Name: John Stewart

Alias / Known As: The Juggler; The False Confessor

Age: 35

Origin: Unknown; claims to have traveled across Fife, Argyll, and the Isles

Affiliations: Performer, preacher, penitent; ally to Maggie and Elspeth

Summary:

John Stewart is a man undone—by memory, by mercy, by whatever name the divine truly goes by. Once a performer of sleight and sermon, John walks a line between faith and fraud, hoping confession might someday outrun consequence. He sees something sacred in Maggie and something terrifying in himself. Though haunted by visions of a demonic birth and drawn to Maggie’s quiet fire, he is a man too familiar with guilt to trust peace. His love is real. His lies are not always sins. In the end, he offers the only thing he still owns: his suffering.

Notable Traits:

— Skilled in slight-of-hand, storytelling, and emotional camouflage

— Carries a haunted memory of witnessing a child born with no soul

— Torn between his faith and the things he’s seen

— Falls in love with Maggie, not to possess her—but to forgive himself

Status: Deceased; body found hanged in the Tolbooth, death declared suicide—though truth and cause remain open questions