Chapter 5 The Joker’s Game
The Joker's Game
~CASSIUS~
"WE'LL KILL YOU!"
The threat echoes through the chartered space with the particular fury of immortals who have been thoroughly, embarrassingly outmaneuvered. It would be more intimidating if the voices delivering it weren't currently pitched several octaves higher than their usual registers.
Children.
He turned them into fucking children.
I sit on the bench that materialized along one wall of this between-space, my fingers drumming along its edge in a rhythm that helps contain the irritation threatening to make my shadows do something inadvisable.
The surface beneath my fingertips is cool and smooth—conjured material that exists because Professor Eternalis decided it should, carrying the particular shimmer of temporary magic.
Grim floats beside me in his miniature form, tiny scythe raised toward the ceiling as he chants something in a language that sounds like death itself trying to sing a lullaby.
The little reaper seems to be attempting to summon peace into this room—an admirable if somewhat ironic goal for a being whose very existence is tied to endings rather than harmony.
Wouldn't work for such a dark creature.
But it's worth imagining.
The chaos shows no signs of abating.
Across the room, three figures who should be among the most powerful supernatural beings I've ever encountered have been reduced to prepubescent versions of themselves.
They rage against their circumstances with all the fury their diminished forms can muster, which is simultaneously hilarious and deeply concerning.
Atticus—proud, aristocratic, centuries-old vampire—currently stands at approximately four feet tall, his clothes hanging off his small frame like a child playing dress-up in a parent's wardrobe.
His crimson eyes blaze with indignation that looks almost comical in his round, youthful face, fangs that haven't finished growing in yet bared in a snarl that lacks the menace it should carry.
Damien—the pureblood prince whose transformation into hellhound we all witnessed, whose redemption apparently earned him a place among our unlikely group—has similarly been aged down to childhood.
His features carry the promise of the devastating beauty he'll grow into, but right now he looks like an angry schoolboy plotting revenge against a particularly cruel teacher.
Nikolai—or perhaps some aspect of him; the Fae situation remains confusing—stumbles around with the particular coordination of someone whose body no longer matches their motor memory.
His Fae grace has been replaced by the clumsiness of youth, each step a negotiation between adult mind and child limbs.
And the source of this chaos?
The stranger.
The Joker.
The being whose name we still don't know because he apparently finds our ignorance amusing.
He stands in the opposite corner of the room, leaning against a conjured wall with the casual arrogance of someone who has never encountered a situation he couldn't control.
His impossible eyes—those color-shifting irises that refuse to settle on any single hue—dance with amusement as he watches our companions rage against circumstances they can't overcome.
His laughter fills the space.
It's the kind of laugh that makes you want to commit violence—rich and genuine and carrying the particular satisfaction of someone who finds everything around them deeply entertaining. Each chuckle seems designed specifically to irritate, each grin calculated to infuriate.
Joker.
The nickname fits better than I want to admit.
The door opens.
Professor Eternalis enters first, her eternal features carrying the particular patience of someone who has witnessed enough chaos to know that this too shall pass.
Mortimer follows close behind, his dragon eyes scanning the room with scholarly assessment that quickly shifts to something approaching disbelief.
Neither looks surprised by the pandemonium—a fact that speaks either to their experience with our group specifically or their experience with chaos in general.
But Mortimer's eyebrow arches with judgment that's almost audible, his gaze sweeping from the child-formed heirs to the laughing stranger to me, sitting on my bench like this is all perfectly normal.
What the fuck is actually happening?
The question is clear in his expression even if he doesn't voice it.
All I can do is shrug.
My shadows have maintained a careful barrier around my position—an almost invisible bubble of protective darkness that seems to be the only thing preventing whatever magic the stranger is using from affecting me as well.
The tendrils coil and shift within their dome, agitated but contained, ready to strike if necessary but smart enough to recognize that attack might invite retaliation I'm not prepared to face.
I can't read him.
The thought surfaces again, as it has countless times since the stranger first appeared.
Every being I've ever encountered carries some fundamental essence I can taste with my shadows. Vampires feel like copper and eternity. Dragons like hoarded flame. Fae like deceptive beauty given power. Even humans have their particular signature of mortality and ambition.
But him...
My shadows probe the edges of his existence and find nothing. Not emptiness—absence. Whatever he is exists in frequencies my darkness can't perceive, in dimensions my power can't access. It's like trying to grasp smoke, like trying to hold water in a net designed for catching fish.
Unsettling doesn't begin to describe it.
Zeke is the only one seemingly unaffected by the chaos.
The feline shifter sits on a higher bench in the corner of the room, legs crossed with casual elegance, attention focused entirely on inspecting his nails as if their condition is the most important matter currently requiring attention.
His golden eyes carry the particular detachment of cats who have decided that the drama unfolding around them is beneath their notice.
Nine lives of experience apparently teach you what's worth worrying about.
This apparently isn't.
"I'M A FUCKING PUREBLOOD AND YOU'VE CHANGED ME INTO A FUCKING KID!"
Damien's child-voice cracks on the final word, the pitch shift only adding to his humiliation. His small fists clench at his sides, body trembling with rage that his diminished form can't properly contain.
"I CAN SLICE YOUR FUCKING THROAT!"
The threat would be more impressive if he wasn't currently shorter than most dining tables.
Atticus joins the chorus, vampire aristocracy reduced to schoolyard tantrum: "I'LL MURDER YOU! I'LL DRAIN YOU DRY AND FEED YOUR CORPSE TO—"
"Fuck, I'm already tired."
Nikolai's interruption cuts through the threats with exhaustion so profound it seems to deflate the anger around him. The Fae—still in child form—shuffles toward my position with the particular gait of someone running on fumes that ran out hours ago.
Jeez.
The poor being still looks drained as hell, whatever happened during the separation from Nikki apparently taking a toll that hasn't begun to recover.
We're hoping for an explanation eventually—surely it has something to do with whatever happened to Nikki during all this chaos—but for now, Nikolai seems barely capable of remaining upright, let alone providing answers.
Nikki.
Gabriel.
Neither of them has appeared since... whatever happened during the trials.
I feel like we should be worried about their absence, but something in Professor Eternalis's calm demeanor suggests that questions will be answered in due time. We just need a moment of peace to actually have that conversation.
A "calm" moment.
In this room.
With these people.
Right.
My only real concern is having this inevitable discussion without Gwenievere.
The thought surfaces with weight that would have surprised me months ago—back in Year One, when she was just another competitor in trials designed to kill most participants.
Back when her fierce independence irritated rather than attracted, when her reckless bravery seemed like foolishness rather than the courage I now recognize it to be.
But now...
Now I'd dare admit I love the woman too much to leave her out.
The acknowledgment settles into my chest with warmth that Duskwalkers aren't supposed to feel. We're beings of shadow and void, creatures of darkness who exist in the spaces between what light can touch. Emotion is supposed to be muted for us, dampened by the fundamental nature of what we are.
And yet.
And yet I love her.
Fiercely. Completely. In ways that make my shadows ache when she's unconscious and unreachable in her stasis sphere.
She's clearly the key to all of this—the centerpiece, as Mortimer called her, around whom everything else revolves. Whatever happens next, whatever waits on the other side of these trials, she needs to be part of the conversation.
It's odd that I can confidently say I want to be by her side when it happens.
When we see what's on the other side of graduating Wicked Academy.
When we finally understand what all of this has been building toward.
Odd, but true.
Nikolai reaches my barrier, feet practically dragging across the conjured floor. The Fae's child-form slumps with exhaustion that transcends physical tiredness—this is something deeper, something fundamental, as if the separation from Nikki has cost them more than either understood it would.
I feel sorry enough for him to let my shadows respond.
Tendrils shift within my protective dome, creating an opening just large enough for Nikolai to pass through while maintaining the barrier against whatever voodoo magic the Joker has been using to keep the others in child form.
The darkness parts like a curtain, welcoming the Fae into the protected space before sealing closed behind them.
The transformation is immediate.