Ignacio watched as her eyes quickly found a man standing in the back of the crowd. He had her same full lips. Same sharp nose. His gaze fell to the ground as the silence grew.
Ignacio’s fingers balled into fists. This coward was going to remain quiet. He was going to let her take the fall.
“Fine,” Father snarled. He turned to the driver. “Take her to the king’s dungeons.”
“Wait!”
Everything went silent.
All eyes flicked to Ignacio.
He gulped. Had he just said that?
Yes. He had.
He started to point toward the man in the crowd, but the man was already gone.
In the span of a heartbeat, Ignacio had decided his new fate.Hewould protect this girl for the rest of his days.Hewould stand by her side when no one else would. And he would start at that very moment.
He stuck his chin up and marched toward his father, pretending to be the soldier he was being raised to be. “You said you needed a new errand page. What of her? Let her pay off her debts to you here.”
Father’s eyes narrowed. He looked behind Ignacio, speaking to the head of his house staff. “What do you think, Señora Sevilla?”
The white-haired woman scrutinized Esmeralda. “We could use some youth to help with the running of things.”
“Fine,” Father had said.
From that day forward, Esmeralda had stayed in the servant’s quarters and paid off her debts. From that day forward, Ignacio had watched her from afar. Always making certain shewas okay. Always making sure she had the things he thought a kid would need.
His mother would leave him chocolates on his pillow whenever she was called to the palace for more than a few days. And she would bring him back little treasures like silly colored socks. Ignacio did the same for Esmeralda.
But after months of silently observing, he saw her struggling to fold a slip of parchment into the shape of a bird. He couldn’t sit back and let her continue to fail. So, he folded up a scrap of paper into a dove and sent it down the vent shaft between their rooms, hoping to soften the scowl that was always on her face.
He didn’t know it was love until years later. They were fifteen, and he couldn’t think of anything but her. So, he asked her to meet him on the rooftop one summer night.
And after he turned eighteen, and his father told him it was time to start his training, his first thought was of her. Of the fact that he would be leaving her behind for who knew how long. Like her family had done years before.
He had told her he had to leave. She begged him to run away with her instead. He told her that he couldn’t just turn his back on his father. She’d given him until midnight to change his mind. But when he went to meet her, she was already gone.
The girl he longed for most in the universe didn’t even say goodbye. All she left behind was his mother’s ring that he’d given to her the night before, a broken statue they’d earned at their one trip to the boardwalk, and an angry letter written in iridescent ink.
His gaze flicked to the ringmaster on the caboose of a magicaltrain. He was still waiting for an answer. Ignacio thought of the words she’d written him that day.
“She stopped loving me because I wasn’t enough,” he admitted.
“And you would like to find out why?”
More than anything.“I suppose I would.”
Veracruz grinned excitedly. “Pray tell, who is the little birdie who hurt you so?”
“Her name is Esmeralda.”
The ringmaster’s mustache twitched. Humor danced in his eyes.
“Ignacio, you said your name was?”
Ignacio nodded.
