I look at his hands, still glowing with the faint, borrowed gold of the spark I gave him. For a heartbeat, the jar in my lap goes silent. It is the first time I feel a spark trying to bloom in my own chest—white-hot and terrifying. The spark of a choice.
“You can’t fix me,” I whisper.
“Maybe not,” he murmurs. “But I can see you. And that’s a start.”
And the circus, hearing his vow, shudders in warning. Canvas creaks. Ropes groan. The air tightens. Because Wonderhouse knows what I do not: if Milo tries to fix what was broken in me, he will break the balance of everything.
Chapter 15
“Why Didn’t You Tell Me?”
The night settlesaround us like bruised velvet.
The circus creaks overhead, its old bones aching with hunger and strain from everything I’ve done wrong in the last twenty-four hours. Somewhere outside, performers argue in hushed voices, lights sputter, and ropes groan.
But inside my tiny tent, there is only Milo. Milo and the jar. Milo and the storm shifting behind his ribs. He sits beside me on the cot, knees drawn up, hands tangled in his hair as if he’s trying to hold his thoughts still. And the spark above him—that fragile, stubborn gold—keeps pulsing in soft, desperate bursts. An echo of everything he never let himself feel.
I lean back against the wagon wall, dizzy and exhausted, but I can’t stop looking at him. He finally lifts his head.
“Joy,” he says softly, “why didn’t you tell me?”
I swallow. “Tell you… what?”
“That giving me a spark would do this to you. That it would drain you. That it would weaken the circus. That it would hurt.” His voice is low, trembling at the edges.
Pain blooms in my chest. “I didn’t know it would be this bad,” I whisper.
“That’s not an answer.”
“I didn’t want you to feel guilty.”
His jaw tightens. “Guilt is better than ignorance.”
“Milo—”
“You collapsed,” he interrupts. “In front of everyone. Because of me.”
The tent feels smaller. The air feels thinner. I pull my knees up to my chest, trying to sit straighter. “I made the choice. Not you.”
“And it was a stupid choice.”
Silence slams between us. The spark above him flickers dangerously, and he winces the moment the words leave his mouth. “Joy. I didn’t mean?—”
“Yes, you did,” I whisper.
His eyes widen. “Joy…”
I shake my head, wiping my palms on my skirt to ground myself. “You meant it. And you’re allowed to be angry. You’re allowed to feel things now. Even if those feelings hurt.”
The spark steadies—soft gold, trembling with sorrow but alive. He reaches out slowly, like he’s afraid I’ll flinch. “Joy… why give me something that costs you so much?”
I close my eyes because he looks like he is drowning, because his emptiness feels like a mirror of mine, and because I want to see him glow once. But all I say is: “Because you needed it.”
He stares at me, trying to read the parts of my soul I don’t know how to hide. Then his next words break something inside me: “I didn’t need saving. I needed you to tell me the truth.”
I look away as he lowers his head into his hands. “I hurt you,” he whispers. “I didn’t mean to. But I did.”
“You didn’t hurt me,” I lie. “The circus did.”