Chapter 10 Ignacio
Ignacio
He thrashed through the wheat field. That brat, that villain, the person he once thought held his future in her hands, the girl who had framed him and sent him to jail, was getting away.
He stumbled to a stop. The sun had crested over the eastern side of the valley, casting the sky in a dusky pink.
There should have been wagons and booths in this very spot, but the carnival was gone.
There were no towering tents. No whirling roller coasters.
The marquee he’d walked through upon entry was nowhere to be seen.
The only hint that there had ever been a carnival at all was glistening glitter near the train tracks.
In the distance, he heard a blustery howl of a whistle.
His head snapped to the left. Just beyond the small hill he saw puffs of pearlescent smoke from a train’s engine stack.
People often mused that magic pushed the locomotive to impossible speeds.
If he had any hope of catching up, he needed to sprint. Now.
Ignacio took off at a crackling pace. His muscles moved on instinct.
Father had kept him on a strict exercise regimen since he could walk, but the six months spent training with the Blackbirds had made him even faster.
He tucked his head low and sliced his hands through the air, pushing his body past the edge.
When he made it up the hill, he saw the massive train.
The locomotive gleamed like obsidian. The boxcars it pulled were painted in purple hues or the same black-and-white stripes as the Big Top.
After those came caged carts filled with slumbering beasts.
Behind them were wagons chained on top of trailers of various sizes and makes, trailed by even more boxcars.
Thankfully, the train wasn’t moving at its full momentum yet.
Ignacio pushed his legs harder than ever before. He needed to cover the space between himself and Esmeralda.
Gritting his teeth, he doubled down.
He couldn’t let this opportunity slip away. Not when it was so close.
Someone whistled. People popped their heads out of wagon windows and from the tops of boxcars. Ignacio saw the surprise etched on their faces. The incredulity. They didn’t think he could catch up. But once he set his mind to something, there was no stopping him.
He raced through the weeds and hurdled boulders. He was getting closer.
“Almost there!” a person yelled from within the train.
“He’ll never make it!” someone else shouted.
A young man with curly hair cupped his hands over his mouth and hollered, “Best hurry! The valley drops off into a gorge!”
Ignacio chanced a glance at the tracks leading north.
His stomach dipped. He’d forgotten about the massive canyon that flanked the valley.
His family home in Río Norte wasn’t so far from this very basin, and yet, he’d never come this way.
Father didn’t allow Ignacio frivolous explorations when he was young.
The only escapades he’d partaken in were sneaking out of his room at night with Esmeralda and lying upon his roof to gaze at the stars.
Just once were they able to steal off and leave the manor grounds.
They spent a single night laughing and running about the boardwalk like two regular teenagers in love.
That had been enough for him. Being able to look straight into Esmeralda’s deep brown eyes had felt like the most adventurous thing in the world.
The toe of his boot smashed into a stone he didn’t see. Pain lanced through his foot.
“Dammit,” he growled.
This was what happened whenever Esmeralda slipped into his mind. Stubbed toes and stinging memories of broken promises.
“Hurry up, man!” that same curly-headed boy yelled.
Ignacio thrust himself onward. The train was moving faster now, but he was trailing right behind it. He hopped onto the tracks. He was almost there. Yards away. Now only feet.
The door to the caboose banged open. A tall man with a distinctly coiled mustache stepped out onto the small platform. Ignacio recognized him at once from the posters he’d seen. He was Carnival Fantástico’s ringmaster.
“Need help, kid?” the ringmaster yelled over the train wheels grinding against the tracks.
“Is that an honest question?!” Ignacio panted. His lungs were starting to constrict.
The ringmaster laughed heartily. He grasped the copper railing and leaned forward, his body hovering over the ground. He extended an arm. “If you can reach me, I’ll let you board.”
Let me board? Not even King Amadeo himself could stop him from boarding right now.
A blaring whistle sounded from the front of the train.
“Hurry up, kid!” the ringmaster yelled. “We’re headed for a bridge, and I don’t think even you can run on those tracks.”
Ignacio clenched his jaw and forced himself to give it everything he had. He sprinted with all his might. The whistle blew three more times. The landscape was beginning to change, the weeds on either side of the tracks giving way to unstable rocks.
“Now or never!” the ringmaster hollered, smiling as if this were all a game.
Grunting, Ignacio leapt. He stretched his arm as far as he could.
Strong, callused fingers clasped around his wrist. Ignacio’s toes scraped against gravel and crossties before the ringmaster yanked him up the rest of the way.
With a clank, Ignacio landed on the small metal balcony welded onto the back of the caboose. He panted, sucking in greedy breaths.
His eyes bulged as the earth on either side of the train suddenly disappeared. The bridge they were crossing was hardly more than a few pillars and planks soaring over the deep canyon.
“That was some stunt you pulled off, and not a moment too soon.” The ringmaster helped him rise to his feet. He patted his back. “What’s your name, kid?”
The ringmaster had called Ignacio kid three times now, yet he couldn’t have been many years older than Ignacio’s nearly nineteen.
He appeared to be in his early twenties at most. Strange.
The tailor virtuoso had made it sound as if this man had created the carnival, but Carnival Fantástico had been mesmerizing audiences for some forty years.
“I’m Ignacio.”
“Ignacio.” The ringmaster said his name slowly as if he were chewing on each syllable to see how it tasted. “And do you have a surname, Ignacio?” He did it again.
“Just Ignacio.” He wouldn’t give out his last name for many reasons.
The carnival and officers of the law weren’t meant to mingle.
If the ringmaster had even a sliver of a clue that Ignacio was the son of Comandante Olivera, there was no telling what he’d do.
If Esmeralda hadn’t written to Father, then someone else had.
He might still need the ringmaster’s assistance, seeing as that same ink was used all over his carnival.
The ringmaster held out his hand. “The name’s ángel.
ángel Veracruz, proprietor of the most fantastical carnival there ever was.
” Reluctantly, Ignacio shook his hand. ángel grinned.
“Now, tell me why you were so desperate to trespass onto my train. If you offer me a good enough reason for your intrusion, Ignacio, I’ll let you stay. ”
Ignacio blinked at the challenge tucked within the ringmaster’s tone. “And if I don’t?”
ángel whistled and made a falling motion with his hand.
“You’ll throw me off this train?” His eyes snapped to the canyon they were currently hovering over.
“You said it, not me.” ángel winked. He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall of the caboose, which boasted a mural made in his likeness. “Choose your words wisely.”
Ignacio thought about pulling out the flyer with the ink on the back, but he didn’t want to show all his cards yet. Though, he certainly didn’t want to take a nosedive over the gorge either.
“I am searching for someone,” he admitted.
“Oh?” ángel toyed with his curled mustache. It was the same russet brown as his slicked-back hair. “And who is this someone?”
“I’d rather not say.”
ángel’s brow rose. “Afraid they will give you a bad reference?”
Esmeralda certainly seemed to hate him. She had framed him and sent him away in a jail cart.
Even though it was she who should be put away.
Not for being a thief or a liar. Both of which she was.
She should be sent to the clink for being a terrible human being.
For stomping all over an innocent boy’s heart.
Ignacio had heard people say the pain of losing their first love faded over time. If anything, the ache had worsened.
He took a deep breath to calm the bitter anger fighting for purchase in his thoughts. “The person I’m searching for…we…we were friends. I…I saw her and…um…”
ángel’s eyes softened. “You are trying to reconnect? Perhaps rekindle your love?”
Ignacio shook his head. “There is no love between us.”
“Sure, kid. Anyone would be willing to risk their life and run that hard for someone they were once only friends with.” ángel pushed himself from the caboose wall and edged closer to Ignacio, clearly intrigued. “What happened between you and your love? This answer will tell me if you stay or go.”
Ignacio tried his best to ignore the way his insides clenched as he told the sorry truth. “I don’t know.”
They’d been thick as thieves growing up.
Their first meeting wasn’t a great circumstance by any means.
She and her family had snuck into his home at night.
Someone tripped the alarm. Esmeralda’s family bolted away, but she had fallen behind.
She hid under a table as Father’s guards scoured their home for intruders. Ignacio had been the one to find her.
At first, he was shocked that someone so young was burgling his home.
His shock tripled when she bopped him in the nose and tried to flee.
She ran straight into Father’s chest. Like a trapped animal, she began to fight.
But she was a tiny thing. All hair and eyes.
There was no chance of squirming away from a man like Ignacio’s father.