From the cabin window, Yvette watched the protective ring of crewmen steadily retreating. The captain barked orders to secure the ship's interior, his men too occupied to assist. Her pulse quickened as she imagined the mob of passengers breaching the door.

  Beside her, Ulysses abruptly dropped to one knee.

  "Rouse yourself, miss. Up you go." He jerked his head toward his extended arm.

  The implication froze her. He wanted her to perch on his forearm?!

  The man's considerable height would lift her upper body beyond grasping hands while his free arm safeguarded her legs. A practical solution, she conceded, though one she'd only witnessed used with toddlers.

  "Surely there's... another way..." Heat flooded her cheeks. To be carried like a babe by a man who'd minutes ago commanded the room with razor-sharcraft... The indignity! Though doubtless his enhanced strength could support her as easily as one might cradle a hunting falcon.

  But onlookers would whisper - imagine the great detective weighed no more than a child! Her reputation...

  Ulysses followed her anxious gaze to the swelling crowd. Without ceremony, he scooped her legs and rose just as the barricade failed.

  Faces pressed close, fingers clutching at her skirts. The mob's collective breath formed a visible haze. Higher vantage revealed grasping hands like mangrove roots, pale faces floating beneath like drowned corpses. Her vision tunneled.

  Had she been solitary, the human tide would have swallowed her whole. But Ulysses plowed through like a schooner splitting waves, indifferent to curses and jostling elbows.

  They reached sanctuary as the cabin door slammed. Guards hurried after, citing trespass laws. Neither spoke until breath steadied.

  "Are you injured?" She turned to assess the damage.

  Ulysses stood disheveled - tricorn missing, queue unraveled, greatcoat rent by grasping fingers. Yet he flashed his customary smirk. "Scars fade, mademoiselle. Unlike trauma. Did those gawping jackals frighten your composure?"

  "Promise never to reference this incident again, sir."

  His laughter rasped as torn fabric. "When next we meet fanatics, I'll hire sedan chairs. More dignified."

  Four days later, the murder's fever abated. Yet Yvette remained cabin-bound, avoiding curious stares. Sailors reported landfall approaches. Their true purpose awaited - tracking fire salamanders said to surface only during volcanic eruptions. The organization's prophets had mapped coordinates: An Atlantic islet along their route where the Silver Star would dock for fresh water.

  The Captain's disapproval boomed across the deck. "Madness! That rock's accursed! Sailors hear whispers in its mists!"

  Ulysses hoisted equipment crates containing tripwire, tents, and a glossy raven that watched with unsettling focus. "Our return's secured. No need for nursemaids."

  When persuasion failed, the Captain gaped as uncle and niece hoisted impossible weights. Cargo that should require four men swayed gently in their grip as they descended the gangplank.

  Last he saw, the mismatched pair appeared like Atlas and a bookish angel carrying the world's burdens.

  The islet's salt-crusted docks framed their first glimpse of the main island - primal green mountains steaming faintly. As the Silver Star's smokestacks vanished over the horizon, Yvette shivered at the silence. Only seabirds cried over endless waves.

  Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  Ulysses snapped her from reverie. "Shelter first. Tropical squalls soak powder caches."

  As they rigged tarpaulins, Yvette voiced her doubt. "This... pickup arrangement with Mr. Ordinary..."

  The name conjured memories of her initiation exam, the man's features already blurred. His gift - absolute forgettability. She'd kill for such anonymity during mob frenzies.

  "New World's criminal networks answer to the man," Ulysses explained. "We tread where crowns hold no sway. Who better than our unremarkable spymaster with his web of informants?" He indicated the raven preening in its cage. "Should volcanic smoke delay ships, Corvus here bears messages."

  Typical Ulysses. Yvette smiled. With such contingency planning, her role was merely to survive the wilderness. A passenger on someone else's adventure.

  They camped amidst a palm grove on the smaller islet, their tent pitched against a rocky outcrop where the ground stayed dry. Ulysses had dug a drainage trench around the site. "Rainwater'll follow the ditch instead of flooding us," he'd explained, though the waterproof tarp beneath offered little defense against rising tides.

  Against the island's harsh winds, they anchored each tent corner with iron stakes driven deep into the earth, stones weighing down the billowing fabric.

  Their kerosene and flint made fire-building straightforward—driftwood and shrub clippings fed the flames. Stones from the beach formed a makeshift hearth, its iron grate supporting a copper pot. A functional, if crude, kitchen.

  For Yvette—who'd spent her previous life either studying or bedridden—campcraft proved utterly foreign. Ulysses delegated simple tasks until her fumbling became more hindrance than help, finally shooing her off to explore.

  Lounge-about aristocrat turns survival expert? Unfair.

  She wandered the islet, marvelling at its split personality. The northern half wore a crown of tropical foliage, while the southern cliffs displayed nature's geometry—basalt columns stood in military precision, hexagonal pillars stretching skyward like a giant's staircase.

  Magic!

  She recognized the geological art from documentaries—columnar jointing. Molten rock crystallizing under seawater's kiss, fracturing into perfect hexagons. Ireland's Giant's Causeway had similar grandeur.

  Volcanoes birthed this wonder.

  Scaling the tallest column, she drank in the view.

  Nietzsche's words surfaced: "Man measures beauty through his own lens." Before her supernatural awakening, the concept felt abstract. Now, having glimpsed cosmic horrors in dreams, she understood—humans crave patterns, hence these mathematical stones please our eyes. To elder gods, such order means less than dust.

  Yet here she stood, healed by nature's majesty after peering into the abyss...

  Ulysses hunted firewood inland. Yvette's earlier attempts yielded green branches that smoked horribly. He'd forbidden her from venturing beyond the beach—better to risk snakes and leeches himself than endure her complaints about bug bites.

  Camp secured, provisions stowed, he sought dry timber for the night fire.

  The jungle hummed with life. Adjusting his armload of wood, Ulysses flicked a blade upward. A green snake—mid-strike from an overhanging branch—thudded against a tree, knife through its skull.

  Even decapitated, the viper twitched—triangular head, jade scales, crimson eyes. Asian bamboo viper. Common enough, though this stretched two meters where half that length was standard.

  Island gigantism at work. He skinned the serpent, adding it to his haul. Hardtack could wait—fresh meat tempted. Englishmen might recoil from snakeflesh, but colonial experience taught him better.

  No birds, though... Should've brought a rod.

  He found Yvette at camp juggling four coconuts. "Treacherous things!" she panted as he relieved her top two—one shell brimming with clams.

  "Clever—seabirds are scarce here. Take the shellfish. I'll manage the snake."

  She gaped. "You'd keep snake all to yourself? Barbarian!"

  "...Must you defy every feminine stereotype?"

  Dusk found them by the fire. Clams sizzled on the grill, popping open like pearly purses. Yvette blew on a steaming morsel before slurping it down—briny sweetness perfumed by woodsmoke.

  "For you, sir?"

  Ulysses rotated snake kebabs over coals, sleeves rolled up, hair tied high—more frontiersman than dandy tonight. "Patience. Overload your stomach now, regret later."

  "My dessert stomach's separate," she grinned. In her past world, snake had been rare—gamey, tender, a forbidden treat. This viper? Juicier, richer, perfect campfire feast.

  Earlier, she'd noted other oddities—locusts the size of mice, an abandoned tortoise shell large enough to bathe in.

  "Insects here double-sized. That shell suggests a three-meter beast."

  "Island syndrome," Ulysses said. "Isolated ecosystems breed giants... or shrink them. Ever seen dwarf elephants?"

  Wandering sailors likely ate the local megafauna, leaving only shell fragments and gnawed bones. Yet the birdless quiet puzzled him—his caged raven shuffled nervously as he covered its cage.

  "Monster turtle shell could be our bath!" Yvette's holiday spirit remained unbroken, her scientist's curiosity overriding volcanic threats. For now, magic held darkness at bay—there would be time enough for dread when the earth itself began to scream.