Fay gathered her fire and crushed it down into something smaller. Not a blaze. Not a lash. Dusts.

She coaxed her flame into fizzling motes, tiny sparks that shimmered teal, bright as beetle wings.

They trembled in the air around her fingers, weightless, harmless looking.

Then she released them. The motes drifted out in a loose cloud.

The Tiyanak noticed at once. Infant faces turned up, curious, mouths puckering in stupid delight.

One toddled forward and reached for the dazzling teal as if it were a firefly.

The moment it touched the spark, it ignited. It went up like dried straw.

Flame climbed its infant shape in a breath. It did not scream.

It only stiffened, blackening, flesh charring until it stood there burned and locked in place.

Still alive. Still twitching. A little smoking statue.

Fay's throat tightened. Around her, the other Tiyanak scattered, then circled back, giggling softer now, more wary.

She looked past them and saw what mattered. Pieces of the Preta.

Organs and scraps held in small hands, hugged close, passed from one infant to another like stolen sweets.

They wanted to play more. They tossed the Preta's meat around and shrieked with delight.

Fay ran after them, reaching, snapping her whip just to herd, but the group of Tiyanak only got faster.

They darted away in sudden bursts, passing the organs from hand to hand, always just out of reach.

Radeon watched it unfold and used it. He let one punch hit him.

The blow caught him clean and launched him into the air. His forearm went numb.

Pain flashed bright, then became a dull roar he pushed under his chant.

The Preta sprang in for the follow up, hunger eager to finish.

Radeon was ready. In midflight his hand shot toward a kidney tumbling through the air.

The Preta saw the intent and snatched at its own organ first.

That was the opening. As the ghost's fist passed him, Radeon laid threads across its giant fingers.

Another set of threads snapped out and bound the Preta's head. For a heartbeat the creature was caught in its own momentum, locked midcharge.

Radeon dropped. He anchored himself to the ground like a nail driven deep, and the sutra weight returned to him.

The Preta's body strained against the bindings, and parts of it shredded again under its own force, torn by thread and gravity.

Radeon did not waste the moment. He went for the eyes, tore out the two wet globes, and flung them at the Tiyanak.

The infants saw the round prizes and squealed. They pounced as if the eyes were a ball.

Their giggling echoed off the stone, blissful and wrong. For a breath, they looked at Radeon as if he'd given them a gift.

Radeon's gaze slid to the Preta's brain next. He wanted to slow it, to dull its intent, but the hungry ghost's nervous system was robust.

Even half shredded, it used what remained to skitter away, dragging itself with raw will.

Radeon let it run, thoughts turning cold and quick. But first he needed to recover.

He pulled out a mid-grade spirit stone. It was warm at first, alive with clean energy.

He pressed it to his palm and began to draw out what was inside it, trading spirit for the ghastly.

The stone cooled. Warmth bled out of it until it felt like winter. His color returned, smooth as white jade.

He sent his next words to Fay through noiseless qi.

"Let those Tiyanak be. Stay here for a while."

Fay shook her head hard and ran to him, moving faster than she had when she fled the Preta.

She clung to his arm with both hands like a drowning woman.

"No... no." Her breath hitched. "Master, please. Let me go with you. Please. Don't leave me here with these Tiyanak."

Her eyes flicked to the ghostly infants, to the charred one still twitching, to the giggling mouths and reaching hands.

Radeon felt her panic pressing at the edge of collapse. He could push. He could force obedience. He chose not to. Not now.

"Alright," he sent back. "Same rule. Hear nothing. Say nothing."

"Yes, Master. This disciple will follow your words exactly."

She tried to swallow her curiosity, tried to cage the part of her that wanted to look and touch and learn.

Radeon's promise, when she took him as her master, that he would not hurt her. It sat in her bones, an engraving she could cling to.

Radeon pried her hands off his arm, one finger at a time, and stepped forward.

They had only taken a few steps when the floor shuddered under them.

Not a tremor from stone settling. Not the slow groan of a cavern breathing.

Radeon felt it through his soles first. Then he heard it, a wet pull, like something feeding through mud.

The ground opened. A huge mouth rose out of the rock itself and swallowed the Tiyanak by the hundreds.

Infant bodies vanished in gulps. Giggles cut off. Only the echo remained.

The Preta. It moved through material as if stone was only fog. It took back what had been scattered, reclaiming its body by eating what carried its pieces.

It rose and formed quickly, flesh knitting and bulging. The passage ahead filled with it.

Its stomach, once a bloated pouch, swelled until it looked packed tight, like a rice sack stuffed past sense.

Beneath its skin, shapes still moved. Little kicks. Little wriggles. Tiyanak trapped and alive inside it.

Radeon shifted at once and put Fay behind him, a silent command in the angle of his shoulder.

The Preta opened its mouth and spat. A Tiyanak shot out like a stone from a sling.

The child like ghost laughed boisterously in midflight, arms spread as if it was playing a game, then it splattered against Radeon's forearms in a wet slap, still grinning.

The entrance was blocked. The cavern behind them now felt smaller, already closing in.

Radeon did not hesitate. He pressed forward, deeper, as if the dark ahead was safer.

Fay did not know the plan. She only followed the shape of his decision, tight to his back, breathing hard.

Soon Radeon found a narrow side passage, a slit in the stone. He measured it in one glance.

Too small for the Preta's full form. Big enough for its head. That was the point.

Radeon slipped into it. Fay followed him in, shoulders scraping rock.

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