“We can’t outrun him!” Barclay shouted. Even if they tried, the whirlpools of Shipwreck Stretch loomed closer by the second. They would capsize all over again.

“And we can’t fight him either,” Tadg said.

Then something else cannoned out of the water, and Barclay stopped his Lore and braced himself, expecting a tentacle to seize the ship and drag them below the surface. Instead, it was Mar-Mar, his skin coated in blue Firenekkies.

Barclay’s stomach dropped. Now they had to face not one frenzied Beast, but two.

But as Mar-Mar swam closer, Barclay realized he wasn’t thrashing the way he had before. In fact, the white puddles of the weeping tide in the water dispersed around him, as though repelled.

“Look! Look!” Barclay shouted at Tadg.

Tadg leaned out over the rail. “I don’t get it. What’s happening?”

“It must be the Firenekkies! Ansley told me that whenever one kind of Lore does one thing, there’s always something else that counteracts it. The Firenekkies must counteract the weeping tide! That’s why the weeping tide never clustered around the hot sea vents.”

“Which means the Firenekkies can fix Lochmordra,” Viola said. “But they’re all underwater. Should we dive?”

“No,” Tadg said. “I’ll do it.”

Tadg reached both of his arms out over the water. Then he made a lifting motion, his body shaking from the strain.

Below them, the ocean began to rumble.

Waves quaked, then rose. Higher, higher. They knocked the ship in every direction, and Barclay clung to a mast to keep from falling.

Then geysers of water erupted across the surface. Firenekkies sprayed everywhere, and the white froth on the Sea began to recede.

But it was no use. Lochmordra’s tentacle reached forward, and Barclay lunged out of its path as it snaked around the deck once, then twice.

Lochmordra pulled, and the vessel lurched back. Behind them, the Beast’s mouth opened wide. His throat was a pitch-black tunnel of endless teeth.

“It’s no use!” Tadg called. “We need to jump!”

“And swim where?” Viola demanded.

She was right. They had nowhere to go. In the water was Lochmordra. On the island was Keyes.

“Do it again!” Barclay shouted to Tadg. “With the Firenekkies!”

“But I just—”

“Do it again!”

Muttering to himself, Tadg turned back to the water. He made the same lifting motion, and streams of water spouted from the ocean hundreds of feet into the air. Salt water and Firenekkies rained around them, just as Lochmordra’s tentacle began to squeeze tighter. The wood of the floorboards cracked. The masts teetered and crashed.

Lochmordra’s mouth was close. So close that Barclay could make out his sharp, serrated tongue.

This was their last chance to escape without being eaten.