Don’t make me angry. I know your secrets. And I know who you wish to keep your sad secrets from.
Ignacio straightened his spine.
Secrets? What sort of secrets would someone in the carnival know about Father?
He grabbed the last balled-up flyer and opened it. His stomach plummeted to his boots.
A drawing of a hand mirror framed with flowers winked up at him. The words “We See You” were woven around it. But it wasn’t the sketch or the peculiar phrase that quickened his pulse. It was the familiar silvery-black ink with shifting hues of purple, blue, and gold.
“This cannot be,” he said. “It can’t be the same ink.”
Still holding the flyer, Ignacio stuffed the rest of the papers back in the bin and bolted out of the office. He cut right, heading straight for his old bedroom. He burst through the door, not caring who heard. Ignacio wrenched open his armoire and dug through old clothes and dusty toys until his fingers grazed over a wooden box. He yanked it out and flung open the lid.
Panting as if he’d run across the world, Ignacio gazed down at the items still perfectly placed inside. Odd trinkets he’d been given or secretly collected. Painted soda-pop caps. A photograph taken of his mother, the sepia tones doing little to capture the spark in her hazel eyes, the soft warmth of her dark brown skin. Gingerly, he scooped up an old mint tin. His thumb grazed over the initials he’d painstakingly scratched into the front only a few years ago.
His insides no longer fluttered like startled birds when he thought of the tiny notes he and Dovie had passed through the vents. Now, his insides soured with regret. Ignacio stuffed the container into his coat pocket. He wasn’t sure why. Perhaps he enjoyed torturing himself.
His eyes fixed on something at the bottom of the box. He hesitated for a moment, then grabbed the folded letter that had nearly destroyed him. He placed the box onto his old bed before unfolding the paper. His vision blurred. But he didn’t need to see to know what it said; he had memorized every word of the letter. They were practically tattooed on his soul.
But the ink? Could they really be written in the same ink? He raised the letter and the carnival flyer so that they were side by side. He blinked hard, then chewed on his bottom lip as he scrutinized them. The strange inkwasidentical.
His heart slammed so hard against his chest that he thought his ribs might crack. There was no such ink in all of Costa Mayor. He would know. In his desperation to find the author of the letter, he had gone to every stationery shop he could find, and no one had seen anything like it. He had never thought togo to Carnival Fantástico and ask there. Why would he? Magic wasn’t real.
A door shut at the front of the house. Ignacio’s head snapped toward the hallway. Father’s telltale footsteps thundered like a war drum. He was moving fast.
Shit.
Ignacio stuffed the letter and flyer into his pocket and looked for a place to hide. Though he took after his mother in coloring and demeanor, he was as tall as his father and nearly as broad. And he had left his father’s secret office door ajar. The second his father saw that, he would know someone had been inside.
There was only one option.
Ignacio ran for the window. Grimacing, he eased it up, hoping that the hinges had been recently oiled.
The window opened without a sound. He draped one of his legs over, followed by the other. He swore. The tree that had stood outside his window for his entire life had been chopped down. A piece of him broke at the mere thought. But Father was still coming; he had to go. Ignacio was only on the second story, but there were nothing but rosebushes to break his fall.
The floorboard on the landing step gave a recognizable creak. Father was not twenty paces away. There was no choice but to jump. His father’s boot squeaked against the polished tile. He was ten paces from the door.
Ignacio pushed himself off the ledge.
He clamped his mouth shut to hold in a hiss as angry thorns tore at his clothing and dug into his skin.
From above, the comandante’s voice roared.
Guards raced out of their small post near the front gate and barreled into the manor. Ignacio bolted from the bushes the second the area was clear and ran as hard and as fast as he could.
And he would not stop.
Not until he reached Carnival Fantástico and found out who wrote these notes to his father. And how in the hell they had access to the same ink that had once been used in the letter that shattered his heart.
Chapter 3
Esmeralda
Esmeralda couldn’t believe her eyes as she gazed at the notecard in her hand. It was blank. There wasn’t a single word marked onto the paper. NotCongratulations! You’re in the RunningorBetter luck next time. Was she that insignificant that the ringmaster would have forgotten to write something so simple?
Tears welled in her eyes. She sniffed.
“It’s his loss,” she said. Even though she knew that was the opposite of the truth. She needed the ringmaster far more than he’d ever need her.
