“Hurry up, kid!” the ringmaster yelled. “We’re headed for a bridge, and I don’t think even you can run on those tracks.”
Ignacio clenched his jaw and forced himself to give it everything he had. He sprinted with all his might. The whistle blew three more times. The landscape was beginning to change, the weeds on either side of the tracks giving way to unstable rocks.
“Now or never!” the ringmaster hollered, smiling as if this were all a game.
Grunting, Ignacio leapt. He stretched his arm as far as he could. Strong, callused fingers clasped around his wrist. Ignacio’s toes scraped against gravel and crossties before the ringmaster yanked him up the rest of the way. With a clank, Ignacio landed on the small metal balcony welded onto the back of the caboose. He panted, sucking in greedy breaths.
His eyes bulged as the earth on either side of the train suddenly disappeared. The bridge they were crossing was hardly more than a few pillars and planks soaring over the deep canyon.
“That was some stunt you pulled off, and not a moment too soon.” The ringmaster helped him rise to his feet. He patted his back. “What’s your name, kid?”
The ringmaster had called Ignaciokidthree times now, yet he couldn’t have been many years older than Ignacio’s nearly nineteen. He appeared to be in his early twenties at most.Strange.The tailor virtuoso had made it sound as if this man had created the carnival, but Carnival Fantástico had been mesmerizing audiences for some forty years.
“I’m Ignacio.”
“Ignacio.”The ringmaster said his name slowly as if he were chewing on each syllable to see how it tasted. “And do you have a surname,Ignacio?” He did it again.
“Just Ignacio.” He wouldn’t give out his last name for many reasons. The carnival and officers of the law weren’t meant to mingle. If the ringmaster had even a sliver of a clue that Ignacio was the son of Comandante Olivera, there was no telling what he’d do. If Esmeralda hadn’t written to Father, then someone else had. He might still need the ringmaster’s assistance, seeing as that same ink was used all over his carnival.
The ringmaster held out his hand. “The name’s Ángel. Ángel Veracruz, proprietor of the most fantastical carnival there ever was.” Reluctantly, Ignacio shook his hand. Ángel grinned. “Now, tell me why you were so desperate to trespass onto my train. If you offer me a good enough reason for your intrusion,Ignacio, I’ll let you stay.”
Ignacio blinked at the challenge tucked within the ringmaster’s tone. “And if I don’t?”
Ángel whistled and made a falling motion with his hand.
“You’ll throw me off this train?” His eyes snapped to the canyon they were currently hovering over.
“You said it, not me.” Ángel winked. He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall of the caboose, which boasted a mural made in his likeness. “Choose your words wisely.”
Ignacio thought about pulling out the flyer with the ink on the back, but he didn’t want to show all his cards yet. Though, he certainly didn’t want to take a nosedive over the gorge either.
“I am searching for someone,” he admitted.
“Oh?” Ángel toyed with his curled mustache. It was the same russet brown as his slicked-back hair. “And who is this someone?”
“I’d rather not say.”
Ángel’s brow rose. “Afraid they will give you a bad reference?”
Esmeralda certainly seemed to hate him. She had framed him and sent him away in a jail cart. Even though it wasshewho should be put away. Not for being a thief or a liar. Both of which she was. She should be sent to the clink for being a terrible human being. For stomping all over an innocent boy’s heart. Ignacio had heard people say the pain of losing their first love faded over time. If anything, the ache had worsened.
He took a deep breath to calm the bitter anger fighting for purchase in his thoughts. “The person I’m searching for…we…we were friends. I…I saw her and…um…”
Ángel’s eyes softened. “You are trying to reconnect? Perhaps rekindle your love?”
Ignacio shook his head. “There is no love between us.”
“Sure, kid. Anyone would be willing to risk their life and runthathard for someone they were onceonlyfriends with.” Ángel pushed himself from the caboose wall and edged closerto Ignacio, clearly intrigued. “What happened between you and your love? This answer will tell me if you stay or go.”
Ignacio tried his best to ignore the way his insides clenched as he told the sorry truth. “I don’t know.”
They’d been thick as thieves growing up. Their first meeting wasn’t a great circumstance by any means. She and her family had snuck into his home at night. Someone tripped the alarm. Esmeralda’s family bolted away, but she had fallen behind. She hid under a table as Father’s guards scoured their home for intruders. Ignacio had been the one to find her.
At first, he was shocked that someone so young was burgling his home. His shock tripled when she bopped him in the nose and tried to flee. She ran straight into Father’s chest. Like a trapped animal, she began to fight. But she was a tiny thing. All hair and eyes. There was no chance of squirming away from a man like Ignacio’s father.
Father scooped her up and then stomped out of the house. Ignacio followed, cupping his bloody nose. Meddlesome neighbors had already formed outside and had to part for the jailer cart pulling up to the gate. Father had flung her into the wagon. Alone. This little girl was all alone, but she did not cry. Ignacio was in awe. Surely, even he, the stoic son of the comandante, would shed a fretful tear.
“Who does this child belong to?!” Father roared to the onlookers. “Come forward right now and you can take her place!”
