John did not sleep that night.
After the show ended and the crowd dispersed—still buzzing, still unnerved—he wandered the outer camp
in silence. His fingers moved through the motions of forgotten prayers, not to a god, but to the Light. The
only force that had ever answered.
Jack remained in the center tent, surrounded by half-curtained mirrors, greasepaint pots, and old bones of
costumes that no one remembered owning. He stared into the flickering lanternlight, unmoving. A cracked
mask lay beside him—one he'd once worn for a comedy act, now forgotten.
Eluna lingered faintly in the glass. Her voice was weak.
"He's here to bind you."
"He'll try," Jack murmured. His voice didn't sound like his anymore. Even to himself.
Eluna drifted in and out of sight, as though something were pulling her away—thread by thread.
"He carries something old. A name. A word. I can't see it, but it burns."
Jack stood slowly. Every step felt like he walked deeper into something warm and suffocating.
John returned at dawn.
He greeted no one, ignored the morning's bustle, and entered the tent with the air of a man performing
surgery. A heavy satchel hung from one shoulder. Inside: salt, ash, chalk, a folded cloth marked with binding
runes, and a vial of clear, glimmering liquid taken from a hidden well beneath Halewick's foundations.
Jack waited near the mirror.
He did not rise to greet him.
"You've come to kill me," he said.
John stepped inside the circle of light. "No. Not yet."
"That's comforting."
The two stared at one another.
"I want to speak," John said.
"Then speak."
"You're not all gone. I see that."
Jack tilted his head. "You see what I let you see."
John unwrapped a cloth and placed a single rune-marked coin on the table.
Jack's eyes flicked to it.
And narrowed.
The air thickened.
"Do you remember your name?" John asked.
"Of course."
"Say it."
Jack smiled, but didn't answer.
John placed a second item beside the coin—a strip of red cloth. Faded. Weathered.
It had once been part of a child's tunic.
For a moment, Jack's hand trembled.
Then his grin returned. Wider.
"You came too late," he whispered.
John stood still. Let silence do the work. Watched the flickers of something—someone—behind the boy's
eyes.
Eluna surged briefly into view in the mirror.
"He's still there!" she cried. "He can hear you!"
Jack slammed a hand against the glass.
It cracked.
"He's MINE," he growled.
The voice was layered—Jack's, Eluna's, and something else. Something wet and writhing.
John began drawing a sigil on the floor in ash and chalk. Slowly. Carefully.
"Don't," Jack warned.
John continued.
The tent walls shivered.
Outside, a dog began barking wildly.
"STOP!"
The wind rushed through the seams in the tent. The lanterns flickered blue. Jack's body twisted slightly, his
spine too fluid, his limbs too long. Not broken—just wrong.
"You're still human," John said, voice calm. "Barely. But it's there. I can bring you back."
"You don't understand," Jack hissed. "I chose this."
John set the final mark.
The sigil pulsed. A faint glow. A harmony note, quiet and pure.
Jack screamed.
His hands flew to his temples. His knees buckled. Eluna flared bright in the mirror, her form stretching
toward the sigil.
Then Jack looked up—eyes bleeding color.
"You can't save what's already become."
The sigil exploded in light.
Jack flung himself backward, shrieking. His scream tore through the tent like a storm. The canvas rippled.
Wooden beams cracked.
Then he attacked.
John braced, arms raised as Jack lunged at him with claws that hadn't been there moments before—fingers
fused with blackened iron, each nail a shard. John whispered a Word of Force. The air between them bent—
barely enough.
The blast sent Jack staggering, but he didn't fall.
He snarled.
Then turned—and fled.
He tore through the flap of the tent, knocking over a stunned fire-eater. He bolted into the camp, screaming
—no longer words, but laughter twisted into hate. Performers leapt out of his path. Morrow shouted
something. Someone screamed.
Jack didn't stop.
He grabbed a juggler in passing, slammed him into the side of a wagon. Bones snapped. A lantern tipped—
fire spilled into straw.
Chaos erupted.
By the time John emerged from the tent, the camp was in shambles.
Smoke. Screams. The wagons overturned.
And in the woods beyond, Jack vanished beneath the trees, his trailing laughter sharper than any blade.
John pressed a hand to his chest.
The Light within pulsed—but dimly now.
This was no longer a boy.
This was something free.