It was a waltz with bruises.
That was the only way I could describe it. Mavus and I moved through the dust-choked tent like twin blades carving through fog—every breath a prelude, every step a punctuation mark in some dark, unwritten opera. No music but the thrum of blood and the occasional symphony of grinding sand beneath our feet.
His fist clipped my jaw—again—and stars bloomed across my vision like drunk fireflies. I stumbled back, only to pivot off a collapsing scaffold and launch myself into a low, sweeping kick.
Bare-chested and bleeding, Mavus Grey fought like a man with no tomorrow—which, given the company he kept, was perhaps not merely a figure of speech. He ducked, rolled, and slammed his shoulder into my ribs with the elegant desperation of a dying swan mid-bar fight.
We crashed into a painted cutout of some long-forgotten strongman act. The wood shattered. I spat a splinter and rebounded with a sharp elbow to his temple. He reeled but didn’t fall.
Neither of us had fallen yet.
The tent swayed above us like a half-deflated balloon, canvas sighing with every impact. Lights flickered—somehow still alive, blinking like hungover angels.
I vaulted onto a rusted trapeze swing left dangling overhead. It wobbled perilously, but I used the momentum to somersault down behind him and plant a solid punch squarely between his shoulder blades.
Mavus staggered back and caught himself on a support beam, then twisted and came at me with a low hook. I blocked it just in time—barely—our skin scraping like flint.
He was breathing heavier now. So was I. Our fight had painted us in sweat, dirt, and each other’s bruises.
"Still on your feet?" Mavus rasped, blood painting the edge of his smile. "Color me surprised."
I ducked a hook and drove a jab into his ribs. "Good skincare. Better lies."
He winced, but snicked. "Explains the flair."
I circled him, light on my feet, breath hissing through my teeth. "Flair? Please. If I were trying, you’d be blushing by now."
He bellowed a deep, hearty chuckle almost as if he were having the time of his life. Then he charged.
We collided like thunder meeting storm, our bodies crashing in a tangle of limbs, momentum, and too much unresolved emotional tension. It was like wrestling a ghost with a vendetta—one who smelled faintly of dying roses and overdue guilt.
We crashed through a puppet stand, then rebounded onto the center ring’s splintered stage. A final burst of strength surged between us. Mavus lunged. I ducked low, twisted, and locked my arm around his throat in a tight grapple.
We toppled to the ground, rolling across the dirt-strewn canvas. He struggled—gods, he struggled—but his strength was bleeding out like ink in water. I squeezed tighter, pinning his legs with mine, his breath rasping against my shoulder.
"Yield," I whispered.
A moment. Just a moment of suspended breath.
The tension snapped like a thread pulled too taut. Mavus sagged in my grip, not limp, but... finished. Like an old song remembered one last time before the silence.
Black tar spewed from his mouth, thick and gleaming like oil scraped from a dying star. It spattered the ground, hissed as it touched the air, and smelled—ghastly.
I pulled back, letting him slump onto his side, his body convulsing slightly.
"They’re killing me," he said hoarsely. "The clowns. The gift. Whatever they are...they seem to pull death closer. Like a magnet. A curse wrapped in silk."
He laughed then, short and bitter. "I thought I could manage it. That if I kept control, I’d stay alive just long enough to do something worthwhile."
He coughed again. More black tar. It sizzled in the dirt.
"Turns out I’m not the one in control," he added, voice rasping like broken glass.
He staggered to his feet with the grace of a man who knew the end of the play but insisted on bowing anyway. I caught him as he wavered, helped guide him toward a rotting desk tucked near the corner of the tent. The surface was warped from moisture, splintered with time.
He found a quill and paper—miraculously intact, tucked in a drawer like an afterthought.
"I don’t have much time," he said, every breath an effort. "Need to...write this down. Binding."
"What are you doing?" I asked, already knowing.
He began to write, hands trembling.
"My entire network. The slaves. The codes. The houses. The buyers. All of it. I’m giving it to you."
I blinked. "You’re handing me your kingdom of flesh."
"Not a kingdom," he corrected weakly. "A wound. And maybe you’ll do what I couldn’t. Maybe you’ll...cauterize it."
He signed with a final flourish, the contract glowing faintly before searing itself into the air with a golden shimmer.
He nearly collapsed then, and I caught him again.
"Easy," I muttered, guiding him to sit upright against a pillar that had once been painted gold. It flaked under my fingers.
"Where’s the invitation?" I asked softly.
He coughed, eyes distant. "The city’s central hot springs. In the bathhouse. You’ll find her there."
Mavus nodded, smiling faintly through the tar-stained pain. "Tell her Mavus Grey is dead. That you now own what I once did."
"And who exactly is ’her’?"
His lips curled into something like a dying joke. "A devil in silk. A succubus. Deep red skin. Bright green eyes. Freckles across her cheeks like wine-stained stars."
The description hit me like a slow, smug slap to the memory—one of those perfectly manicured ones, nails lacquered in spite and familiarity.
My stomach turned. Not in a dramatic swoon, but in that quiet, insidious way it does when your past walks back into the room wearing new heels and worse intentions.
Of course it was her.
I didn’t say her name. I didn’t need to. Saying it aloud might’ve summoned her like a demon with a standing appointment.
Instead, I exhaled—long, theatrical, and burdened with enough silent complaint to sour holy water.
Just then, the tent flaps burst open.
The beast boy stumbled in—shirt torn, chest heaving, dragging the two clowns behind him like nightmarish luggage. They twitched slightly, jerking at odd angles, like puppets still connected to invisible strings.
His body was shaking with exhaustion, eyes wide, teeth bared in a silent snarl.
"They’re...handled," he said between gasps.
"Handled," I echoed. "Yes. Like rabid pythons in a burgundy bag."
Mavus lifted his head, breath rattling like wind through dry leaves. "Bring me outside."
I blinked. "You want—?"
"The moon," he whispered. "Let me see it. One more time."
The boy and I exchanged a glance—his eyes wide, uncertain. But he didn’t stop me.
Carefully, I slid my arms beneath Mavus’s frail frame. His body was featherlight now, all bone and regret, more memory than man. As I lifted him, something inside him crackled—a brittle sound, like old paper folding in on itself.
We stepped through the shredded flaps of the tent.
And the night...welcomed us.
Not with warmth, but with stillness. The kind of hush reserved for the last scene of a play, where the audience holds its breath and time forgets to tick forward.
Above us, the moon hung fat and pale in the velvet sky—round as a truth long denied, casting silver over everything like a final benediction. Its light caught on the shattered edges of the carnival. A rusted Ferris wheel leaning drunkenly into the wind, swings creaking as if pushed by invisible hands, popcorn carts overturned and half-swallowed by weeds. All of it—the wreckage, the rot—looked softer in the moonlight. Like even decay could be beautiful, if you gave it the right lighting.
Mavus stared upward, his face turned to the heavens, eyes wide and almost childlike in the glow. The silver traced the cracks in his painted face, illuminating every line like poetry carved into marble.
"So beautiful," he murmured, voice barely more than breath. "Even in ruins."
I knelt and lowered him gently to the grass near the clearing’s edge, just where the tent’s shadow ended and the moonlight truly began. The earth was damp and uneven beneath us, scattered with fallen leaves and crushed candies, but Mavus didn’t seem to care. His eyes were fixed skyward, as if the moon itself had become his confessor.
A breeze drifted through the broken park, carrying with it the scent of rust, sugar, and something older—something aching.
Behind us, the beast boy stood watch. The clowns twitched once more—then stilled. Completely.
Their masks cracked down the middle. Empty.
"What will you do with it?" Mavus asked suddenly.
"I’ll tear it apart," I said simply. "Every link. Every collar. Every lie. I’ll free them all."
It was faint. Fragile. But real.
"Good," he whispered. "That’s...good."
Mavus Grey was still.
A man who once trafficked in flesh and shadows, undone not by blade or curse—but by choice. A final, unexpected mercy in a world that rarely offered any.
I rose slowly, brushing a bit of dust from my bruised ribs.
The beast boy stood beside me. He didn’t speak.
We turned together, stepping away from the corpse and the clowns, leaving the tent and its haunted past behind us.
Toward the city’s heart.
Toward the hot springs.
And the devil waiting there.
I had an invitation to collect.