The monastery at Halewick sat atop the windswept cliffs like an old wound that never closed. Its stones
were black with salt and time, its windows narrow and suspicious. The sea below roared always—never
soothing, only hungry.
Brother John Shorn walked the inner cloister with parchment in hand. He did not need to open it again. He'd
already read the message five times. The words burned now beneath his eyes, though written in ink.
A boy. A clown. He's not right. Please come at once.
Reeve Morrow's wax seal had been enough to ensure the letter was delivered swiftly, but it was the wording
—the desperate precision of it—that had unnerved John most. Morrow wasn't a man prone to exaggeration.
He had once written an entire report about a plague outbreak using only twelve words.
Now he pleaded.
John's steps led him to the small chamber beneath the library—a place few monks visited. The air inside
smelled of iron and old parchment. A single candle flickered beside a metal basin etched with worn runes.
The Light was waiting.
Not in form, not in presence—but in potential. A sense that if he looked long enough at the flickering
shadows, they might blink back.
He knelt. Bowed his head.
"I've felt him," John whispered. "Or something like him."
No answer came. No voice. The Light did not speak like mortals.
But the runes on the basin shimmered briefly.
Encouragement. Recognition. Perhaps even fear.
John reached into the wooden box beside him. From within, he withdrew two things: a scrap of preserved
velvet—once red, now faded black—and a small shard of bone, no longer than a finger.
The bone was warm.
He laid it on the altar. "You told me this one might rise again. The fusion. The broken tether."
Silence.
Then the candle flared. A brief gust of wind—not cold, not warm, only ancient—blew through the sealed
chamber.
John swallowed.
"I'll go," he said. "To the circus. If it's truly him… I'll act."
He stood slowly, fingers brushing the bone.
Visions danced across his mind's eye. A boy in greasepaint, bent backward in impossible ways. Eyes too
wide. A smile stitched with grief and glee. A shadow standing behind him—no, within him.
John Shorn closed the box.
He would ride with the dawn.
Above, in the highest tower of Halewick, a figure watched through glass that no longer reflected. A soft
glow pulsed beneath its robes—a light dimmed and dulled with time, still tethered to John's soul.
The being did not speak. It had no mouth.
But it remembered Jack.
It remembered the boy. The breaking. The bond. The mistake.
It had tried to help.
And now it would try again—through the only mortal who still listened.
Whispers stirred at the edge of the Veil.
And the Light prepared for war.