Chapter 15 “Why Didn’t You Tell Me?”
“Why Didn’t You Tell Me?”
The night settles around us like bruised velvet.
The circus creaks overhead, its old bones aching with hunger and strain from everything I’ve done wrong in the last twenty-four hours. Somewhere outside, performers argue in hushed voices, lights sputter, and ropes groan.
But inside my tiny tent, there is only Milo.
Milo and the jar. Milo and the storm shifting behind his ribs.
He sits beside me on the cot, knees drawn up, hands tangled in his hair as if he’s trying to hold his thoughts still.
And the spark above him—that fragile, stubborn gold—keeps pulsing in soft, desperate bursts.
An echo of everything he never let himself feel.
I lean back against the wagon wall, dizzy and exhausted, but I can’t stop looking at him. He finally lifts his head.
“Joy,” he says softly, “why didn’t you tell me?”
I swallow. “Tell you… what?”
“That giving me a spark would do this to you. That it would drain you. That it would weaken the circus. That it would hurt.” His voice is low, trembling at the edges.
Pain blooms in my chest. “I didn’t know it would be this bad,” I whisper.
“That’s not an answer.”
“I didn’t want you to feel guilty.”
His jaw tightens. “Guilt is better than ignorance.”
“Milo—”
“You collapsed,” he interrupts. “In front of everyone. Because of me.”
The tent feels smaller. The air feels thinner. I pull my knees up to my chest, trying to sit straighter. “I made the choice. Not you.”
“And it was a stupid choice.”
Silence slams between us. The spark above him flickers dangerously, and he winces the moment the words leave his mouth. “Joy. I didn’t mean—”
“Yes, you did,” I whisper.
His eyes widen. “Joy…”
I shake my head, wiping my palms on my skirt to ground myself. “You meant it. And you’re allowed to be angry. You’re allowed to feel things now. Even if those feelings hurt.”
The spark steadies—soft gold, trembling with sorrow but alive. He reaches out slowly, like he’s afraid I’ll flinch. “Joy… why give me something that costs you so much?”
I close my eyes because he looks like he is drowning, because his emptiness feels like a mirror of mine, and because I want to see him glow once. But all I say is: “Because you needed it.”
He stares at me, trying to read the parts of my soul I don’t know how to hide. Then his next words break something inside me: “I didn’t need saving. I needed you to tell me the truth.”
I look away as he lowers his head into his hands. “I hurt you,” he whispers. “I didn’t mean to. But I did.”
“You didn’t hurt me,” I lie. “The circus did.”
“Because of me,” he insists.
“No,” I breathe. “Because the circus needs so much. And I have so little left.”
That makes him flinch. He reaches for the jar again, and his gaze flicks to its soft glow. “Can I… try something? I want to give the spark back.”
Fear spikes in my chest. “Milo—no.”
“If it weakens you to give… maybe it strengthens you to receive,” he says firmly.
I shake my head violently. “It won’t work. I’ve tried. They slip right through me.”
“Maybe they slipped through because they didn’t belong to you,” he says quietly. “But this one… this one came from you. Maybe that makes it different.”
My heart lurches painfully. He repeats that I fixed him, and I can't breathe. He lifts the jar lid an inch, and the golden Joy I gave him flutters toward his knuckles. He touches the spark, and it brightens, then dips toward me.
“Try,” he whispers. “You’ve never had something that belonged to you. This one does.”
The spark hovers between us like a tiny sun radiating hope and risk. I tremble. “I’m scared.”
“So am I.”
My hand lifts and brushes the spark. It flares and sinks toward my chest—and then the circus screams. Not with voices, but with a violent ripple of magic that tears through the ground like thunder.
The spark jerks; Milo grabs my wrist, and the Joy refuses me.
It flickers wildly and dies right between us, snuffed out like a candle.
The circus groans; ropes snap, and something heavy collapses in the distance. Milo’s voice cuts through the roar: “Why won’t it let you feel anything?”
“Because I’m not allowed,” I answer with the truth I’ve never said aloud.
Milo’s face goes white. “By who?”
I look at the trembling jar and the tent collapsing beyond us. “By the one who made me this way,” I whisper.
Then the world outside cracks with lightning. The storm is coming, and Wonderhouse is finally breaking.