diff --git a/src/abstract/montgomery.ts b/src/abstract/montgomery.ts
index 64d1b53..6461096 100644
--- a/src/abstract/montgomery.ts
+++ b/src/abstract/montgomery.ts
@@ -150,17 +150,15 @@ export function montgomery(curveDef: CurveType): CurveFn {
   function decodeUCoordinate(uEnc: Hex): bigint {
     // Section 5: When receiving such an array, implementations of X25519
     // MUST mask the most significant bit in the final byte.
-    // This is very ugly way, but it works because fieldLen-1 is outside of bounds for X448, so this becomes NOOP
-    // fieldLen - scalaryBytes = 1 for X448 and = 0 for X25519
     const u = ensureBytes('u coordinate', uEnc, montgomeryBytes);
-    // u[fieldLen-1] crashes QuickJS (TypeError: out-of-bound numeric index)
-    if (fieldLen === montgomeryBytes) u[fieldLen - 1] &= 127; // 0b0111_1111
+    if (fieldLen === 32) u[31] &= 127; // 0b0111_1111
     return bytesToNumberLE(u);
   }
   function decodeScalar(n: Hex): bigint {
     const bytes = ensureBytes('scalar', n);
-    if (bytes.length !== montgomeryBytes && bytes.length !== fieldLen)
-      throw new Error(`Expected ${montgomeryBytes} or ${fieldLen} bytes, got ${bytes.length}`);
+    const len = bytes.length;
+    if (len !== montgomeryBytes && len !== fieldLen)
+      throw new Error(`Expected ${montgomeryBytes} or ${fieldLen} bytes, got ${len}`);
     return bytesToNumberLE(adjustScalarBytes(bytes));
   }
   function scalarMult(scalar: Hex, u: Hex): Uint8Array {
diff --git a/src/ed448.ts b/src/ed448.ts
index ccc8e3b..a45f58d 100644
--- a/src/ed448.ts
+++ b/src/ed448.ts
@@ -140,7 +140,7 @@ export const x448 = /* @__PURE__ */ (() =>
     a: BigInt(156326),
     // RFC 7748 has 56-byte keys, RFC 8032 has 57-byte keys
     montgomeryBits: 448,
-    nByteLength: 57,
+    nByteLength: 56,
     P: ed448P,
     Gu: BigInt(5),
     powPminus2: (x: bigint): bigint => {