“He wasn’t watching,” I murmur. “He was worshipping.”

Lux steps forward. “He cut the ropes. Caused the collapse.”

“To feed the gods?” Indie asks.

I look back at the corpses. At the flames. At the blood still running into the dirt.

“He gave them more than we planned,” I say, my voice low, thick with the weight of ash and blood. “More than we promised.”

Giselle steps closer, brushing soot from her chest with fingers still streaked in red. “So maybe he did us a favor,” she murmurs, like it’s a joke only the gods would get. “Intentional or not, they’re fed.”

The words hang heavy.

We don’t speak. Not yet. Because it’s all clicking into place.

He didn’t cut the ropes for the gods. He didn’t collapse part of the tent out of some reverent offering. He did it for himself. For the thrill. For the power of it. For the chaos.

And it worked.

He fed off the destruction like it was made for him.

Lux narrows his eyes, stepping forward as smoke coils between us and the wreckage.

“He’s like us,” he says finally, voice calm. Certain. “Or close enough.”

“Close enough to understand,” Indie mutters, dragging her fingers through her sweat-matted hair.

“Close enough to crave it,” Giselle adds, still watching the empty spot he stood in.

Lux gives a single nod and moves to approach.

“I’ll talk to him,” he says, tone unreadable. “See what he wants.”

He takes two steps forward.

And then⁠—

Gone.

The man disappears like smoke.

No sound. No movement. Just empty space where he stood, as if he was never there at all.

The fire crackles. The crowd stirs behind us—some sobbing, some laughing, some on their knees in the dirt, as if praying to something that just stepped out of the flames.

But none of us move.

None of us speak.

Because someone came to our show tonight not to participate.

Not to scream. Not to offer blood.

But to watch it all burn.

And whatever he came for⁠—

He took it.

chapter nine

giselle

The tent still smolders. Half of it collapsed, a charred ribcage jutting from the earth, soaked in blood and ash. But we’re still here.

Still performing.

Because chaos doesn’t cancel the show—it fuels it.

The crews are working around the ruin, hauling bodies and stomping out the last of the fire while the rest of us keep the madness alive. We don’t apologize. We adapt. The gods want a feast, and we’re not about to send them home hungry.

The stranger vanished after the collapse—right before Lux stepped toward him. One second, he was there, half-lit by flame, finishing himself in front of a ruined altar like he belonged to the end of the world… and then? Gone. No footprints. No smoke trail. Just disappeared like he’d never been real.

But we know he was.