Seven fiery salamanders had soared toward Sub-Island. Two plunged into the sea; another lay dead as cold coal. Yet Yvette harvested blood from four, filling her brass-latched case to near capacity—a prize worthy of celebration.

  The creature’s blood—volatile essence for alchemical brews—would sustain her potioncraft long after returning to Albion.

  Who would’ve thought she’d grow reliant on such draughts? Yet the allure proved undeniable...

  As Yvette secured her haul, Ulysses stiffened, gaze locked on the smoldering peak.

  “What is it?”

  “The winds reek of death.”

  Following his stare, she glimpsed a living storm above the jungle—locusts, beetles, moths—disgorged from foliage in panicked flight. Yet their escape proved futile. Row by row, the swarm crumpled mid-air like parchment beneath a fist.

  “Fumarolic poison,” Ulysses muttered. “Our seers foresaw flames, not vapors. The wind delivers both. Move.”

  Ravens might alert their ship, but outpacing the toxic tide was impossible. Their backup plan—a waiting vessel to retrieve survivors—now felt cruelly distant.

  Yvette’s memory flashed to submerged grottos she’d spied at dawn’s ebb tide—a submerged tunnel to safety. But the plan demanded swimming through rising waters.

  “Ulysses—do you swim?”

  His arched brow prompted explanation. The cave’s flooded entrance, she reasoned, would block gas while air pockets inside preserved breathable refuge.

  The flaw? Yvette had never swum a stroke. Pre-illness academe left no time for pools; sickness stripped leisure. Yet pain-riddled treatments paled against what awaited without shelter.

  Ulysses knotted a rope between them, testing each loop. “Loose knots drown us both.”

  Sulfurous rot clawed at their throats as they waded through the strait—basalt pillars shielding their brief respite. Ulysses dove, yanking Yvette into brine. Salt buoyed her until the submerged cave mouth gulped them down.

  Darkness relented as salamander-blood warmth bled into Yvette’s palm, casting amber light over dripstone teeth. Ulysses shook seawater from an oil lamp. “Dry this. Breeze whispers of other exits.”

  Echoes rippled through the ascending tunnel as crimson embers lit their path—flickering hope in the gut of stone.

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  The additional passageway meant airflow—a relief, as lighting a lamp wouldn’t suffocate them. But if the cave truly functioned like an upturned bottle submerged at the mouth, igniting their kerosene lamp remained perilous without knowing how long the toxic fumes would linger.

  Ulysses had braced for worse: a cramped, airtight cavity forcing him to mimic gills underwater, reserving the cave’s stale air for Yvette. Now, such extremes seemed avoidable.

  “Lord Ulysses,” Yvette summoned him in the dark, cradling a box.

  He traced her voice until warmth prickled his skin. She’d harnessed residual heat from the Fire Salamander’s blood, circulating it to dry their soaked clothes. Steam curled faintly from his sleeves—fifteen minutes, he guessed, until fully dry.

  “Don’t waste the blood’s warmth,” he cautioned, thermal sight revealing the box’s crimson glow dimming under her relentless extraction. “I’ll dive again soon to check the gas.”

  He stepped back, but she closed the gap, halting inches away.

  “I’ve got this.”

  Heat siphoned moisture into the air, draining energy. Ingeniously, Yvette created an overhead absorption field, recycling steam’s heat downward—precision work needing proximity. The adjusted system conserved energy; even post-drying, the box remained burning hot.

  Her exhausted sigh drew a ghost of a smile from him, lost in blackness.

  Beside her, the disassembled lamp parts had dried. Ulysses rebuilt it deftly—base, chimney, wick—and sparked a flame. Weak amber light spilled through sooty glass.

  They tallied supplies: his tools (lamp, rope, knife); her Fire Salamander’s blood and soaked rations. The prophet’s vision of benign lava had misled them; toxic gas left no time for resupply.

  Grimacing at the brine-ruined food, Yvette recalled Bear Grylls’ seawater workaround (rectal tubing, mortifying even solo).

  Seizing the rations, Ulysses said, “Inedible. Seawater’s salt demands more water to flush it—and its poisons compound the harm.”

  “If the gas lasts days, water’s our crisis.”

  “I’ll dive for fish or coconuts,” he assured.

  A subterranean roar shook stalactites. Ulysses pinned Yvette to the wall as obsidian plates erupted across his collarbones—a bestial exoskeleton, barbed and eldritch.

  Some metamorphic mimicry? She eyed dagger-like stalactites, doubting even those grotesque plates could withstand their fall.

  Quiet returned, then a barrage of splashes at the entrance.

  “Landslide,” Ulysses spat. “Pray the mouth isn’t sealed.”

  The cave, nested beneath unstable cliffs opposite basalt columns, had succumbed to eruption tremors.

  “At least it didn’t bury us on entry,” Yvette offered.

  His dive confirmed the worst—exit blocked. “We track the drafts to another way out.”

  Yvette peered into the tunnel’s lightless gullet, imagination conjuring horrors. Shaking it off, she gripped practicality: Find escape before thirst cripples us.

  “I’ll lead,” Ulysses said, night-adapted eyes glinting felinely. “Take the lamp.”

  She obliged, observing his reverted form—only claws and tapered ears hinted at his battle-readiness. Regret pricked her: seawater had ruined her revolver’s ammunition.

  Sword in hand, she trailed him into the claustrophobic crawl.

  Minutes of silent progress through stooped passages favored her compact frame over his height.

  Emerging into a crude “hall,” her relief faded. Uncanny pillars loomed, their rough-hewn forms casting monstrous shadows. Primitive statues radiated ancestral dread—a genetic memory of predators that once stalked humanity’s nights.

  Even laughably crude, their silhouettes triggered atavistic panic. Yvette’s instincts screamed: Danger.