Page 33 of The Opening Act is Death (The Carnival of The Damned)

Thirty Five

Corvan - You Look Like Her

I say the wrong name. And The Carnival turns on me.

The Carnival doesn’t forgive mistakes. It devours them. I can feel it now, the dark pulse underfoot, the air thickening like honey dripping with poison. Visha’s eyes find mine before I even realize what’s coming. That look; the one that says You’ve crossed a line , and I did.

The name slipped out, not hers. Someone else’s. Someone from before the fire, before the knives, before the blood. A ghost name.

“Elena,” I breathe it, and the words hang between us like shattered glass.

The moment breaks. The Carnival shifts, groans, whispers through the ropes and beams, a thousand voices rising in a murmur of warning. Visha’s jaw tightens. Her fingers twitch toward the knives at her waist.

“Who?” she asks, voice low, dangerous.

“No one,” I say quickly. But it’s too late. The air ripples. The mirrors flare. The tent closes in, swallowing the space between us. I want to reach for her, but The Carnival won’t let me. Not yet. It wants blood.

Not from knives.

From the truth.

And the truth tastes bitter.

Because the name I said wasn’t just a slip.

It was a crack. And now the whole fragile world we’ve built is trembling on the edge of collapse.

“You look like her.” I whisper… The words still echo in my ribs as I step into the fire. That way the ghost bleeds through but Visha steps over her. Not becoming Elena, not denying her but finishing what Elena never could.