Layla Swanson crawled out of the surf and swore she would find out who sank her ship. The cold water dragged at her legs. Behind her, the wreck of the cargo vessel lay broken on the rocks, its sails torn, its timbers split like snapped bones. Twelve hours ago she had been a passenger with a cabin and a name people knew. Now she had wet clothes, red hair plastered to her face, and no answer for why the hull had cracked in calm seas. She could not think about that yet. She was shaking. Her lips had gone numb, and her fingers would not close all the way. Night was coming, and she knew the cold would kill her before any question did. She needed shelter and warmth, and she needed both fast. "You'll die out here, you know," said a voice above her. Layla looked up. A bright parrot sat on a branch, green and red and blue, watching her with a smug little tilt of its head. It ruffled its feathers. "Talking birds," she muttered. "Perfect." "Others walk. You crawl," the parrot said. "There's a hut past the rocks. If you can manage that." She did not trust it, but she had no better idea. Layla forced herself up and stumbled the way the bird flew. Past a line of pale boulders she found it: a small shelter built from driftwood planks and curved branches, weathered gray, its roof loose but standing. Someone had made this. That thought scared her and gave her hope at once. Inside, the wind stopped clawing at her. But dry walls were not enough. She was still soaked, still shivering hard, and the shelter held no blankets. A ring of stones sat in the center, black with old ash. A fire pit. Someone had lived here before her. "Flint's in the corner," the parrot said from the doorway. "Try not to freeze while you find it." She found the flint under a flat rock, along with a scrap of dry bark. Her hands shook so badly the first strikes threw no spark. She clenched her jaw and struck again. A spark caught the bark. She fed it splinters of driftwood, then thicker pieces, and the flame climbed until it filled the stone ring with light and heat. Layla pulled off her wet coat and held her palms to the fire. Warmth crawled back into her fingers. She would last the night. She would live to ask her questions. Then she saw it in the firelight: a name carved deep into the shelter's center post. Her ship's name. The one now broken on the rocks below. Someone from her vessel had been here before the wreck ever happened. "Ah," the parrot said quietly. "You noticed."