinated.

  He drove his sword into three distinct spots. Purple-glowing stains, the content of Darken’s venom vials Faya had hit him with. The thin glass vials had shattered perfectly, but the venom had not entered its bloodsteam. Until now. His blade tore through the first. Then the second. Then the third.

  The kraken screamed, not with sound but with violent spasms that rippled through its whole body.

  Weylan jumped clear, rolled to his feet, and ran away again.

  Away from Faya. Away from Darken. And away from Selvara, still unconscious by the rock.

  The monster, shuddering and disoriented, turned its eyes toward him. Its rage coalesced, blind and singular. It followed.

  Tentacles flailed behind it, but its movements were no longer in perfect waves. They were unsteady, uncertain. It dragged itself forward in jagged, twitching bursts. Weylan weaved and danced ahead of it, never letting it catch up.

  Thirty steps. Forty.

  Then a horn blast echoed through the canyon. Running full tilt, Team Orange arrived. Robes fluttering, weapons gleaming in the blue light. The spellsinger raised both hands, her voice rising in a haunting note.

  Beside her, the bard joined in. Not with harmony, but with resonance, their voices entwining into something far greater. A single, powerful chord reverberated between them, their shared spell spiraling into a coalescent shimmer of raw sound.

  It built slowly.

  Each note rising, overlapping, folding into the next like a magical crescendo. Until the canyon itself trembled.

  The kraken stopped. It seemed to feel the danger, but couldn’t understand it.

  Then they released.

  The soundwave struck the kraken like a hammer of pure pressure.

  A third of its tentacles exploded in a mist of blood and slime. Its bulk slammed into the canyon wall, body convulsing, heads lashing in erratic pain.

  Concussed.

  Dazed.

  The stage magician stepped forward next. With a flick of his wrist, he drew three flasks from his belt, muttered an incantation, and threw them in rapid succession.

  Boom. Boom. Boom.

  Each one struck with deadly precision, targeting wounds, burns, and sensitive tissue. The kraken shrieked as the blasts tore into its soft underbody, buckling its limbs.

  Faya shielded her eyes from the glare, blinking away the dust. Then she looked up. The kraken wasn’t defeated, but the fight was no longer one-sided. Now they had a chance.