Chapter 26 Ignacio
Ignacio
Ignacio carried Pilar’s fragile frame into the healer’s boxcar. Every instinct inside him urged him to run as fast and hard as he could to get her help, but he didn’t want to do any more damage to the young woman’s body.
There was no telling how Pilar was faring. Her bones were twisted at crude angles and deep purple bruises bloomed from her chest and abdomen. His mind replayed the massacre in Dos Palos. All those bodies open and bleeding on the grass.
Bile rose up his throat. Sweat pricked on his forehead. But he kept his focus steady. He wouldn’t let Pilar die.
Esmeralda and Gabriel followed close behind with a wailing Camila in their arms. Her cries were spine-chilling. And so was the face he’d seen in the mirror. The creature had smiled right before Camila’s strength gave out.
Ignacio must have been seeing things. Monsters didn’t exist. That was the stuff of fables. But he was in a carnival known to make the impossible possible.
The healer rushed forward as they entered.
“Lay her here,” the woman said, gesturing toward an empty cot. “Gently.” Ignacio did as she commanded. Esmeralda and Gabriel laid Camila in the bed parallel to her sister. The healer pulled back her long braids and tied them with a bit of ribbon as she assessed them.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Camila was holding up Pilar, but then her wrist snapped,” Ignacio said.
It didn’t just snap. A moment before it happened, the cuffs she wore started to glisten. Then whatever shimmered within them sputtered out like a dying sparkler. That was when Camila first screamed.
The ringmaster burst into the boxcar. “How are they?”
In this lighting, ángel appeared different. The shadows cast by the amber candles deepened the crow’s feet Ignacio had seen before. A few gray hairs had found their way into his curled mustache. He looked much older, as if the very weight of this incident had aged him twenty years.
The healer turned toward the ringmaster. “I can ease the pain and set the bones, but Pilar needs to be taken to a hospital. Immediately.”
“Surely there’s one in town. We can take her,” Esmeralda suggested.
“No,” ángel replied sharply.
Ignacio clenched his fists when he saw Esmeralda flinch.
“What I mean is…this town does not have advanced facilities,” he said.
“Nuevo Campos is our next stop, yes?” the healer asked.
“It is,” the ringmaster replied.
“My sister is a physician there. We can take her—”
“The Sánchez sisters will remain in my carnival. Under my care.”
The healer balked. “But senor…”
“We’ll send a telegraph ahead asking for your sister to join us when we arrive. I’ll ensure she has the necessary tools.”
What a strange thing to do. Pilar needed a surgeon in a sterile environment if she was to survive. And time was not on their side.
The ringmaster’s gaze traveled to a looking glass on a nearby shelf.
Was he searching for something…or someone?
Ignacio’s pulse raced harder than before. First Anella the Contortionist nearly met her end by suffocation. And now the Sánchezes had been pummeled. He thought of what those people said in line. Of the bets they were casting.
He couldn’t help but step closer to Esmeralda. If something or someone so much as thought they could harm her, they would have to go through him first.
“We should leave this very minute,” the healer said. “We can pack up everything and be out of here within the hour.”
The ringmaster watched Pilar. His gaze roamed over her battered body so unhurriedly, Ignacio nearly throttled him. They needed to move. To get her to a physician before it was too late. Yet Veracruz stood there like he was waiting for Pilar’s breathing to slow.
Esmeralda must have noticed too because she rushed forward and took the ringmaster’s arm. “ángel, please,” she said.
Heat seared through Ignacio at the intimacy of the touch.
The ringmaster gazed down at her almost lovingly. Ignacio clenched his fists so hard his knuckles popped. Veracruz’s eyes flicked to him before returning to Esmeralda. He half smirked.
“You are right, darling.” He patted her arm. “As soon as the Big Top performances are over, we will pack up and go.”
“You must be joking,” Ignacio said.
“I never joke about such matters. You should all know by now that the show must always go on.” Once again, his gaze flicked to the mirror. “Come, let us leave the sisters here with the healer. The final act is readying to begin.”
Ignacio planted his feet. He wouldn’t leave the girls. He didn’t know exactly why, but he couldn’t trust they’d be okay.
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to stay with them,” Gabriel said to the healer.
He must be sensing the same thing Ignacio was. Sensing the wrongness permeating the air.
They looked to Veracruz for approval.
The ringmaster’s jaw muscles flexed before he flashed his signature grin.
“But of course. You’re a good friend.” He faced Ignacio.
“Why don’t you find some extra hands and begin discreetly packing up the third ring attractions?
No one will worry much over those.” He motioned for Esmeralda.
“Follow me, love. I want you to take notes on how to thrill the crowd.”
He placed his hand on the small of Esmeralda’s back and urged her toward the exit. Ignacio saw her shoulders stiffen. He started forward but stopped himself. If she said nothing to the ringmaster, who was he to intervene? She’d probably scoff at him anyway.
Veracruz looked over his shoulder and found Ignacio’s gaze. He winked before he and Esmeralda disappeared into the shadows. Through his nostrils, Ignacio breathed out the boiling rage filling his lungs.
It had taken much longer for them to tear down the carnival and pack everything onto the train than Ignacio liked.
The moment the train started moving, he dashed out of his shared bunk.
Something was terribly wrong with this carnival.
He had to figure out what. And he was going to start by seeing what exactly was in those mirrors.
He kept thinking about “The Tale of the Valerio Brothers.” When the ringmaster recited the ballad, he spoke of a god of smoke and mirrors.
Perhaps he wasn’t speaking in riddles as Ignacio first thought but, unbelievably, in truths.
Ignacio had heard a tale similar to the Valerio brothers’ before, but he couldn’t remember how or when. And it was driving him mad.
With a grunt, he shoved open the rear boxcar door. Wind whipped across his skin. His eyes watered from the cold as train tracks whizzed beneath his feet. He slid the door shut and hopped onto the next wagon. He would do this until he made it to the boxcars that held the Big Top materials.
He passed through the menagerie car and opened the next door.
Ignacio halted.
Esmeralda lay in a tight ball on a small balcony welded onto the boxcar being tugged behind the one he was on. The healer’s sign bumped against the metal door above her as the tracks sped by below.
With his footfall shielded by the rattling groans of the train, he jumped across the gap between cars and landed beside her. He shivered. It was a wonder she could sleep with the windchill so biting.
He couldn’t leave her here. It wasn’t safe, for one, but also, she’d freeze.
Kneeling, he scooped her up. He paused when her mass of curls fell away from her face. The skin around her eyes was swollen. She had been crying.
There had only been two times he’d seen her shed tears.
The day he told her he had been enlisted into the Blackbirds was the most recent.
The first time had been one summer night when they were fifteen.
They lay under the stars on his roof. He told her about his mother and how the loss of her left a hollow cave in his chest.
Until he met Dovie.
That night, she had wiped the tears from his cheeks while her own eyes filled with them. Then she had scooted closer to him, offering him her warmth.
“I often talk to myself,” she had said. “Keeps all the sad thoughts away.”
He had smiled. “I’ve heard you.”
“Maybe…” She chewed on her lip. “Maybe we can be each other’s noise. It won’t replace the people we’ve lost, of course, but maybe we can be there for each other to silence all those sad thoughts that like to slip in when things go quiet.”
She had done that for him. Dovie had silenced the sad noise. But then she left and his sorrows began to scream once more. Esmeralda had hurt him deeply when she ran away. Still, he wouldn’t leave her here in the cold.
Slowly, her eyes blinked open as he stood cradling her in his arms. She gazed up at him in a sleepy sort of way that burned his insides.
She’d looked at him like this the night of his eighteenth birthday.
When he climbed onto the rooftop to meet her, he’d been shocked to see that she was already there.
She’d laid out blankets and fluffed them into a sort of nest. She patted the blankets, beckoning him to her.
“I’ve been pondering,” she had said.
“Terrifying.”
“I know.” She bumped him with her shoulder. “Since my birthday comes three days after yours, I’ve been thinking about a gift that will suit us both.”
He raised a brow. “Is that right?”
She nodded, then shifted onto her knees and faced him. “I want you.”
He blinked in confusion. “You already have me.”
She giggled and rolled her eyes.
Then, she did something that sent every nerve in his body shooting to the sky. She climbed into his lap. Her legs straddled him. Her warmth melted against him.
“I’ll be your present and you will be mine,” she said.
He had sucked in a breath, unable to control the irregular beating of his heart.
Her long lashes dipped and she met his gaze. “What do you say, Pigeon?”
Ignacio had tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “I…I’d say there is nothing I’ve ever wanted more in my life.”
They had given each other that gift. They had become one. And after, she’d looked up at him with sleepy stars in her eyes, and he never thought he could love anyone more than he loved her at that moment.