Chapter 13 Esmeralda #2
ángel winked as he stood to his full height, which was identical to Ignacio’s.
“You knew he was here?” she asked ángel. He hadn’t said a thing to her when she saw him in her wagon. When he punished her for stealing and took the badge. “But…he…he’s the officer…”
The ringmaster waved his hand. “What’s in the past is in the past. Let’s move on to more important things, shall we? What are you two discussing? Anything fun or scandalous?”
The ringmaster must know Ignacio was the officer she had dispatched from the carnival.
He knew everything. Everyone who wished to work within carnival grounds had to gaze into the ringmaster’s enchanted mirror.
It was how ángel understood their intentions.
Perhaps Ignacio wasn’t here to arrest her or anyone else, then?
Either way, she didn’t want the ringmaster to think for a single second that she wasn’t serious about becoming the lead act.
Because she had to be the lead act.
“Ignacio and I were discussing the first challenge,” she said.
The ringmaster’s brows rose with surprise. “Were you now? And have you two come up with something?” he asked, curiosity playing on his face.
She had his attention. She needed to keep it. “We have indeed. It’ll blow your socks off. But you’ll just have to wait and see what it is,” she said flirtatiously, and she could have sworn she heard Ignacio growl behind her.
ángel guffawed. It was a boisterous sound that reminded her of how Ignacio laughed the night they snuck out of his father’s estate and went to the boardwalk.
They had played ring toss a thousand times and eaten ice cream too quickly to beat the summer heat.
They held hands on the Ferris wheel and danced to the pretty harmonies of a barbershop quartet.
Truly, it was the most fun she’d ever seen him have.
It was far more magical than any enchantment within the carnival.
Her heart pinched. That boy was gone. She had known that would happen once he joined the Blackbirds. Once he joined his father’s war.
“I, for one, look forward to seeing whatever the great Paloma Blanca has in store.” The ringmaster pulled out the timepiece from his pocket. “You have four hours left in this challenge. Two of your competitors have already passed. You’d better get on with it.”
With that, the ringmaster swept away like a phantom.
Slowly, she turned to face the boy who had apparently chased after a moving train to see her.
She put her hands on her hips. “Not here for me, huh?”
He mimicked her, placing his large hands onto his toned waist. “Paloma Blanca, huh? Did you, perhaps, name yourself after the nickname I gave you when we were kids?”
“Ha!” she barked, rather childishly. “You wish.”
Rosita the ticket agent passed by the other side of the birdcage.
She sported a twinkling tiara and sequined jumpsuit.
The ostrich in the enclosure chomped his flat beak.
His bulky body flopped down from the swing he’d been perched on and landed with a hard thunk.
Estefan was a strange and ugly bird. She’d never even heard of an ostrich enjoying a swing.
Or sequins for that matter. He’d once chased a customer dressed as a silver fox through the menagerie for hours until he could be caught.
An idea sparked.
She turned to Ignacio. “Why are you here? And be honest.”
“You once told me my father had a secret office.” He shifted his weight as if he were uncomfortable. She hoped he was. “I finally went inside it. I found flyers for Carnival Fantástico discarded in the rubbish bin.”
He stared at her as if she should know about this, but why on the king’s green earth would she know such a thing?
“Someone from within the carnival invited him here. They acted as if they knew him enough to call him by his first name. I’m looking for that author.”
“But ángel said you were searching for me.” Realization doused her like icy water. “You can’t possibly think I wrote to your father.”
“You know him better than anyone.”
She held up her hand. “I’ll stop you right there. You and your father are the last people I’d wish to see or speak to again.”
He studied her for a long moment before looking away. “If it wasn’t you, then someone else is in communication with my father.”
If? There was no if about it. Of course he’d never believe her, though.
He never did when it came to anything about that man.
But Ignacio was wrong. And no one within the carnival would reach out to Comandante Olivera.
Most of the performers and circus hands were either wanted by the law, on the run from drafting agents, or trying to earn enough to pay off their loved ones’ debts so they’d be released from prison before they were sent to the front lines of war.
ángel was the only person who could offer them protection, and he was the only person willing to help them earn enough coin to get away.
But if Ignacio really thought someone was speaking to the comandante, then she would work with that. Because if she was going to pull off the glorious idea that just popped into her brain, she’d need someone like Ignacio to assist. Someone who had brute strength on their side.
“I can help you find this person.” When she saw his lips part with surprise, she added, “After you help me.”
Ignacio scowled. “Why don’t you ask the ringmaster? Or your many lovers?”
“Because it is him”—she jerked her chin toward the direction ángel had escaped to—“I’m trying to impress. Being a fortune teller is fine enough, but I need more.”
“You like it here, don’t you?” he asked quietly. “You want this life?”
“I want what it can offer me. And if I don’t become the main act, I will only have two more months before my term is up.”
“And then where will you go? What will you do?”
The softness of his tone nearly pummeled her.
It offered her a glimpse into their past. Into how he used to speak to her.
He was once so gentle. Ignacio had treated Esmeralda like she was some sort of broken bird.
She had needed that tenderness then. She needed someone to care for her, someone who offered her a safe space to lay out all the sharp shards of her heart so she could piece them back together again.
But Ignacio choosing his father over her had changed her. Those months spent in the cold cell his father had thrown her into had changed her too. She’d hardened herself. And she wouldn’t break so easily this time.
A few carnival hands walked by, pulling carts filled with outlandish novelty items.
Yes, she thought, that’s exactly what I need.
Her arm shot out, and she snatched a handful of bright blue whistles that sang like an operatic singer when blown.
“What was that?” Ignacio asked.
“What?” She held the whistles behind her back.
“Do not play coy. I saw you steal something from that basket. You’ve taken to thieving right out in the open, I see.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Ignacio put his palm out. “Hand it over, Dovie. I’ll return whatever you took to its rightful place at once.”
“You’re absurd.”
He reached behind her, and she dodged him.
“Give it here.”
He lunged forward, gripped her shirt, and hauled her to him until her chest pressed against his.
Esmeralda froze as the heat of his body melded with hers.
His warm breath tickled her skin, reminding her of their first kiss.
It had been sweet and filled with longing.
And they had been standing exactly as they were right now.
The notch in his throat bobbed. Was he remembering too?
Who cares, she told herself. You have only four hours to impress ángel.
“Do we have a deal?” she managed. “I’ll help you after you help me.”
“Helping a thief isn’t a good idea.”
She half smiled. “You won’t know for certain until you try.”
His light brown eyes bore into hers. “Hand me what you stole, and we have a deal.”
“I was hoping you were going to say that,” she said.
Ignacio’s brows quirked in confusion as she placed the blue whistles into his awaiting palm. The metal gleamed in the afternoon sun. And Estefan the ostrich went wild for them.
“Better chuck those,” she said.
“Huh?”
Esmeralda reared back and unleashed the ostrich from his cage.