“Sure,” Esmeralda said breathily. “Yes. Of course.”
She looked troubled. Ignacio’s gut dropped. Did she not enjoy the kiss? Did she not want it like he had? Had she been playing a part the whole time? The way she desperately gripped him certainly felt real.
Her fingers slid into Ignacio’s. “We’ll be on our way. Sorry to be a pest.”
The rata chuckled. “Nah. It’s no bother.” He jerked his chin toward the main hub of the carnival. “Go on now.” As he turned to head back to his post, Ignacio jolted. The man’s ear! A bit of the cartilage had been sliced off like a V. He was a Blackbird. Only true officers of his father’s army had their ears nicked in this manner.
Ignacio fought the urge to cover his face, but most people outside of his father’s direct circle had no clue what the son of Comandante Olivera looked like. Besides their size and jawline, Ignacio looked nothing like his father. Father was pale-skinned, with light brown hair and blue eyes. Ignacio was not. On top of that, photographs of him had been wiped from all news sources and military ledgers. Insiders told the Defiant his father had done it. He was so embarrassed of Ignacio’s desertion that he tried to make it as if Ignacio had never existed.
Esmeralda tugged him away from the ringmaster’s wagon. After a moment, she whispered, “Is the guard looking?”
He peeked over his shoulder. “No. I don’t see him. He must be back at his position in the front of the wagon.”
“Good. Let’s run for it.”
On silent feet, they swept toward the back door of the wagon and slid inside. They stood there in the dark. The lights of the carnival filtered in, illuminating her beautiful face. Her lips were swollen from his kisses.
What would she do if I tried to kiss her again?he wondered.
“What should we be looking for?” she whispered.
Right. They weren’t there for kisses.
“Anything to help us understand what is happening inside the carnival. Confirmed correspondence between the ringmaster and my father would be nice too,” he said.
Esmeralda moved to one side of the ringmaster’s messy desk. He to the other. He couldn’t risk touching her. Not when they had to be stealthy. Not when they were alone, and every nerve in his body was screaming for him to take her in his arms and kiss her until the world ended.
He had to calm down. To remember what he was doing and why he was there.
He rifled through crunched-up papers and sticky receipts, through vendor earnings, production costs, and supply demands. The desk had no order whatsoever, and it drove Ignaciomad.
Esmeralda frowned as she shuffled through dozens of small cards.
“You were right again,” she whispered. “People are bettingon who will be the main act. And…” She pointed at a list with a string of tally marks. “This one has an option for people to guess which performer will suffer an accident next. They’re betting on our demise.” She shook her head. “The ringmaster is certainly savvy. He knows how to draw in a crowd.”
“Thatis your reaction to this? You give the man praise even though the gloves he gave you nearly ended you. Are you that obsessed with him?”
“At leasthesees potential in me.”
“Are you trying to say that I never did?”
“Oh please, Ignacio. All you ever cared about was being perfect. Look how far that got you. You’re as much a criminal as menow.”
“I’m trying to make things right. I don’t run away like some selfish…” His brain couldn’t come up with anything. He had no barbs to fling at her. How could he when his lips still tingled with the taste of hers. “You’re selfish. That is all.”
“You knew that about me from the first day we met.”
“I never thought of you that way. You were a kid trying to survive. There’s nothing selfish about that.”
Her lips flattened. “You just said I was selfish.”
“Well…yes…you’ve changed.”
“Being thrown in a jail cell will do that to a person.”
“And so will going to war,” he snapped back.
“That settles things, doesn’t it? We’ve both changed for the worse.”
