The nights were louder now.
The circus had always drawn cries of awe, whistles, drunken laughter, and the rustling of canvas in the wind
—but lately, the sounds echoed longer. There was something brittle in them, as if every cheer was stretched
thin over something sharper underneath.
Jack took the stage with full command now. His painted face had become legend in the towns they passed.
Children whispered about him in candlelight. Adults spoke his name with a mixture of fascination and
unease. No longer just the clown—he had become the act. The main draw.
His performances were glorious, terrifying. He performed cartwheels with impossible grace, danced
backwards on a tightrope with a blindfold, spoke in riddles that made children scream with delight and
adults blink slowly in confusion. He juggled fire and steel with mechanical precision. He'd make entire rows
of patrons laugh or gasp with a single twitch of his fingers.
He learned how to direct their emotions.
And how to feed on them.
He felt it in the marrow of his bones. When a woman clutched her husband's arm and gasped—he grew
warmer. When a child laughed too hard to breathe, he stood straighter. When the crowd roared in unified
delight, he left the stage trembling with power.
He didn't know how he was doing it. He didn't care.
He killed again.
This time, it was a man. A loner. One of the drifters who'd tagged along the circus trail. No family. No ties.
No one would miss him. Jack found him vomiting near the woods after drinking too much. He offered help.
A hand. A smile.
When the man looked up, there was recognition in his eyes—then fear.
Jack didn't touch him.
He breathed.
And the man collapsed, mouth open, eyes wide, his last exhale a silent moan. Jack crouched and placed his
hand on the man's chest. The warmth that flowed into him was stronger this time. Sharper. Cleaner.
A memory flickered across his vision.
A younger version of the man laughing with his sister at a lake. A joke he told once that made a girl fall in
love with him. A secret guilt he never confessed.
And then nothing.
The husk crumbled, and Jack stood—more whole than he had felt in years.
The crew began whispering. Rosy avoided his gaze. The animal trainer kept his knives closer. The fire-
breather refused to practice near him. Even Morrow began giving short answers, his face pale with
suspicion.
Only Eluna came to him now, hovering like a dim moon in mirrors and puddles.
"You're going too far," she whispered.
"They love me," Jack replied.
"You're devouring them."
"They offer it freely."
She began fading again, her voice strained.
"You won't stop."
He didn't answer.
Far from the circus, John Shorn rode alone, cloak billowing as the hills sloped beneath his horse. He had
stopped asking directions. The dreams were enough. They led him—not with words, but with pulls. A tug
behind the ribs. A light that turned his thoughts.
Each night he dreamed of fire.
And of a painted boy devouring light.
He studied by campfire. Sigils, rites, and bindings. He recited the old Words under his breath, fingers
twitching through forbidden glyphs. The Light had warned him this one might not be containable by
ordinary means.
The fusion had created something entirely new.
A storm of flesh and memory, laughter and shadow. Not a demon. Not a man. Something worse.
A corrupted child of balance.
John didn't speak much anymore. Not to his steed. Not to travelers. He had become a vessel—devoted to
the mission, to the one chance of righting a cosmic error.
The circus was two days ahead.
Jack, meanwhile, stood center ring that night, surrounded by a crowd that shrieked and gasped and
cheered.
And deep within him, something opened its eyes.
It had always been watching.
Now it wanted out.