Chapter 29 BONUS SCENE Milo’s POV
BONUS SCENE: Milo’s POV
(The Night After the Lantern-Born)
I don’t sleep.
Not because I’m afraid of nightmares, but because I’m afraid I’ll wake up and the world will be hollow again.
I walk through the quiet circus like a man relearning how to breathe, every step heavy and real on the sawdust. Every few minutes, I look up at the rigging—half-expecting her to be gone, half-terrified that I dreamt the entire sunrise.
I stop beneath the main mast, right where she first touched me after the shattering.
My chest is tight, but it’s a good kind of tight—like a full cup.
I press my palm to my ribs and feel her there.
Beneath my skin, a shimmer of gold pulses in time with my heart.
It’s her spark—the one that didn’t just save me, but remade me.
Then, the air warms.
I don't have to look to know she's there. She drifts down from the high shadows of the Big Top, painting the canvas in ribbons of soft gold and lavender. She moves weightlessly, a being of pure radiance who no longer knows what it means to be broken.
"Joy," I whisper. The name still feels like a prayer on my tongue.
She turns, and her glow brightens as she nears me. When her light brushes my hands, it doesn't feel like air—it feels like a soft, steady hum that vibrates right through my bones.
"Does it feel different?" she asks, her voice echoing gently, like a bell rung underwater.
"Everything is different," I say, and for the first time in my life, I mean it without fear. I reach out, and my fingers pass into her glow, catching the warmth she radiates. "I used to be a boy who was just a void for you to fill. But now..."
"Now you're a part of the light," she finishes for me.
I lean my forehead against the space where hers would be, and I let my eyes close. I spent years thinking I was empty, but as her light curls around my shoulders, I realize I wasn't a void—I was just waiting for the right kind of fire.
"I'm staying, Joy," I promise, my voice thick with a feeling I don't have to name. "I'm staying as long as there's light to keep."
Her glow wraps around me like a promise kept, and in the quiet of the new Wonderhouse, I finally know what it's like to be whole.