“Because of me,” he insists.
“No,” I breathe. “Because the circus needs so much. And I have so little left.”
That makes him flinch. He reaches for the jar again, and his gaze flicks to its soft glow. “Can I… try something? I want to give the spark back.”
Fear spikes in my chest. “Milo—no.”
“If it weakens you to give… maybe it strengthens you to receive,” he says firmly.
I shake my head violently. “It won’t work. I’ve tried. They slip right through me.”
“Maybe they slipped through because they didn’t belong to you,” he says quietly. “But this one… this one came from you. Maybe that makes it different.”
My heart lurches painfully. He repeats that I fixed him, and I can't breathe. He lifts the jar lid an inch, and the golden Joy I gave him flutters toward his knuckles. He touches the spark, and it brightens, then dips toward me.
“Try,” he whispers. “You’ve never had something that belonged to you. This one does.”
The spark hovers between us like a tiny sun radiating hope and risk. I tremble. “I’m scared.”
“So am I.”
My hand lifts and brushes the spark. It flares and sinks toward my chest—and then the circus screams. Not with voices, but with a violent ripple of magic that tears through the ground like thunder. The spark jerks; Milo grabs my wrist, and the Joy refuses me. It flickers wildly and dies right between us, snuffed out like a candle.
The circus groans; ropes snap, and something heavy collapses in the distance. Milo’s voice cuts through the roar: “Why won’t it let you feel anything?”
“Because I’m not allowed,” I answer with the truth I’ve never said aloud.
Milo’s face goes white. “By who?”
I look at the trembling jar and the tent collapsing beyond us. “By the one who made me this way,” I whisper.
Then the world outside cracks with lightning. The storm is coming, and Wonderhouse is finally breaking.
Chapter 16
Thunder Over Wonderhouse
The storm does not approach.It arrives.
One heartbeat the night is still—the next it tears open with a roar so violent it rattles every bone in my body. Lightning forks across the sky like a furious hand clawing through the clouds. Thunder shakes the ground so hard my cot skids an inch across the floor.
The circus reacts instantly. Canvas snaps. Poles groan. Lanterns sway wildly, witch-fire flickering inside glass that suddenly looks too thin to hold anything. Wind slams into the tents with the force of a giant’s breath, flattening entire rows for a split second before they snap back upright, gasping.
Wonderhouse is screaming.
Milo grabs my shoulders. “Joy, what’s happening?”
I can barely breathe. “The circus—” I gasp. “It’s breaking.”
“But why? Because the spark died?” he asks.
“No,” I whisper, voice shaking. “Because the spark tried to return to me. And something inside Wonderhouse fought it.”
Lightning splits the sky again, bathing us in stark white light. For the first time, Milo sees it: the shadows inside the circusdon’t fall naturally. They reach. Curling like fingers around the tents, the poles, the ropes—around us.
He stumbles back. “What is that?”
I swallow hard. My pulse thrashes. “The circus wants my Joys,” I whisper. “All of them. Always. It can’t allow any to come back to me. Not even the ones I created.”