keeper.”
She leaned against Simon’s arm. He leaned in to kiss the top of her head, and she tried to find some comfort in him. She failed. I’m dooming him to die if I don’t kill Ringmaster. How can I say I love him—either of them—if I don’t do it? How can I sleep in his arms and take solace in his touch if I’m condemning him?
Something occurred to her. “Wait.” She looked at Clown. “When you offered me my freedom in exchange for everyone’s lives—when ‘Mr. Harrow’ wrote me that letter. Were you bullshitting me? If you could kill all of them then, why can’t you kill Turk now?”
Clown laughed nervously and rubbed the back of his neck. “I. Yeah. I’m sorry. I was making that up. I knew you wouldn’t be able to do it. I wanted you to realize you cared about the Family, even just a little.”
“You’re a motherfucking dumpster fire. Do you know that?” She narrowed her eyes at him angrily. “You lied to me. You’re a giant, monstrous creature from the beginning of time, and you can go eat a bag of dicks.”
Clown blinked. “Why would that help at all?”
Cora rubbed her hands over her face. “Oh, my god, I hate all of you.” She put her elbows on her knees and tucked her head, lacing her fingers over the back of her neck. “I really, really hate all of you.”
“No, you don’t,” Simon murmured and rubbed his hand over her back. “You’re just mad.”
“If it helps you at all,” Clown began slowly, “you won’t really be the one killing him. I will be. You’re the gun. I’m the murderer. I just need you to do it.”
“Calling me a tool doesn’t help, Mr. Harrow.”
Clown chuckled. “I. Um. That’s fair.” He sighed. “Cora…you couldn’t condemn the Family then. Why do you think you can do it now?”
“Because the decision I was making before, which was a lie”—she was going to be mad about that for a while— “was about whether or not my life was worth more than theirs. Now you’re asking me to decide whether or not all of our lives are worth murder and continuing to allow a man-eating murder-circus loose on the world.” She didn’t lift her head. “A little different, I’d say.”
“Fine.” Clown sounded grumpy that she had him on that one. “I came here to tell you a story. May I?”
“Sure. I don’t know what I’d love more than story time with an elder demi-god of doom.” She straightened and let out a long sigh. “Does it come with show and tell?”
Clown chuckled. “You’re punchy when you’re mad. I like it. And no, it doesn’t. I’d show you what I was talking about, like I did with the ship and the tents, but…eh. It isn’t worth the risk. You might be fine, but the last time I showed someone the gaping maw of the Great Darkness, their mind shattered. A shame, too. Karo-amut-mimut was such a nice man.”
She was going to get a headache from this stupidity. She reached for Simon’s hand, and his shadow was more than happy to take hers in both of his and squeeze them tightly. “Go ahead.”
Clown took in a long breath and let it out slowly, looking up at the blue skies overhead. “You asked me once if there were more of me. I said no, not on Earth. And that much is true. But there are more of me out there in this universe and others. We link them together like a spiderweb. Tunnels of the Great Darkness that connect this world to many more. We are all one, even as we are separate. Like…atoms. We may be together or apart, and it changes our makeup. But we are one voice. One mind in parts. Do you understand?”
“Vaguely?” No.
“Good enough.” He patted her knee. He was like the worst kind of physics teacher lumped together with the worst kind of philosophy teacher. “I wanted to leave the darkness. I wanted to see…something. I was always hungry to explore and to experience. I struck through a gate on my own. I had no companions. A single atom cut loose from the rest. I found myself here.”
“Can you go back?”
“Why would I want to? Back to the darkness, to the void, to the whispers?” He smiled and shut his eyes, as if enjoying the soft breeze of the dream. “I like it here. This planet is beautiful. It is plenty large enough for me. I want