The bulbs overhead shook as if angered.
“Same.” Ignacio scooped her up and they wove their way through the maze to get to Gabriel.
“What is happening?” Gabriel said, confusion playing on his features. “I’ve never seen anything like that, and I built half of the attractions here. Why was Javi in the reflection? Why was he kissing some other fella?”
“He’s a figment of your own imagination. Your worst fears,” Camila replied.
Gabriel’s brows pinched together. “Who are you?”
Camila glared at him.
His face paled. “Oh my. Camila?!”
An explosion sounded from the center of the carnival.
“Was that from the Big Top?” Ignacio asked.
Tezcán’s gravelly laugh reverberated through the Fun House, then faded as if he were walking away.
“The show must have already started,” Camila said.
“But it was barely the afternoon when we entered the Fun House.”
“And I had the body of an eighteen-year-old then. I think we’re past logical understandings.”
“What is happening?” Gabriel’s voice cracked. “Why do you look like my grandmother?”
Applause echoed faintly from the Big Top, then screams ofjoy.
Ignacio searched the reflections. “Where did Tezcán go?”
As if on cue, the Big Top drums began to rumble.
Pretty doves fluttered about within the mirrors. Their movement became erratic, and they began to smash into the glass. Snapping their own necks.
Ignacio gasped. “Dovie.”
Gabriel took Camila in his arms and shouted, “Go!”
Without a second thought, Ignacio bolted toward the Fun House exit. He dodged and weaved around walls of mirrors that suddenly formed to block his path. When he kicked out and broke one of the mirrors, the others shuddered and let him through as if they were afraid they’d be next.
Cool air hit his skin. The smells and sounds of Carnival Fantástico enveloped him. He raced through the dense and meandering throng all shuffling toward one place: the BigTop.
Chapter 39
Esmeralda
“No,” Esmeralda whispered as she looked out at the arena.
Sitting in the prized box as if he was perfectly at home was Comandante Olivera.
“So, youareworking with him, then?” She glared at the ringmaster.
Ángel had the nerve to appear confused. “I beg your finest pardon.”
General Keara entered the box. She knelt beside the comandante and said something into his ear. Comandante Olivera’s brows deeply furrowed. His lips moved, but Esmeralda had no clue what he might have said. General Keara nodded, stood, then disappeared into the crowd.
Esmeralda had to find Ignacio. She had to warn him.
