Stone is safe. Stone can't be hurt. Maybe he has been hurt. Maybe he wants the magic to set right what hurt him and because he has the heart of stone he doesn't notice or care about what he hurts on the way? Maybe he is, like Solveig, one of those Garrison Keiller Lutherans who don't speak their feelings and hate embarrassment but he wants to not feel underneath either. What was his childhood like? When was his childhood? Maybe he has immortality but wants eternal youth? Is he mortal? Jack is something else, isn't he? Is Mr X entirely or maybe partly something else? If partly, maybe he struggles against one side or the other. Maybe he wants to end the carvivals, or make them utterly corporate and for profit, stop them being the natural expression of the flow of the year, because people cut off from the flow of the year are closer to stone, more like something he wants, or something?

The reason it is fantasy has to make everything real more true.