A makeshift bath took shape: a shallow pit cradling half of an enormous turtle shell, its rim reinforced by canvas sheets. The two-meter-long carapace curved like a deep basin, allowing Yvette to fully submerge herself within its obsidian embrace.

  The tiny copper kettle could never heat such a colossus, but Yvette's supernatural gifts offered better solutions. By diverting heat from the campfire through esoteric means, she conjured steaming baths even in this wilderness—luxury defying their crude tools.

  After filling the shell with heated seawater, she offered the first soak to Ulysses. The man had labored through the sweltering afternoon—building shelters, coaxing flames from damp wood—yet declined with a casual wave, ambling into the dusk for his "evening constitutional."

  She didn’t protest. Sinking into the bath, Yvette sighed as tropical sweat and salt crust melted away. Her fingers traced the shell's fractured edge—jagged clefts from axes, not time. Some hungry crew had butchered this ancient creature.

  Turtle soup, she recalled, required no flour thickener. Its natural gelatin made it aristocracy's darling. Merchant ships hauled live specimens to Albion despite massive losses; ten thousand still reached noble tables yearly. Middle-class kitchens mimicked it with veal-head "mock turtle soup"—testament to its prestige immortalized in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

  This island must have once swarmed with megafauna—tortoises ballooned by island gigantism. But centuries of passing ships' appetites left only "useless" insects. Anything valuable—giant tortoises, plump rodents—were surely extinct.

  Her transcendent visions during ascension flashed: primordial epochs where warmth birthed titans, later starved by cooling eras. This island's isolation birthed stranger mutations. Now under a star-crammed sky that seemed to sag low, cricket song boomed from ferns. Palm-sized insects she’d seen earlier, bold as sparrows, thrummed bassoon-deep choruses.

  A wrongness prickled her neck.

  Such hefty bugs would sustain entire bird colonies... yet she’d seen no birds. Had avian giants evolved? Pterosaur-like behemoths?

  Absurd. Aerodynamics doomed oversized fliers—unless magic intervened...

  Ulysses returned near midnight, hair dripping. A stream bath, then. Sensible—had he used the shell, she’d have taken her own prolonged "walk." Behind his cavalier mask lay considerate precision. A curious duality in the man.

  Aboard the Silver Star, night watch relieved day crew. The captain exchanged gruff camaraderie with his men. A grizzled rigger voiced the unspoken: "Cap’n... them Fishers. They alright?"

  "Gone since noon. To the watering island."

  "But—" The sailor blanched. "The main isle’s cursed! Old Crenshaw's crew went there—storm-stranded, provisions spoiled. Five went ashore; one returned mad. Sang crazed hymns, jumped at whispers. Died in some ironworks later, ears bleeding from the din. Never spoke of what he saw..."

  The captain frowned. "Believe in spooks now, Jory?"

  "Cap’n." The man leaned close. "My fosterdad saw him die. Hardest tar to sail the Carib. But when he told it... his hands shook."

  Legends of Salamanders flickered in Yvette’s notes—fire elementals glimpsed in magma flows, contradictorily described: flaming newts, phoenix-like birds, even winged hounds. Librarian-cat Mr. Tibbs had relented (after fish-bribes) to point dusty tomes detailing these cryptids. Most accounts were alchemical allegories, but one matched her needs: "black-scaled lizards glowing like embers, scarlet markings searing like brands."

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  The volcanic peak loomed across the channel. Prophetic visions promised gentle eruption—syrupy lava oozing through ravines, nothing like Pompeii's ashen doom. If fools could grill steaks on lava flows as TV chefs boasted, she could harvest specimens safely.

  Moreover, salamanders reportedly swarmed eruption skies—visible for leagues. The satellite island might suffice.

  Boredom set in after days exploring the atoll. Then—at last—the ground shivered. Insects hushed. Yvette and Ulysses froze mid-tic-tac-toe in tidal sands, sticks hovering over their grid as the mountain stirred.

  For ten shuddering minutes, the ground quaked before deep roars erupted from the volcano—a slumbering titan stirring to life.

  Nature’s fury unveiled its opening act: plumes of ash and steam exploded skyward, sculpting a grim mushroom cloud. From the summit’s fractures surged smoke so dense, it seemed Hell itself had yawned wide.

  To the west, twilight clung stubbornly to the horizon. Eastward, stars prickled a flawless sapphire expanse. Between them loomed the volcanic haze—a demarcation line drawn by deities.

  Perched on basalt columns akin to the Giant’s Causeway, Yvette surveyed the seascape. Beneath the heavens stretched only ocean and smoke—the latter smoldering intermittently, like coals buried in ash. The crater’s baleful glow burned brighter against smoke-choked skies, while jagged lightning bolts—violet-tinged and vicious—wove through sunset and starlight, crafting an apocalypse frozen in time.

  "Stars... lightning... dusk... coexisting..." she breathed. The volcanic shroud resembled some primeval leviathan, its crackling electricity clawing at the firmament. Each lightning burst drenched the world in cold brilliance, opposing the volcano’s hellish radiance. Yvette shivered under this kaleidoscopic glare.

  "Pliny the Younger witnessed Vesuvius’ wrath," said Ulysses beside her, golden eyes narrowed. "Miles from Pompeii, yet nearly consumed. He described ‘a frenzied cloud, lightning-torn, revealing flame giants.’ Volcanic storms may be nature’s grim habit."

  Pompeii had died in superheated ash. Here, lighter plumes ascended, cooling into gray snowflakes.

  As Yvette watched, lava oozed from the crater—sinuous rivulets like serpents escaping Hades. Embers spiraled above, fiery petals heralding an infernal triumph.

  "Those sparks—salamanders," Ulysses declared.

  Squinting, Yvette saw only mundane sparks—until she turned. His eyes now gleamed avian and alien: golden irises, pupils knife-thin slits. Hawks’ vision... she realized. He’s reshaped his sight.

  The embers rode thermal winds, arcing toward their isle. Their paths defied physics—gliding, pivoting, alive. "Two neared the mussel-rich beach," Ulysses directed. "Their glide paths hold true... One veers toward our woods—closest. Hurry—" He stumbled mid-stride, kicking a buried stone.

  "Ulysses?"

  He stared through her, gaze distant.

  "You... can’t focus nearby?"

  "Irrelevant. Speed is paramount—they’ll scatter."

  Yvette recalled raptors’ telescopic vision—the trade-off being blurred immediacy.

  Determined, she grasped his hand, navigating safer slopes. He tensed, then yielded.

  Ulysses’ coordinates proved exact. A singed trail snaked ahead—vegetation desiccated, branches crackling with residual heat.

  Fifty paces farther, the creature lay dying—a foot-long lizard, crimson and obsidian, winged like a drake. Bioluminescent patches dimmed as necrosis crept through its scales.

  "A child of lava..." Yvette murmured. The cold was murdering it.

  Ulysses proffered asbestos gloves. "My touch suffices," she insisted, recalling her gifts.

  He unveiled a copper case with corundum vials. "Salamander blood scalds ordinary glass."

  Hence artisans’ extortionate rates, she mused, resolving to compensate Masgin fairly henceforth.

  Clasping the critter, she hesitated—its death-writhen beauty tugged at her conscience.

  "Shall I?" Ulysses offered.

  [Use gratefully, not wantonly. No evil done, no life desecrated.] Keegan’s ghost counseled.

  Steeling herself, Yvette slit its throat. Molten blood filled three vials before the creature blackened into coal.

  They perish fast in cold, she understood. No wonder they’re myths.

  Three vials secured, she hurried onward—more salamanders awaited.