The storm screams and tries to pull itself back together, but the circus screams louder—and wins.
But the Joys don’t stop at Wonderhouse. They flood into Milo like he was built to hold them. Every spark I ever gathered, every moment I protected, and every Joy I could never feel—they surge toward him because he is hollow and open.
Milo’s body bows under the force. He drops to his knees, his hands clenching the earth as wave after wave of Joy slams into him: warmth, relief, love, hope, and light. Each spark hits him like a heartbeat returning.
“MILO!” I scream.
His head snaps up, and I see everything. His eyes glow with molten gold. Sparks lift from his skin like fireflies rising from a summer field. The hollow inside him cracks apart—not broken, but blooming. The storm shudders and collapses inward as Milo’s light devours it whole.
The circus doesn’t just brighten; it awakens. Tents unfurl like wings, and lanterns blaze so bright the entire tent glows like a sunrise. Wonderhouse breathes.
And I—I fall. My knees hit the ground, and my vision blurs. The Ringmaster is shouting, and Milo is running toward me, but I am fading. The dam inside me has shattered, and there is nothing left to hold me.
Milo reaches me first, his tears streaking molten-gold down his cheeks. “JOY—NO—NO, PLEASE?—”
I try to lift my hand to his jaw. “You glowed,” I whisper.
“Don’t talk like that,” he chokes. “You’re going to be fine.”
“I saw your Joy,” I breathe. “All of it.”
His forehead presses to mine, and he shakes violently. “You gave me everything. And I can’t give you any back. Why can’t I give it back?”
A tear slips from my eye. “You did,” I whisper. “Just now.”
Light flickers in my vision—soft gold, warm and pulsing—but it isn’t coming from me. It’s coming from him. He is glowing like I never could, becoming everything I never got to feel. And as the world dims, I smile.
“Don’t cry, Milo. It’s your turn to shine.”
My body slumps, and my breath falters. The last thing I feel before everything goes dark is Milo’s arms around me, holding me as if he can hold me back into existence.
Chapter 20
The Collapse of Little Mirth
There is a moment—athin, trembling thread of time—where I am both here and not.
Where the world is light or dark, and sound and silence all at once. Where Milo’s arms are the only thing anchoring me to a body that no longer feels like mine. Where the circus’s roar fades into a distant echo, a song played underwater. Where my name—Joy—becomes a memory spoken through fading lips.
My vision flickers like a dying lantern. The first thing I see is Milo. Not the hollow-eyed boy I met, but radiant. His face glows with the Joy he absorbed—not blinding, but soft, warm, golden, as if someone set a sunrise inside him. His tears glow too.
“Milo…” My voice is barely a breath.
“Don’t,” he begs, one hand cradling the back of my head, the other gripping my shoulder like he’s afraid I’ll fall through his fingers. “Stay with me. Please. I can’t—I can’t lose the first person who ever saw me.”
My eyelids flutter. I try to hold them open for him, just a little longer. The world behind him—the circus, the crowd, the Ringmaster shouting orders—blurs into streaks of color and movement. None of it feels real. Only Milo does.
His light pulls at my fading consciousness, begging it not to slip away. But the shatter-point inside me—the dam that broke—is unraveling everything.
“Milo…” I whisper again, struggling for breath. “It’s okay.”
“No,” he says fiercely, voice trembling. “It’s not. Nothing about this is okay.”
A sob rips out of him—raw and painful, as if he’s never cried before and doesn’t know how to survive it. The spark above his head bursts—not with light, but with grief. Agrey-gold starthat trembles so violently it looks ready to tear in half.
The circus trembles too, as if it feels the same faltering rhythm. Not because it is starving anymore—Milo fed it more Joy than it has seen in decades—but because the girl who held its magic together is coming undone.
A shadow falls over us. The Ringmaster kneels beside Milo, rain-soaked and shaking.