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“ -- will mean nothing to all the people who will freeze and starve because
you were the girl who refused to save fire.” The salamander his tail completely
around his body into a tight, shivering ball, and closed his eyes with a
disturbing exhaling sound. “Won’t be long now....”

Amelia didn’t know what to do. A part of her believed this salamander to
be a charlatan, just putting on an act to get her to use up her charcloth for a
few seconds of selfish warmth. But another part of her believed he actually
was Fire, and she was letting him slip away, now and forever. I can’t bear to
burn him and watch him writhe in pain. But neither can I face Father, telling him
I have burned the last charcloth in the world, falling prey to a smooth-tongued
salamander. Besides, Father used up all our charcloth, piece after piece; what
makes me think this one last square is going to ignite, when all the others have
failed?

Then she remembered the ember.

That one small spark of glowing heat she saw at the bottom of the moss
pile. It had flickered brighter, hadn’t it? When she had tried to speak to the
fire in her father’s hearth...”That was you,” she asked the salamander, “Wasn’t
it? Glowing in the hearth. That was you, beckoning to me, leading me to you.
Wasn’t it?”

But the salamander had closed his eyes for the last time, and did not
answer. He wasn’t breathing any more.

“No!” she shouted. And without any more thinking, Amelia ran to the
garden bench, snatched up the strike and flint, and ran back over to the bird
bath where the salamander was now quite motionless. She put down the fire
making tools so that she could work the nest of moss and twigs into a small
mound. She lay her square of charcloth on top of the nest, covered it with
more dried moss, and then picked up the salamander and laid him on top of
the pyre. He was cold.

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