The central campfire of El Gloriosa was a flickering oasis of warmth against the damp, clinging fog of the Amsterdam night.
Here, away from the painted smiles of the stage, the "monsters" and "marvels" of the circus became human again.
Grigori, the bear trainer, was hunched over a bowl of stew, talking softly about a daughter he hadn't seen in three years who lived in a small hamlet near the Black Forest.
Sashka and Maria, the acrobats, were leaning against each other, whispering about a scandalous romance between the horse-master and one of the fortune tellers in the south tents. They looked less like goddesses of the air and more like tired girls in worn wool.
"He doesn't eat with us," Sasha remarked, her voice carrying over the crackle of the flames. "The new one. Mephisto. He carries himself like a man who's afraid the dirt will recognize him. Why would a man of such position, a doctor, join us?"
"Or a man who's murdered a King," Grigori grunted, tearing off a piece of dark bread. "Did you see his eyes when the bells chimed? There's an old soul in that boy."
"Perhaps the 'boy' simply prefers the company of ghosts," Faust's voice drifted from the darkness beyond the firelight.
The group started, looking toward the shadows as Faust stepped into the orange glow.
He had removed his tricorne hat, but the white greasepaint and the red-smeared grin remained, making him look like a spirit haunting a picnic.
He didn't sit.
His gaze swept the group until it landed on Sutus, the mime.
"Sutus," Faust said, his bells giving a low, singular chime. "A word."
The mime looked around, as if checking whether Faust was talking to him.
After Faust's nod, he stood up slowly.
He was a thin, wiry man with sad eyes.
He followed Faust a few paces away from the warmth of the fire.
When they were out of earshot, Faust leaned in.
"Wunder said an Inquisitor was asking for me. At the south gate. He said you saw him."
Sutus didn't speak.
He stared at Faust, then slowly opened his mouth.
Faust, the doctor, felt his stomach turn.
Sutus wasn't merely a silent performer; his tongue had been crudely, violently removed, leaving only a jagged stump of scar tissue.
He was a man who had been robbed of his voice by the very world Faust was trying to navigate.
An awkward, heavy silence passed between them—a shared recognition of the world's cruelty.
Sutus then knelt in the dirt, picking up a charred stick.
With practiced, trembling strokes, he began to draw on the side of an overturned wooden crate.
First, he wrote a name in sharp, angular letters: LUCIEN.
Beside the name, he drew a symbol that made Faust's heart skip a collective beat—the Solomon Cross, an ancient mark used by those who hunted things that bumped in the night.
Then, Sutus began to sketch.
His movements were frantic yet precise. He drew the man with the big eyes—Lucien—with terrifying accuracy, capturing the sharp line of his jaw and the cold authority in his posture.
Next to him, he drew a woman with long, flowing hair and piercing eyes. A
bove her head, he placed a large question mark, signaling he did not know her name, but he captured Lybid's tattoos and her gaze so perfectly it was as if she were standing there in the wood.
As Faust stared at the drawings, the "veil" that had been clouding his mind since the violet sparks in the catacombs suddenly dropped.
The impulse surged through his body like a bolt of lightning, a physical thrumming that started in his chest and radiated to his fingertips.
The memories of the Order of Ash, the hairless cat Cherubim, and the interrogation rushed back in a staggering wave.
"I remember," Faust whispered, his hand going to the hidden pocket inside his crimson coat.
He pulled out the heavy, soot-stained tome he had swiped from the shelf.
In the flickering firelight, the gold-leaf lettering on the spine shimmered with an eerie, inner light.
The title engraved on the leather was "Ars Goetia."
With trembling fingers, Faust cracked the cover.
On the first vellum page, written in a cramped, scholarly hand that felt hauntingly familiar, was the true title of the work:
The Journal of the Greatest Hunter of All Times — Johann Weyer.
Faust's breath caught.
"Weyer?"
He remembered Azazel had the same surname.
He wasn't just holding a book of magic; he was holding the blood-stained diary of Azazel's lineage.
"Mephisto?" Sasha called out from the fire, noticing his sudden stillness. "Are you alright?"
Faust didn't answer.
He snapped the book shut and shoved it back into his coat.
The bells on his sleeves let out a sharp, frantic jingle.
"I have to go," he muttered, turning back toward the shadows. "Thank you, Sutus. If you need anything, ask anytime."