This time Radeon did not leave the work to chance. He put Gauge Point, Good Chip, and Spice Cure in charge.

He raised their standards and drilled them in how to discern quality from trash, how to see what shimmer meant and what dullness lied about.

He made them look through the sorted grain by hand and coin by eye until their fingers cramped.

Fay labored at a distance, chopping wood. Her ears stayed pricked toward the lesson even as she was driven to work.

For now they kept her to menial tasks, axe in hand while her whip was taken for repair.

Fay's harvested wood lay in stacks beside him, still smelling of sap.

He tossed a chopped log up, then punched it, disintegrating it into fine pulp.

Most of the dark skin burst off in flakes, leaving white showing against the linen beneath his feet.

The wolves roamed close with their noses low, circling for a pass, jaws snapping up anything Radeon might have missed. They worked like living sieves.

When wolves took to the side, Campion stepped in and poured water from the trough rigged to his horns.

The pulp dampened and softened, and Radeon put another sheet of linen on top.

Humphrey rolled over the bundle again and again, grinding the slurry until it spread even.

Afterward Radeon heated the linen, slow enough not to scorch, fast enough not to waste the morning.

When he peeled it open, crude paper clung to the weave. Rough. Uneven. Still usable.

His brush flew. Ink bit into the fibers. He drew the required images of White Impertinence, then set his sword to the sheets and cut them into neat, bill-sized bundles.

Last came the folding. Quick, precise hands turning plain paper into offerings meant for the dead. Joss money, ready to burn.

He needed at least three for each person. When he looked up, it was still early morning. The light had barely warmed the ground.

He began shaping caskets, driving nails through wood with clean efficient strikes.

When the boxes held their shape, he brushed on lacquer and burned it down toward the darkest color, near black.

Smoke curled off the sheen. The surface tightened and deepened until it looked like night caught in wood.

Radeon turned each casket, checking every angle, making sure it invited luxury, not thrift. An offering worth taking.

He knew he was on a tight schedule. The ritual had to be done by dusk.

He did not care. Ghosts were petty. If a seam looked cheap or a finish looked careless, they would take it as insult.

If they were displeased, the fortune he already felt in his hands could vanish as if it had never been there.

While he worked, Spice Cure kept a huge pot boiling nearby. The broth churned rich with yang, stuffed with energized plants.

Most of the dried herbs he had taken from the bandit camp went into it, not for food, not for medicine, but to be burned.

Incense. Smoke as currency. He felt it in though his intuition. This was the fortune here for him.

Then he felt eyes. Someone was spying, trying to divine his position.

A thin long grey thread of intent began to descend toward him, seeking, measuring.

Radeon roused his bones and let the curse of heaven do what it did best. The thread missed. Not by luck. By rejection.

Whoever reached for him would feel only absence. As if he did not exist. As if he was already a dead soul, a discarded spirit.

He did not linger on it. He could not delay the process.

Fay was put to selling joss paper. Three copper a bundle. Some tried to buy it as convenient writing paper. Radeon shut that down at once.

"All that joss paper is for the dead," he said. "You don't burn it. Don't blame me when your ancestors come looking at night."

The warning did what warnings always did. It made fear do the teaching.

Adults repeated it to each other. Children carried it further. Stories spread fast, and soon a thousand ears believed it before they understood it.

In the early afternoon, with the sun still high, Radeon took his biggest hauler and drove for Voulgrim Evershades.

Gold and rice. Only nine caskets in total. It was good the mines sat north. Rice was not common here.

People favored ham and oats. The grain felt exotic enough that they packed only this light.

At the mouth of the cursed place, Radeon met Fay's eyes once and sent the order through silent qi.

"Open one casket of rice," he ordered.

Fay cracked open the first casket. They strode fast into the darkness. Radeon plunged his hands in and began to throw rice in wide arcs, scattering it across stone.

Grain pattered and rolled. The crunch of teeth resounded from the dark as hidden mouths began to grind.

In less than half an hour, they cleared the blackness. The entrance waited, its huge crooked teeth bared.

Radeon and Fay dragged the eight caskets inside. The stake still stood where it always had.

The Preta peeked from behind it, eyes ferocious, tongue restless.

Yet Radeon felt no hostility from it now. Not the same blind hunger. They reached the altar.

Radeon poured gold coins into the copper bowl.

The moment the gold touched, it clinked once, then vanished. Coin after coin. Sound without weight.

A wind brushed the backs of their necks. The Preta was behind them. Watching.

When the last gold fell in and disappeared, Radeon lifted the rice caskets and poured the grain onto the bone table.

The rice vanished too, swallowed in silence to a place unknown.

Then the huge door opened. Radeon's intuition had been right.

The inner face of the door was carved with a thousand indentations. Ash catchers. Places for incense.

Figurines in different poses, some weeping, some dancing, some wielding a sword.

Each had only a small indent, demanding accurate placement.

A heavy metal box sat in the middle, waiting. Radeon reached for Fay's straw bag, ready to lift the incense bundles.

The cavern rumbled. Not the old hunger this time. New boots. New intent.

Another raid beginning outside, people who wanted to take advantage of what they thought they had found.

Radeon did not hesitate. Incense flowed through his fingers and ignited as it touched his skin, flame kissing the bundles without consuming them.

He moved with practiced speed, placing each stick into its proper indentation, each figurine into its precise angle.

Smoke rose thick. The metal box absorbed it fast, pulling the scent in as if it was starving for it.

Fay could only watch. Amazed. Wondering how a man could have this kind of experience as if he had lived a hundred lives.

The last incense went in. Smoke vanished into the box.

The huge door behind them slammed shut.

The cavern still shook. Outside, stone boomed with impact.

The Preta roared, and this time the sound was laced with thick killing intention as it fought with intensified ferocity.

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