He started toward the center of the carnival, but just as he rounded the parade floats, he heard voices he recognized. He stilled.
“Pilar is well enough to move. I plan to take her home,” Camila said.
“Are you sure you wish to leave so soon?” the ringmaster asked gently. “I told you that you could stay on until Pilar was in the clear.”
Ignacio edged closer. He peeked around Isadora the tigress’s float.
Camila nudged the dirt with her toe. “Yes. I…I’d like to thank you for all your generosity, but I think Pilar would fare better elsewhere. She should be with family. We aren’t so far from El Sueco. That’s where we’re from.”
After a long moment, Ángel grasped her shoulder. “I’m sorry to see you two leave us. I hate that this is how we must part.”
“Not more than me,” she mumbled.
A flash of anger pooled in the ringmaster’s eyes, but he quickly tamed it. “I’d like to offer you and Pilar your severance pays. Your time here was cut short during a challenge I gave you. I hold myself responsible in every way.”
Relief flooded Camila’s features as if she’d been afraid of what he might do.
A worker called after the ringmaster, asking him about where he’d like the menagerie to be raised up. Ángel held up a finger, a signal for the man to wait. He turned his attention back to Camila.
“I better go,” he said with a kind smile. “Please find the treasurer. He’s called Tezcán. I believe he’s in the Fun House. Tell him I said that you deserve the works.”
Tezcán?Ignacio had heard that name before.But where? When?
Camila gulped. “Th-thank you, señor.”
“It is the least I can do. I shall miss you both.” He hugged Camila and patted her hard on the back. She winced, still sore from the accident. “Safe travels,” he said.
Right before the ringmaster walked by, Ignacio dove beneath Isadora’s float. A large man with a bald head and overalls fell in line beside Ángel. The ringmaster leaned close to the man and said something into his ear. The man’s brows furrowed, and he nodded. His gaze flicked toward the spot where Camila had just been. He let out a sharp whistle. Two guards slipped from behind a nearby candy cart and slithered after her as she limped away. They had the nicked ears of the Blackbirds. Ignacio’s eyes snapped back to the larger man. He had the marking too.
Why were the Blackbirds here? Why were they working for the ringmaster when the army was so busy snagging people from prison cells and thrusting them into the front lines?
Camila moved through the gaping mouth that served as the entrance to the Fun House.
Not five seconds after Camila faded into the darkness of the tent, the ratas slunk inside. Cursing, Ignacio came out of his hiding spot and dashed after them.
The Fun House was a labyrinth of peculiar mirrors. They were dark and oddly shaped. Some appeared to be invisible and had him walking forward until he ran straight into them. With each step through the maze, his reflection changed from tall to short, thin to curved, blurred to distorted. In some, he swore he saw a figure in his peripheral. But as he walked deeper into the Fun House, his reflection started to change.
He halted. One of the reflections wasn’t a reflection at all. An image played from within the glass as if he were watching a picture show in a theatre. He recognized the scene. Because he had lived it. He had watched it with his own eyes. He saw golden wheat underfoot, saw the train speeding away.
This was his memory from when he first met the ringmaster.
He spun to the next mirror. He viewed a girl wearing a dove mask briskly walking through the carnival. She bumped into him and offered her apologies.
It was Esmeralda the night he’d found her.
Ignacio ran to the next mirror. Within the dark glass, he observed himself dressed in his Blackbird cadet uniform, vomiting behind a building as screams rang out. He twisted to faceanother mirror and watched as he and Esmeralda argued about running away together. In the next, he was younger, folding his very first paper dove.
“Hello?” Camila called out.
Ignacio jerked his attention toward the direction of her voice.
“Tezcán? The ringmaster sent me to find you. Hello?”
“In here, child.”
The hair on the back of Ignacio’s neck stood on end. Tezcán’s voice sounded like it had been scraped from the bottom of a cavernous pit.
“To your right, my dear.”
