“Joy… Child… Please look at me.”
I try. But my vision is narrowing, tightening to a tunnel of light and shadow around Milo’s glowing face.
“I never wanted this end for you,” the Ringmaster whispers. “Never.”
Milo rounds on him, voice cracking with something feral. “This is your fault!”
“No,” the Ringmaster says softly. “It was my burden. And hers. But never yours.”
The tent groans overhead, sagging from the weight of the storm and magic’s recoil. A piece of canvas tears free, sending cold rain down in a harsh waterfall. It splashes across my skin. I don’t feel it. I only feel Milo.
My pulse flutters weakly—a bird with broken wings. My fingers twitch once, curling weakly in his shirt.
“Joy?”
The name floats to me like a distant bell.
“Milo… don’t forget,” I whisper.
“Forget what?” he breathes desperately.
“How to feel.”
His breath breaks into a sob. “You taught me,” he says. “You don’t get to leave before I can give it back.”
But the world goes quiet. The storm recedes. The circus hushes as if bowing its head. Even Milo’s light dims around the edges.
“I’m tired,” I whisper.
Milo lets out a sound that is all brokenness and terror and love. I feel something leave me—a sigh, a spark, a breath of warmth I didn’t know I had left.
My head tilts against Milo’s chest. And then—I collapse.
The circus wails. Milo screams my name. And darkness takes me not like death, but like falling into a place where light has not yet learned how to exist.
Chapter 21
A Circus in Mourning
The world moveson without me.
Slowly at first, like a giant stirring from sleep, then all at once—a rush of activity, grief, panic, and ritual. I float somewhere between it all. Not awake. Not gone. Not alive in the way I used to be. I drift like a lantern without flame.
And Wonderhouse feels wrong. Too quiet. Too careful. Too heavy with absence.
The circus has lost performers before—injuries, accidents, travelers who slip away in the night. But it has never lost the one who held its heart together.
I hear their voices as if underwater.
"She's not breathing." "Someone get blankets—she's freezing." "The storm's stopped. Why isn't she waking up?"
And somewhere inside that murmur: Milo’s voice. Not the Milo who used to speak in empty tones. Not the hollow boy. His voice is full. Overflowing. Breaking on every word like waves on stone.
"I've got you, Joy. Don't you dare go anywhere. Don't you dare leave me."
The circus bends around his grief. Lanterns burn low, their flames shaking. The carousel hums a mournful tune—minor and slow. Even the fireflies dim, as if blinking in sorrow.
The performers gather around the main tent, smoke-streaked and exhausted. Some kneel in the sawdust. Some hold hands. Some stare at the place where the storm ripped open the roof.