Page 74 of Chaos Carnival

“Because we never would have gotten her back if I did,” Lilith replied, her eyes pinned on mine.

“Relax, it’s not true anyway. It has happened several times,” I explained.

Lilith and I both knew they hadn't gotten me back at all. I had returned fundamentally changed. I was now someone who could walk between worlds and had emerged crowned in darkness.

I lifted the cold tea to my lips, tasting possibilities in its depths. The others watched me with wary eyes, their concerns so small against the vast symphony of existence now spread before me. They feared I was fragile, worried I might break.

They didn't understand that I was no longer something that could break. I had become the thing that breaks others. Or could, at least.

I searched for the appropriate response to their concern—gratitude, perhaps, or reassurance—but my feelings were like a limb awakening from deep sleep, present but not quite functional. I could see the shape of what I should feel, knew intellectually that I loved them, but the sensation itself remained distant, humming just beyond my reach. Like staticbuilding before a storm, I sensed those emotions slowly returning, pinpricks of feeling penetrating the vast emptiness that surviving between worlds had left behind.

As I set the mug down with deliberate care, ripples formed in the liquid, each one a possible future, each ending in blood or triumph, or both. “It won’t happen again,” I said, my voice carrying the inevitability of fate.

“Tess...” Addie's voice quavered, giving me that maternal look she always gave.

“There’s nothing to be worried about anymore,” I replied, lifting my gaze to meet hers.

They exchanged glances. I drew in a breath, tasting the infinite possibilities on my tongue.

“We need to talk about the circus.”

“No,” Maverick snapped, his authority laughably cute now.

“We don't have to—” Addie started, but I silenced her with a look that made her jaw snap shut.

“Yes, we do.”

Lux crossed his arms, trying to maintain his composure even as his aura flickered with unease. “It's not the right time, Tess. You just came back from who knows where. We need to focus on—“

“I’ve seen everything,” I cut through his words like silk through shadow. “Every path, every choice, every death. We take the circus. That's not a prediction. It's already happened across a thousand realities. We're just catching up to the inevitable.”

Silence fell like a guillotine blade, sharp and final.

“My dear,” Oscar's crystalline voice chimed in, “Your newfound cosmic enlightenment has done wonders for your dramatic timing. Though I do wish you'd kept some of that old self-deprecating charm. Omniscience can be such a bore at dinner parties.”

I shot the crystal skull a look that could have shattered lesser vessels. In fact, in three alternate timelines, it actually did. But here and now, with his trapped soul swirling within that crystal prison, he remained unshakeable.

“We don't need to do this yet,” Maverick coaxed, almost begging. His hand on my knee like a child trying to hold back an avalanche.

I turned to him, brushing his hand with fingers that could unravel him now. “We do,” I said, watching him lean into my gaze. “The lines have already woven it into being. Fighting it will only make the weave tighter, and the price steeper.”

Lilith lounged back, dark satisfaction playing across her features. “She's probably right,” she purred. “Threads have a way of strangling those who resist.”

“This is insane,” Addie whispered into her hands, but she didn’t mean it. She was trying not to get excited yet.

“Sanity is relative,” I said, a smile curving my lips as the air rippled in agreement. “When you've seen every version of existence, madness becomes clarifying.”

Maverick's sigh carried the burden of all his centuries. “You just came back to us. We don't know how long it will last.”

“I'll come and go,” I said, certainty ringing in my voice. “The strands will call, and I'll answer. But I'll always return,” my smile widened. “Where else would I keep my collection of favorite realities?”

They finally stopped looking at me like I might disappear and looked at me like I might makethemdisappear instead. Which was just plain silly.

Maverick leaned back, his hand never leaving mine. “What are we going to do with a circus?”

As his question hung in the air, I smiled, the air rippling around me. “A circus,” I said, energy buzzing beneath my words, “is the perfect cover. People expect to see impossible things.They want to believe their eyes are lying to them.” I traced a finger through the air, leaving a trail of dark glitter. “When something truly supernatural happens, they'll applaud.”

“You could feed on their willing surrender to illusion,” Lilith added, understanding dawning in her eyes. “Their fear.”

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