Gabriel eyed him with suspicion. “Why the inquisition? First the mirrors, now this. Are you a Blackbird or something?”
Ignacio huffed. “Far from it.”
A pair of young ladies who might have been twins passed by. Ignacio locked eyes with the taller of the two. She gasped then shielded her mouth, whispering into the other girl’s ear. The girl inhaled sharply.
“Gabriel!” the taller one shouted. “Who is that?” She pointed at Ignacio as if he were a rotten egg.
Ignacio’s fingers wrapped around the ring on his pinky. He twisted it in circles whenever his stomach made that weird sort of nervous lurch.
Gabriel jerked his thumb toward him. “This is…erm…actually…I don’t think I caught your name. We were just calling youcabrónall night.”
The girl’s gaze flicked to Ignacio’s hand. Her focus zeroed in on the ring. A startled laugh escaped her. She whispered into her companion’s ear again before grabbing her by the arm and jerking her away.
Gabriel rubbed the back of his neck in confusion. “Do you know the Sánchez sisters?”
“I doubt it very much.”
The girls were both beautiful and had faces one wouldn’t easily forget, but Ignacio had never had eyes for anyone but Esmeralda. Even after she turned her back on him. Perhaps that was his problem. Perhaps he should have tried harder to move on. But Esmeralda wasn’t the kind of person one simply got over. Her smile was engrained into his heart. Her laughter fused into his marrow.
He wished it weren’t so, but she was as much a part of him as his own soul.
The smell of fried eggs and perfectly burnt chorizo wafted into Ignacio’s nostrils. His stomach growled viciously.
Gabriel chuckled. “Cook’s food does that to me too.”
He led Ignacio into an open-sided tent littered with picnic tables that were filled with carnival performers and staff. People laughed and gossiped while sipping their café or scraping theirutensils over empty plates. Ignacio’s heart thumped a bit harder as his eyes scoured the bustling throng.
Was she here?
He grinned as he imagined what her pretty face would look like when she saw him. Her nose would scrunch up like it always did when she was mad. Her upper lip would quirk to one side.
“Here,” Gabriel said, offering Ignacio a tray. “Best hurry and eat before the fire breathers get in line. Those guys must consume three times as much as us on account of all the smoke in their guts.”
Ignacio hardly heard a word Gabriel was saying because the world around him had frozen in place.
There she was.
The girl with wild curls and a mouth that could kiss you into oblivion or curse you into the dirt.
She was sitting alone at the opposite end of the tent. She tapped her empty fork against her chin. Her eyes looked glossy with worry, and she was mumbling to herself like she so oftendid.
Her talking to herself was how Ignacio knew they could communicate through the vents connecting their rooms when they were children. At first, he thought he was being haunted. But it was only Esmeralda arguing with her own conscience.
The Sánchez sisters ran to Esmeralda’s side. Their arms flailed about as if telling her a horrifying tale.
Ignacio’s muscles tensed.
The fork in Esmeralda’s grasp clattered onto her plate. She gaped. Even from across the busy tent he could see her lips form the question “Where is he?”
She jumped to her feet. Her furious eyes scanned the open space.
Ignacio’s fingers tightened around his tray. His heart hammered in his chest.
He knew then and there—he was a dead man.
Chapter 13
Esmeralda
