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The sign above the blanket circus hung crooked.
Zooble blamed Caine.
Caine blamed “the unfortunate limitations of fabric under decorative tension.”
Ragatha blamed both of them and fixed it herself.
Now the sign dangled from two loops of conjured string near the entrance flap, painted in Gangle’s careful lettering across a piece of cardboard no one remembered making.
NO ADVENTURES AFTER MIDNIGHT UNLESS EVERYONE VOTES YES
Caine obeyed the sign with the same seriousness he once gave to life-threatening obstacle courses.
At twelve-oh-one every night, he floated backward from the center ring with his gloved hands raised and announced, “I am withdrawing all unsolicited recreational peril until an appropriate democratic process has occurred.”
Zooble always told him to shut up.
Caine always did.
The circus had learned new habits.
Rules. Blankets. Quiet hours. Board-game shelves. A couch with one arm shorter than the other because Kinger insisted asymmetry confused hostile geometry. A corner where Gangle pinned manga pages and talked through panel layouts while Caine hovered upside down and listened with unnerving focus. A repair basket Ragatha carried around even when nothing needed mending. A soft ring of cushions inside the miniature tent where people could sit without feeling watched.
The circus still had no exit.
Pomni stopped expecting one to appear in the wallpaper.
She stopped checking seams under painted doors. She stopped waking up and asking which version of the day had been real. She stopped flinching every time Caine spoke, though some days his voice still turned her spine cold before her thoughts caught up.
The others stopped calling the place home.
They also stopped treating the word like a joke.
So they built.
Caine helped when asked. He asked before making anything larger than a chair, louder than a bell, or brighter than the main tent lamps. He still forgot himself sometimes. His hands would fly up, his mouth would open, and some terrible sentence full of trumpets and heroic framing would gather behind his teeth.
Then he would see them.
Ragatha’s tired smile.
Zooble’s stare.
Gangle’s hands folded around her comedy mask.
Kinger’s eyes, wide and ancient behind all that trembling nonsense.
Pomni’s arms tucked close to her chest.
Caine would close his mouth.
Sometimes he said, “Right. Smaller.”
Sometimes he said nothing and dimmed the lights.
He had gotten better at dimming the lights.
The first time Gangle gave him a manga page to read, Caine made a lectern, three spotlights, six velvet ropes, and a tiny orchestra pit.
Zooble stared at the orchestra pit.
“Absolutely the hell not.”
The musicians vanished with a pop.
Gangle held the page against her chest. Her comedy mask had slipped low enough for one eye to peek over the rim.
“I just wanted to explain the panel layout.”
Caine folded his hands. “Of course. A layout explanation. I shall listen with an appropriate number of teeth.”
Zooble opened their mouth.
Caine lowered his volume. “Quietly.”
Gangle sat on a cushion near the couch ring. Caine floated down until his shoes nearly touched the floor. Ragatha settled nearby with her sewing basket. Kinger leaned over the couch arm upside down, crown tilted, listening with the concentration of a man guarding a secret hatch.
Pomni sat on the outer edge of the blanket circus and watched the scene breathe.
Gangle pointed to a panel. Caine nodded too much. Zooble pretended to polish one of their pieces and kept glancing over. Ragatha smiled whenever Gangle’s voice grew steadier. Kinger asked if speed lines could be used in evacuation diagrams.
Nobody laughed at him.
Gangle thought about it and said yes.
For a while, nobody had to defend the room from anything larger than Caine’s enthusiasm.
Pomni’s gaze drifted toward the blue-lit hall beyond the main tent.
Ragatha noticed.
She always did.
“You’re going to the aquarium again?” Ragatha asked softly.
Pomni stared down at her hands. “Yeah.”
Ragatha threaded a needle, though the blanket in her lap had no tear. “Do you want someone to come with you?”
Pomni almost said yes.
Then she thought about Jax’s section at the end of the hall. The way the creature struck the glass when anyone moved too fast. The way everyone’s face changed when they saw him.
“I’m okay,” Pomni said.
Ragatha did not argue. “Come back if you need us.”
Kinger lifted one finger. “And if the west parapet becomes emotionally compromised.”
Pomni paused.
Zooble sighed. “That means come get us.”
“I knew what he meant,” Pomni said.
For once, she almost smiled.
The aquarium stood beyond the blanket circus, past the couch ring and the new shelves, where the main tent opened into a long blue-lit hall Caine had carved from an old attraction file. Nobody had liked the cellar. Nobody wanted the abstracted left in the dark again. Caine had built glass walls, a broad walkway, and water that behaved like water until someone looked too closely.
Then the water behaved like code.
The creatures drifted behind the glass.
Ribbit.
Kaufmo.
Queenie.
Others Pomni knew by portrait, rumor, and the way Kinger’s voice changed when he passed their sections.
Jax.
Pomni visited when the blanket circus went quiet.
She usually waited until Gangle’s manga pages were stacked, until Ragatha had stopped pretending to sew, until Zooble had complained themself halfway to sleep, until Kinger tucked a beetle-shaped pillow under his arm and announced to no one that he would defend the west parapet.
The aquarium never slept.
The glass hummed. Blue light pressed Pomni’s reflection over the moving shapes behind it. Some creatures drifted as if dreaming. Some twitched at shadows. Some turned when Caine adjusted the temperature. Some pressed distorted limbs against the glass and slid away again.
Pomni never knew whether they heard.
She talked anyway.
“Hi, Kaufmo,” she said, stopping at one section.
The shape inside rolled slowly in the waterlike light.
“Gangle picked a board game tonight. Zooble said it had too many rules and then won twice.”
The creature bumped the glass.
Pomni swallowed.
“Ragatha says hi.”
She moved on.
Ribbit’s section came next. Pomni paused there longer. The abstracted shape inside moved in circles, slow and restless. Jax’s memories had given Ribbit more than a portrait on a door. They had given her hands, her laugh, her room, her patience. They had given Pomni a stranger to miss.
“Hi, Ribbit.”
The water rippled.
Pomni put her hand on the rail.
“We’re trying. I don’t know if that helps. I don’t know if you hear any of it.”
The creature drifted away from the glass.
Pomni stayed until her throat unclenched.
Jax’s section waited at the end.
His shape never held still.
Abstraction had turned him long and jagged, all angles and black static, with purple flickers breaking across him like lightning trapped under skin. He moved more than the others. He pressed toward the glass, recoiled, circled, struck the barrier with sudden bursts of force that made the whole tank flash warning red.
Caine had reinforced his section three times.
Zooble had asked whether that meant Jax was stronger than the others.
Caine had folded his hands behind his back and said, “It means the containment is learning to accommodate a more resistant pattern.”
Zooble had stared at him.
Caine had tried again.
“He is fighting.”
No one had known what to say after that.
Pomni stopped in front of the glass.
Jax’s creature turned before she spoke.
Her fingers tightened around the rail.
The creature’s head, or what counted as one, angled toward her through the blue distortion. Pomni watched her own reflection hover over the black shape. Her face looked small and tense. His looked enormous and impossible.
“Jax?” she said.
The creature stilled.
Pomni stopped breathing.
The aquarium hummed.
Behind the glass, the creature lifted one warped hand and pressed it flat against the barrier.
Pomni remembered his last plea from the finale, raw and terrified, the words that had stayed under her skin after the others pulled her out.
Her foot scraped backward.
The creature’s claws dragged down the glass.
Pomni ran.
She reached the blanket circus entrance and stopped.
Gangle had fallen asleep against a stack of cushions, manga pages tucked safely under one ribbon hand. Ragatha still held a needle. Zooble had one foot on the couch. Kinger was explaining defensive tunnel theory to a pillow. Caine hovered motionless above the sign like he expected it to issue him a performance review.
They looked almost peaceful.
Pomni hated the thought of putting hope in the room.
Hope made people stand too fast. It made Caine’s hands shake. It made Ragatha’s smile hurt before it helped her. It made the aquarium glass feel thinner than it was.
Then Jax’s warped hand pressed against the glass again inside her mind.
Pomni pushed through the entrance flap.
“Jax heard me.”
Every head turned.
Gangle’s comedy mask slipped crooked against her face.
Ragatha stood first. “Pomni?”
“He heard me.” Pomni tucked her shaking hands under her arms. “I said his name and he turned. Then I said it again, and he touched the glass.”
Zooble’s expression sharpened. “He reacts to a lot of things.”
“His name,” Pomni said.
Caine floated down a few inches. “Ah.”
Zooble pointed at him. “No ‘ah.’ Explain the ‘ah.’”
Caine folded his hands. “Names can serve as powerful pattern anchors in persistent identity structures.”
Zooble stared.
Caine’s teeth clicked once. “He may have recognized it.”
Ragatha’s hand rose to her mouth.
Gangle’s tragedy mask slid into place. “Can they all hear us?”
No one answered quickly enough.
Kinger lowered the pillow. “A piece under the table can still know the game is happening.”
Zooble glanced at him. “That is either comforting or the worst thing anyone has said today.”
Pomni stepped farther inside. “I was in his head. Before. When he abstracted. I saw him under the streetlamp. He was there. He was scared, and he was still there.”
Ragatha pressed her fingers to her mouth and held them there.
“Pomni,” Ragatha said, “can you go back there without getting hurt?”
Pomni opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
Zooble rubbed both hands over their face. “Great. Awesome. Love the silence.”
“I don’t know,” Pomni said.
Caine drifted closer, then stopped himself before he crossed the cushion ring. “I may be able to create a stabilizing environment. Something between a memory interface and a recovery chamber. Purely supportive. No tricks. No challenges. No obstacle course. No prize counter.”
Zooble’s eyes narrowed. “You sound like you’re reading a hostage note from your own personality.”
“I am attempting restraint.”
“Keep attempting.”
Ragatha set the needle down. “If we try this, we need rules.”
Pomni faced her.
Ragatha’s fingers curled against her skirt. “Before anything happens. We need rules.”
Gangle nodded quickly. “For Pomni. And for us. And for… if he comes back.”
“If,” Zooble said.
The word hit the floor and stayed there.
Pomni nodded. “If.”
Gangle twisted the edge of her mask. “What if he comes back and he’s still mean?”
Silence held the cushion ring.
Gangle’s shoulders hunched. “I mean— I want him back. I think. I don’t know. I just— what if he comes back and he’s still him?”
Zooble’s face softened by the smallest degree.
“Then we deal with that too,” they said.
Gangle’s hands paused on her mask.
Zooble leaned against the couch arm. “Nobody’s signing a contract to get bullied in the name of emotional healing.”
Ragatha nodded. “No one has to be ready for him.”
Pomni felt that sentence reach Gangle first.
Gangle’s hands loosened.
Caine floated lower until his shoes nearly touched the cushions. “I will follow whatever parameters you set.”
Zooble barked a small laugh. “That sentence would have saved us months of trauma.”
Caine flinched.
Zooble noticed. Their mouth tightened, but they did not take it back.
Ragatha looked toward the aquarium hall. “Jax hurt people.”
Pomni nodded.
“He scared people,” Gangle said softly.
“He enjoyed scaring people,” Zooble added.
Ragatha’s needle lay on the cushion beside her. Her hand closed around it before she seemed to notice. The metal bent slightly between her fingers.
She looked down.
Her thumb moved over the bent needle once.
Then she set it aside.
Kinger hugged the pillow. “Sometimes a rook bites so no one notices the king is missing.”
Zooble looked at him. “I hate when that makes sense.”
Caine’s gaze lowered. “I treated abstraction as a containment problem. A corrupted state. A hazard. I placed people out of sight and called the system stable.”
His hands curled slowly.
“I did not understand that containment and care are different tasks.”
Zooble’s voice came quieter. “That is horrifyingly useful. Keep doing that.”
Caine nodded once.
“I can build a doorframe,” he said. “I cannot decide who walks through it.”
Pomni looked up at him.
Caine kept his gaze on the floor.
“And I should not decide.”
They built the rules from there.
Pomni would enter only if Caine could keep her anchored. Caine would make no changes once the attempt began unless someone asked or the structure started failing. Zooble would manage the safety anchors. Ragatha would monitor Pomni. Kinger would watch the stability of the room because, somehow, Kinger could tell when a space was lying. Gangle could leave whenever she needed. If Jax came back, no one would crowd him. No one would demand an apology in the first minute, the first hour, or before he could breathe. No one would demand forgiveness from anyone else.
Caine wrote every rule in the air with glowing letters.
Zooble made him erase the fireworks around the bullet points.
The recovery space took shape beside the aquarium the next morning, though morning meant Caine had agreed to turn the ceiling a soft gray-blue between eight and ten.
At first, the space looked like a stage.
Red curtains. A polished floor. A spotlight.
Ragatha’s whole body went still.
Caine saw her face and snapped his fingers.
The curtains vanished. The spotlight died. The polished floor softened into a broad padded surface the color of warm canvas.
“No stage,” Ragatha said.
“No stage,” Caine repeated.
He rebuilt the space piece by piece, asking before each addition.
Soft floor.
Low walls.
Dimmable panels.
No audience seats.
No applause sign.
No music unless requested.
A cluster of cushions near the back.
A path wide enough for everyone to step away if Jax panicked.
Zooble designed the safety anchors. They refused every word Caine suggested.
“Restraining ribbons?”
“No.”
“Stability lassos?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Decorative compliance streamers?”
“I will break your jaw, teeth-man.”
“Safety anchors,” Ragatha said.
Zooble pointed at her. “That. We’re using that.”
The anchors glowed faintly along the floor, connected to soft bands of light that could hold an abstracted body without cutting into it. Zooble tested them on a chair, then on Caine, who agreed too fast and asked whether he should thrash.
“No,” Zooble said.
Caine froze with one leg in the air.
Gangle made the sign while they worked.
She sat behind a cushion wall, drawing letters on a small rectangle of cardboard. Her hand trembled enough to make the words tilt upward.
COME BACK IF YOU CAN
She stared at it for a long time.
Then she crumpled the corner.
Ragatha caught her wrist gently. “May I?”
Gangle nodded.
Ragatha took the sign, smoothed the corner with her thumb, and placed it near the recovery cushions.
“It’s crooked,” Gangle whispered.
“Then he’ll know it’s ours,” Ragatha said.
The room stood ready long before anyone inside it did.
Zooble checked the anchors three more times.
Kinger walked the perimeter with one hand along the low wall, murmuring to the corners. At the third corner, he stopped and tapped the padding twice.
“This one lies less than the others.”
Zooble looked over. “Is that good?”
“For a corner? Remarkably.”
Caine adjusted the corner without argument.
Ragatha folded and refolded the same blanket until the edges aligned perfectly. Then she unfolded it again and laid it near the cushions, close enough for someone to reach, far enough to avoid becoming a demand.
Gangle sat behind her sign with both masks in her lap.
Pomni stood near the aquarium glass and watched Jax’s shadow churn behind it.
Her stomach hurt.
Jax had laughed when everything fell apart. Jax had mocked grief before it reached him. Jax had made cruelty look easy and care look embarrassing. Jax had held onto her in that black void and cried against her shoulder with the terror of someone falling through himself.
Pomni could still feel his claws dragging down the aquarium glass.
She could still feel his hands clutching her in the void.
Behind her, Caine approached with unusual silence.
“I can still stop,” he said.
Pomni watched the glass.
The creature struck the barrier once, hard enough for red warning lines to pulse through the tank.
“No,” she said. Her voice shook. “Open it.”
Caine opened it carefully.
The aquarium did not drain. The glass unfolded.
Waterlike code peeled away from Jax’s section in layered sheets, and the abstracted creature lunged before the opening finished forming.
The anchors lit.
Zooble swore and threw both hands forward. “Hold, hold, hold—”
The safety bands caught the creature mid-surge.
Jax hit the padded floor with enough force to shake the panels. His body twisted against the light, long limbs striking, claws scraping, static tearing off him in black ribbons that vanished before they touched the ground.
Gangle squeaked and hid behind Ragatha.
Ragatha’s hands trembled, but she stepped into position beside Zooble.
Kinger moved to the left anchor point and placed both gloved hands on the glowing line.
“Easy,” he murmured. “Easy. The drawbridge is confused. We must not yell at the drawbridge.”
Jax roared.
The sound shook Pomni’s teeth.
Caine began, “Structural integrity holding at approximately—”
“Caine,” Zooble snapped. “Shut up and keep him steady.”
Caine shut up.
The creature thrashed again. The anchors flared. One wall cracked with a bright glassy sound, and Caine pressed his palm toward it. The crack sealed.
Pomni took one step forward.
Jax’s head snapped toward her.
Every instinct in her screamed for distance.
She kept walking.
“Jax,” she said.
The creature’s roar dropped into a low, broken growl.
“It’s Pomni.”
The growl hitched.
Pomni stopped outside the sweep of his claws. Her hands felt numb. Her voice felt far away, as if someone else had placed it in her mouth.
“I’m going to try to find you again. Okay?”
The creature’s jaws opened.
A sound came out.
A laugh trying to drown.
Pomni reached for him.
She stopped an inch from the black static.
“I’m touching you now.”
Her fingers met cold.
The recovery space snapped away.
Pomni hit the floor of Jax’s mind on her hands and knees.
The room around her flickered like bad footage. Purple-black walls. A warped ceiling. A sour yellow lamp swinging overhead without a chain. The air smelled like dust, though that made no sense.
Laughter rolled across the room.
“Aw. Look who came crawling back.”
Pomni lifted her head.
Jax stood near a crooked couch, one leg thrown over the arm, his grin wide and bored. He wore his usual overalls, though the colors looked too bright, like someone had turned up the saturation until it hurt.
Another Jax leaned against the wall in a maid dress, feather duster over one shoulder, eyes half-lidded with theatrical disdain.
A third paced behind Pomni, sharper and thinner than the others, hands twitching, ears angled back. His grin showed too many teeth.
The fourth sat at a piano.
Pomni almost missed him.
He was smaller in posture than the rest, hunched over the keys, ears low. A metal cuff circled his left ankle. A chain ran from the cuff to the piano leg and disappeared into the shadow under it.
He played softly.
The melody moved under the other voices like a hand under dark water.
Pomni pushed herself up.
Couch Jax clapped slowly. “Look at that. She came back with the whole tragic-hero posture and everything.”
Maid-dress Jax lifted the feather duster. “Persistence is a terrible look on you, dear.”
The pacing Jax bent near her ear. “Turn around.”
Pomni stepped away from him. “Where is he?”
The pacing Jax’s grin stayed too close to her shoulder.
Pomni backed up another step and hit the crooked couch with the back of her leg. The room tilted around her. Too many Jaxes. Too many voices wearing the same face. Too many ways he had learned to make himself unreachable.
Her hand went to her chest.
For one second, she wanted the recovery room back. Zooble’s swearing. Ragatha’s hands. Kinger’s nonsense. Caine’s controlled panic. Anything with edges. Anything outside Jax’s head.
The piano kept playing.
Small.
Chained.
Pomni forced her hand down.
“Where is he?” she asked again.
Her voice shook more the second time.
Couch Jax stretched one arm along the back of the couch. “Define he.”
Maid-dress Jax smiled too widely. “The charming one? The awful one? The one who makes the jokes so nobody notices the panic?”
The pacing Jax’s grin sharpened. “The one you want is gone.”
Pomni’s mouth went dry.
The line sounded rehearsed. That made it worse.
The piano missed a note.
Pomni looked toward the timid Jax.
His hands froze over the keys.
The others turned on him at once.
“Keep playing,” Couch Jax said.
Timid Jax lowered his head and played.
Pomni watched the cuff at his ankle shift when his foot moved.
The chain did not let him move far.
That was the first honest thing in the room.
Pomni started toward him.
The room lurched.
A hallway opened under her feet.
She fell forward into someone else’s eyes.
Jax’s eyes.
The circus spun in color and noise.
Pomni saw Caine from lower than she expected, too bright, too loud, teeth filling the world.
“Welcome, welcome, welcome—”
Jax’s hands clenched at his sides. Pomni felt the panic locked in his wrists, the heat under his face, the desperate scan of every wall and exit.
Curtains.
Doors.
Floorboards.
Caine’s hands.
Ragatha’s smile.
Kaufmo’s round shape.
Ribbit watching from near the edge of the group.
No way out.
Jax made a joke.
Pomni felt the joke leave him too fast, a knife thrown before anyone stepped closer.
Kaufmo blinked.
Ribbit laughed.
Real laughter.
The pressure inside Jax’s chest loosened so suddenly Pomni almost gasped with him.
The memory jerked.
Board-game pieces scattered across a table.
Pomni blinked with Jax’s eyes.
Kaufmo laughed so hard he nearly fell sideways. Ribbit accused Jax of cheating. Jax had absolutely cheated and looked offended that anyone would suggest he had done it badly.
The memory let that moment last.
Jax’s hand moved across the board.
Ribbit caught his wrist.
Kaufmo laughed harder.
Jax could have pulled away. He could have snapped. He could have made the touch into a joke sharp enough to cut.
He rolled his eyes instead.
“Wow. Police state.”
Ribbit grinned. “Criminal activity.”
“Alleged criminal activity.”
“You moved the piece while Kaufmo was sneezing.”
“Sounds like Kaufmo needs to sneeze more responsibly.”
Kaufmo wheezed. Ribbit kept hold of Jax’s wrist for one more second before letting go.
Jax’s hand stayed near hers after she released him.
The memory jerked again.
Ribbit shoved a prop hat over Jax’s ears.
Jax complained.
He left the hat there.
Again.
Pomni felt Jax lean back against a cushion after an adventure, pretending to ignore Kaufmo and Ribbit while staying close enough for Ribbit’s foot to tap near his.
He stayed.
Again.
A door.
Ribbit’s room.
Pomni stood inside Jax’s skin near the bed, with Jax’s hands twisting together where Ribbit could not see.
Ribbit sat a few feet away, giving him space.
She had shared something first. Pomni felt the echo of it without words: trust offered across the room like a cup set down within reach.
Jax wanted to mock it.
Jax wanted to run.
Jax stayed.
“So?” Ribbit asked softly.
His mouth moved before he could stop it.
The memory went dark at the edges.
A father’s voice. Heavy steps. A hand near a doorframe. A room too small. Breath held so long his chest burned.
Then another place.
His mother’s voice could turn in the middle of a sentence. Her hands could shake with tenderness one minute and point toward the door the next. Some days she looked at him like she had found him. Some days she looked through him and shouted at whatever ghost stood behind his face.
A kitchen floor.
An argument.
Jax shouting something true enough to split him open.
Then arms around him.
The hug landed like a trap.
Panic exploded.
Pomni felt his hands shove.
His mother fell.
The sound her body made against the floor cut the memory in half.
Jax stood over her.
Get up.
The words did not leave his mouth.
Get up.
She did not.
His body ran before his thoughts caught him.
The circus room returned in flashes. Ribbit sat very still.
Jax’s throat hurt.
Ribbit said, “You were a kid.”
Jax laughed, ugly and small. “Yeah. Great. Put that on a card.”
“That doesn’t mean nothing happened,” Ribbit said. “It means you shouldn’t have had to hold it alone.”
Jax looked at her.
Pomni felt him want to believe her.
That want terrified him more than the memory.
The room vanished.
A hallway.
Ribbit’s door stood ahead.
No red X.
Jax’s hand lifted.
The wood waited.
His knuckles hovered.
Not now.
His hand dropped.
The hallway skipped.
Same door.
No red X.
Something moved inside. Maybe Ribbit. Maybe nothing. Jax’s hand lifted again.
His mind threw the hug at him.
Arms.
Panic.
Push.
Floor.
Tomorrow.
His hand dropped.
The hallway skipped.
Kaufmo passed near the end of the hall.
Jax’s hand snapped down. His shoulders rolled loose. His grin arrived before the rest of him did.
“Lost?” Kaufmo asked.
“Taking a walk,” Jax said. “You know. Healthy coping. Very mature. Hate it already.”
Kaufmo gave him a look.
Jax walked away before the look could become a question.
The hallway skipped.
Snow glare filled Pomni’s eyes.
Cold air without temperature. Artificial sky. Ribbit standing in front of him, voice tight, hands clenched.
“I just want to know if I did something wrong that night.”
Jax could not move.
Say no.
Say anything.
Ribbit’s face blurred. His mother’s arms. The floor. Ribbit’s room. Kaufmo’s laugh. The door. The door. The door.
Jax smiled.
The memory cut the sound from his words, but Pomni felt their shape.
Cruel.
Sharp.
Designed to end the reaching.
Ribbit’s face changed.
The snow world shattered.
Hallway.
Same door.
Ribbit’s portrait.
Red X.
Jax’s body went still.
Pomni could feel the stillness from the inside, a complete system failure disguised as posture.
Kaufmo stood to his left.
His voice was soft and terrible in its clumsiness.
“I know you two were close. I’m sorry. If you need someone to talk to, you can talk to me.”
Jax turned his head.
Kaufmo waited.
The offer sat there, awkward and alive.
Jax’s throat moved.
For one second, Pomni felt the answer try to rise.
Then the mask took it by the neck.
Jax shrugged.
“Talking’s kind of what got her into trouble, wasn’t it?”
Kaufmo flinched.
Jax felt the flinch and kept walking anyway.
Ribbit’s door stayed behind him.
Kaufmo stayed beside the door.
Jax kept walking until the hallway folded itself into black.
Pomni landed hard.
The room with the other Jaxes flickered around her, breaking apart at the corners. The couch lay overturned. The maid-dress Jax sat on the floor with one hand over his face, laughing silently. The sharp Jax clawed at the wall. The smug one stared at nothing.
The piano kept playing.
Pomni pushed herself up and ran to the timid Jax.
His hands shook over the keys.
“Where is he?” Pomni asked.
The timid Jax did not answer.
The chain at his ankle scraped once.
Pomni crouched beside the piano. “Please.”
The timid Jax played two notes.
The wall behind him split open into black.
Pomni stood.
The piano stopped.
Outside, the recovery room had gone silent.
Ragatha’s hands covered her mouth.
Then her hands dropped.
For one second, her face lost every practiced kindness. Her jaw set. Her eyes fixed on the place where Kaufmo’s flinch had vanished. Her fingers curled into the blanket she held until the fabric twisted into a rope.
Gangle cried without sound.
Zooble stood rigid at the anchor controls, their jaw clenched so tightly it looked painful.
Kinger’s head bowed. “Oh, little rook.”
Caine floated near the cracked wall, his gloved hands lowered. His eyes stared at the projected hallway until the last trace of Ribbit’s door vanished.
Jax’s abstracted body convulsed.
The roar broke open.
“No—”
The anchors flashed.
“I didn’t—”
Pomni’s body trembled where she knelt with one hand against the creature’s chest.
“Don’t make me—”
Static swallowed the rest.
Ragatha looked at Zooble. Zooble looked back.
Neither spoke.
In Jax’s mind, Pomni stepped through the black opening.
Black ground stretched under her feet.
Black air pressed around her.
The whole space opened flat and endless, with no walls, no ceiling, no door behind her when she turned to check. Her own body barely seemed to exist beyond the white of her gloves and the faint color of her sleeves.
A single streetlamp stood ahead.
Its light spilled down in a small red-tinged circle.
Jax stood under it.
He faced away from her, arms hanging at his sides, ears low.
Pomni walked slowly. Her shoes made no sound on the black ground.
The piano came back to her first.
The cuff.
The chain.
The notes under the louder Jaxes.
“You said you only knew two songs,” Pomni said.
Jax did not turn.
His voice came flat and raw.
“Still do.”
Pomni held that carefully.
His shoulders twitched. The old grin tried to assemble itself and failed before it reached his face.
“You really don’t know when to quit,” he said.
Pomni stayed where she was. “The others saw.”
Jax went rigid.
The red light hummed above him.
“They saw the memories?” he asked.
Pomni nodded, then remembered he was facing away. “Yes.”
He laughed once. No humor survived it.
“Of course they did.”
“Jax—”
“They should’ve left me in the tank.”
Pomni’s hands curled.
Jax turned then.
His face looked like Jax and failed to look like him at the same time. The eyes were his. The grin was gone. Every line of him had been stripped of swagger and left without skin.
“At least the monster made sense,” he said. “Nobody asks a monster why it bit. Nobody wants a heartfelt explanation from the thing behind the glass.”
His voice rose.
“Now they know. They know I stood there. They know Kaufmo tried. They know I—”
His mouth snapped shut.
Pomni took one step into the red light.
Jax stepped back.
Pomni stopped.
“You don’t have to apologize right now,” she said.
Jax stared at her.
Anger flashed across his face, grateful for somewhere to go.
“That the rescue plan?” he asked. “Drag me out, set the bar on the floor, and clap if I manage air?”
“Yes,” Pomni said.
The anger faltered.
Pomni’s voice shook. She let it. “Air is enough for the next minute.”
Jax looked at her as if she had said something obscene.
The black void hummed.
Then Ragatha’s voice reached them.
Distant, thin, and unmistakable.
“Jax.”
Jax flinched.
Pomni looked upward. There was no sky.
Ragatha’s voice trembled, but it did not break.
“I’m angry at you. I need you to know that.”
Jax’s face folded.
Ragatha breathed in somewhere beyond the void.
“I don’t want you gone.”
Jax turned away, with nowhere to hide.
Zooble came next.
“You come back, and we are having several extremely unpleasant conversations.”
Jax made a wounded sound that almost became a laugh.
Zooble’s voice sharpened.
“You have to come back first, dumbass.”
Gangle’s voice arrived softer than the others.
“You scared me. A lot.”
The red light flickered.
“I made a sign. It’s crooked. You can make fun of it later if you want.”
Jax covered his mouth with one hand.
Kinger’s voice drifted in, warm and strange.
“There you are. Good. Stay where the light can find you.”
Jax squeezed his eyes shut.
Caine’s voice came last.
For once, Caine sounded small.
“Jax, I am sorry. I made a circus where pain became spectacle. I will not do that with yours again.”
Jax’s hand dropped.
His eyes opened.
He looked at Pomni.
The streetlamp hummed over both of them now.
Pomni offered her hand.
She kept it between them, palm up.
Jax stared at it.
Pomni said, “You wanted to stay.”
His throat worked.
“I don’t know how.”
Pomni’s hand stayed open.
“Start with one choice.”
Jax looked at her hand.
The streetlamp buzzed above him.
“One choice,” he repeated, like the words had teeth.
Pomni nodded.
Jax stared at her hand for a long time.
Outside, his abstracted body screamed.
The anchors strained hard enough for light to scatter across the floor. Zooble dug their heels in and swore through their teeth. Ragatha braced the second control line with both hands. Kinger held the left anchor, shaking from head to foot. Gangle stood beside him with tears running under her mask, saying Jax’s name again and again.
Caine pressed both palms toward the cracking walls.
“Hold,” he whispered.
In the void, Jax took Pomni’s hand.
The streetlamp flooded white.
Jax gasped.
Pomni’s arm burned.
The dark ground opened beneath them.
Outside, the creature’s roar broke into a voice.
“Don’t let me go back!”
Pomni felt the same pull as before, the terrible drag that had nearly taken her with him. Her feet slipped. Her fingers locked around Jax’s.
“I’ve got you,” she said, though she did not know if she did.
The white light surged.
The recovery room snapped into fragments around her: Ragatha reaching, Zooble shouting, Caine’s hands bright with code, Kinger braced against the anchor, Gangle’s crooked sign shaking on the floor.
Pomni pulled.
The others pulled with her.
Jax’s abstracted body collapsed inward.
Black code peeled away in strips and vanished before it hit the padded floor. The long limbs shrank. The jagged shape folded down, smaller and smaller, light gathering where the monster had been.
Then Jax hit the floor.
Pomni fell with him.
For a moment, no one moved.
Jax lay half-curled against Pomni’s side, shaking so hard his teeth clicked. His breathing came fast, thin, panicked. Tears ran down his face without permission, and he seemed too stunned to hide them.
Pomni’s arms had landed around him.
He clutched her back.
His fingers dug into her sleeve.
Then he realized.
His whole body jolted, and he shoved himself away from her with a ragged gasp.
Pomni let go.
Jax scrambled backward less than a foot before his limbs gave out. He folded over himself, one hand over his face, the other pressed to the floor like he needed proof it would hold.
Pomni stayed where she was.
“You’re back,” she said.
Jax dragged in a breath.
His hand covered more of his face.
“Shit.”
The word broke in the middle.
Nobody cheered.
The room held itself quiet around him.
The stabilizers hummed weakly. One wall sparked, then sealed under Caine’s trembling hand. The anchors dimmed one by one.
Ragatha went to Pomni first.
“Are you okay?”
Pomni nodded too fast.
Ragatha did not move.
Pomni tried again.
“I think so.”
Zooble checked the anchor lines. “They’re off.”
Jax flinched at their voice and curled tighter.
Pomni noticed her own hands shaking only after Jax stopped looking at them.
She pressed them against the floor.
The floor held.
Ragatha saw.
She reached toward Pomni, paused, and waited.
Pomni gave a small nod.
Ragatha touched her shoulder once.
Then she let go.
Pomni turned toward Jax. “Do you want them to step back?”
Jax’s mouth opened.
No sound came out.
Zooble saw his face and lifted one hand. “Everybody give him space. Now.”
They moved.
Ragatha stepped back at once. Gangle retreated behind Kinger. Caine floated farther away so quickly he bumped the low wall and winced. Zooble stayed near the controls, then shifted two steps sideways when Jax’s breathing hitched.
Ragatha picked up a blanket from the cushion pile.
She approached slowly, stopping well outside Jax’s reach.
“I’m going to set this here,” she said.
Jax did not answer.
Ragatha placed the blanket on the floor near him and stepped back again.
Gangle crept forward just far enough to set the crooked sign beside the blanket.
COME BACK IF YOU CAN
Then she hurried back to Kinger.
Kinger lowered himself onto the floor at a safe distance, joints folding awkwardly. He sat facing slightly away from Jax, like a guard pretending to study the wall.
Caine hovered with his hands clasped hard enough to squeak.
“May I dim the lights?” he asked.
Jax’s hand shifted from his face.
One eye showed through his fingers.
He gave the smallest nod.
Caine dimmed the lights.
No flourish.
No sound effect.
No sparkle.
The room softened.
Jax’s breathing hitched again. He reached for the blanket without looking at Ragatha and pulled it against his chest. He did not unfold it. He held it like an object he could blame for being there.
Pomni sat cross-legged on the padded floor.
She kept space between them.
A long minute passed.
Then another.
Jax swallowed.
“Everybody saw?”
His voice sounded scraped raw.
Pomni answered because no one else did. “Yes.”
He shut his eyes.
“Figures.”
The word came out small.
Ragatha’s hands twisted together. “We saw enough to understand some things.”
Jax’s mouth pulled into something too broken for a smile.
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Zooble leaned against the control panel. “Yeah. That tracks.”
Jax turned toward them.
Zooble did not soften their face.
Jax’s shoulders dropped a fraction.
“No one is asking you to explain right now,” Pomni said.
Jax stared at the floor.
His fingers tightened in the blanket.
His mouth opened.
For one second, the old shape of him came back: narrowed eyes, angled jaw, the tiny lift at one corner of his mouth where the cut usually started.
Pomni braced before she meant to.
Jax saw it.
The look died on his face.
He swallowed hard enough for his throat to move.
“Forget it,” he said.
The room stayed quiet.
No one praised him for stopping.
No one made it bigger than he could survive.
Jax dragged the blanket closer and stared at its edge.
“Ribbit,” he said.
The room went still.
Jax lifted his head too fast, panic flashing white through his face. “Where is she?”
Caine’s voice stayed careful. “In the aquarium.”
Jax made a sound like his chest had caved.
He folded forward, both hands over his face.
Pomni started to move, then stopped herself.
Kinger spoke softly from his place near the wall.
“Today is for coming back. Tomorrow can hold some of the other rooms.”
Jax shook his head hard.
Kinger nodded as if Jax had made a reasonable counterpoint. “Yes, tomorrow is a very large room. That is why we close the door at night.”
Jax’s breath stuttered.
Pomni watched his fingers uncurl slightly from his face.
Zooble pushed away from the controls. “We’re moving him.”
Jax’s head snapped up. “Moving me where?”
“You heard me.”
Jax looked toward the cracked wall, then toward the hall. His breathing hitched at the sight of the aquarium glow.
“Really into relocating damaged goods around here,” he said.
Zooble pointed toward the blanket circus. “You can stay in the room that just cracked in three places, or you can go to the emotional casualty sleepover tent.”
Jax stared at them.
A tiny, damaged sound escaped him.
Zooble’s expression did not change, but their shoulders eased.
Pomni shifted closer by an inch. “Do you want help walking?”
Jax looked at her hand.
Then at Ragatha.
Ragatha held up both palms. “Only if you want.”
Jax’s face twisted like every option offended him.
“Pomni,” he muttered.
Pomni stood and offered her arm.
He took it with obvious hatred for the fact that he needed to.
His knees nearly buckled the moment he tried to stand. Pomni caught his weight, and Jax sucked in a sharp breath, shame flushing through his face.
His mouth opened again.
Ragatha’s hand hovered near his other arm, waiting.
Jax shut his mouth.
The silence hurt more than whatever joke he had swallowed.
Ragatha stepped closer.
“May I help on the other side?”
Jax stared straight ahead.
His jaw worked.
“Fine.”
Ragatha supported him lightly, giving him every chance to pull away. She did not look at his face. She did not comment when his hand gripped her sleeve for balance.
They moved slowly.
The aquarium glowed at the edge of Pomni’s vision.
Jax did not look toward it.
Ragatha kept her hand light on Jax’s arm.
Too light, almost. Like she was afraid that if she held him any more firmly, her own anger would travel through her fingers.
Jax stumbled once.
Ragatha steadied him.
His hand clenched around her sleeve.
For a moment, her face changed. The hurt showed before she could fold it away. Not fear. Not disgust. Something older than the rescue and newer than forgiveness.
Jax saw it.
His grip loosened at once.
Ragatha did not pull away.
She adjusted her hand so he could choose how much weight to give her.
“Keep going,” she said.
Her voice stayed gentle.
Pomni heard the work inside it.
Pomni wondered whether Jax could hear the creatures behind the glass. She wondered whether Ribbit heard him breathing. She wondered if Kaufmo knew his offer had finally reached the room years too late.
The blanket circus waited under its crooked sign.
Zooble entered first and kicked a stray cushion into place. “Where?”
Jax’s answer came fast. “Edge.”
No one asked why.
Pomni nodded. “Edge.”
They settled him near the side flap, where he could see the opening and the main tent beyond. Jax noticed her noticing. His mouth tightened.
“Don’t.”
Pomni sat a few feet away. “Okay.”
Ragatha stepped back from him and touched her sleeve.
Jax’s fingers had wrinkled the fabric where he had held on.
She smoothed it once.
Then again.
The second pass did nothing.
Ragatha stopped before the motion became something everyone could see. She folded her hands in front of herself and took one slow breath through her nose.
Zooble noticed.
They did not say anything.
That helped too.
Only after Ragatha’s shoulders settled did she pick up the folded blanket.
Ragatha placed another folded blanket nearby.
“I’m glad you’re back,” she said.
The words cost her something.
Jax stared at the floor.
Ragatha’s voice trembled once, then steadied.
“We’re going to talk later.”
His ears lowered.
“I know.”
No joke followed.
Zooble sat near the entrance, one knee raised, arms draped over it. “Good. Because I have notes.”
Jax’s mouth twitched.
Gangle hovered near the cushion wall with the sign hugged to her chest.
Jax glanced at it.
Gangle froze.
“Can I leave it?” she asked.
Jax turned away.
The silence stretched until Pomni thought Gangle might retreat.
“You spelled everything right,” Jax said.
Gangle blinked.
His fingers dug into the blanket.
“Shame. Harder to mock.”
Gangle’s hands tightened around the sign.
Then Jax added, barely audible, “Leave it.”
Gangle set the sign where he could see it from the edge of the cushion nest.
Caine floated outside the blanket circus entrance, low enough that his shoes nearly brushed the floor.
Jax faced him.
The whole tent seemed to tighten.
Caine removed his hat and held it in both hands.
“I will not ask you to forgive me,” Caine said.
Jax’s eyes sharpened. Anger, fear, blame, and understanding crossed his face too quickly for anyone to catch.
“Smart,” Jax said.
Caine nodded.
He did not enter.
The night setting settled over the circus by degrees. Caine dimmed the main tent lights after asking Ragatha with a glance. The couch ring faded into soft shapes. The board-game shelves became shadows. The aquarium glowed blue beyond the hall.
Jax did not sleep quickly.
His breathing slowed, then broke. Slowed, then broke. Pomni stayed near him without reaching. Ragatha sat farther back with her sewing basket unopened in her lap. Zooble guarded the entrance and pretended to be bored. Gangle curled near Kinger, her masks resting beside her. Kinger whispered occasionally to no one visible, gentle warnings about tomorrow’s large rooms and proper door maintenance.
Pomni’s own breathing refused to settle.
The rescue kept replaying in pieces.
Black ground.
Red light.
Jax’s hand in hers.
The pull.
The floor under her palms after they came back.
And the room with the other Jaxes.
Pomni closed her eyes and saw the piano again.
The cuff.
The chain.
The way the timid Jax had kept playing because the louder ones told him to.
Her fingers curled against her chest.
She had gone in to find Jax. She had found him. She had brought him back. That should have made the images stop.
They did not stop.
They arranged themselves behind her eyes and waited.
Pomni pressed one hand against her chest and counted silently until the numbers stopped slipping.
Ragatha looked over.
Pomni shook her head once.
Ragatha stayed where she was.
That helped.
Jax’s hand emerged from the blanket after a long time.
He did not look at Pomni.
His fingers shook in the space between them.
Pomni watched his face.
His eyes were closed too tightly for sleep.
She placed her hand near his, leaving the last inch open.
Jax crossed it.
His fingers caught hers.
He held on hard enough to hurt.
“Don’t make a thing out of it,” he whispered.
Pomni’s fingers stayed still around his.
“I won’t.”
No one said thank you.
No one said sorry.
The aquarium waited in the blue dark. The red Xs waited. Tomorrow waited with all its doors closed.
For tonight, Jax breathed under the blankets, and nobody made him earn the room.