CHAPTER 19
How do they know?
Did Nevio figure it out somehow?
Or did I give myself away? Did someone notice that the shroud came open or see me move?
I want to pull the shroud closed, but I can’t risk it. Perhaps they shut the gates for another reason. Maybe it’s not me at all.
On the way down, I get caught in a current as the water swirls toward the floor. My head bobs under, and water floods into my mask. The seal must not have been tight enough, and I choke, my body convulsing. I can’t breathe, and I’m moving far too much. I reach up inside the shroud and fix the mask, hoping that in the whirl of bodies going down, no one will notice the movement.
The water settles me roughly on the bottom of the floodgate chamber. I lie perfectly still, on my side, flung there as haphazardly as the rest of the bodies.
I didn’t even make it out of the chamber.
For several long minutes, I rest there on the floor, surrounded by corpse-filled shrouds, trying to keep my chest from heaving up and down, willing myself not to shake with the cold, listening to the last of the water drain away.
Peacekeepers take me straight to holding and put me in a room by myself. It’s small, with a dark-glassed window and a table and two chairs inside, nothing more. But the chairs are beautifully carved and made of wood, true treasures from the ancient Above. Why would they put such things in a holding cell?
They don’t give me anything else to wear, even though the air coming through the vents feels icy. I stand in the middle of the room in my wetsuit and drip and shiver. I’m alive, I think. I’m caught.
Maire comes inside, a rush of warm air from the hall following her.
She looks neat and tidy, her hair braided in a way that reminds me of how Bay and I wore ours on that day in the temple. There’s even a ribbon, brown velvet, winding through Maire’s hair, and her clothes are neatly pressed. “Raise the temperature in here,” she says to a guard in her gorgeous, dangerous voice. “Bring her dry clothes. Now.”
Then she turns to me. “They’ve sent me in to talk with you,” she says. “Sit down.”
I stay standing. I don’t want to obey her. And I don’t want to ruin the chair. Salt water on that old wood—I can’t bring myself to do it.
“The Council wanted to interrogate you,” Maire says, “to find out why you tried to go up through the floodgates. I told them that it wasn’t necessary to question you. That you simply wanted to go Above because you missed your sister.”
I don’t say anything.
“You’re very quiet, Rio,” Maire says. “Is there anything you’d like to tell us?” She gestures to the mirrored window at the back of the room.
I wonder how many people are listening.
I know what Maire wants me to say.
I’m not sure if I hear it in her voice or see it in her eyes, but I know. She’s not commanding, but she is asking.
She wants me to say that I’m a siren.
In front of her. In front of whoever watches from behind that window. She wants me to give myself away, even though all this time she’s told me to save my voice.
A guard appears at the door with the clothes Maire requested—shirt and pants, underclothes, socks, and they’re all dry. I want to wear them so badly that my teeth chatter. There’s a blanket, too. Maire holds it up to screen me from the window.
“Go ahead and change,” Maire says.
I want to resist her, the way I refused to sit down on the chair, but I’m too cold. As fast as I can, I slip on the dry underclothes, the pants and shirt. My chilled fingers fumble with the buttons.
“Finished?” Maire asks, and when I don’t answer, she lowers the blanket. “There,” she says. “That’s better.”
And then she takes my chin in her hands and looks right into my eyes.
“Rio,” Maire says, “it’s time.” She leans in and whispers into my ear, “You need to tell us who you are.”
She pulls away. “The people from Above are tired of helping us,” Maire says, her voice brutal and clear. “Our mines are depleted and useless to them now, and they have stopped sending us food. We’re a drain on their resources. And you know what happened in the deep-market.”
Is she saying that the people Above caused the breach somehow?
The door opens, and Nevio comes into the room. So he was behind the dark glass. “You’ve said too much,” he says. “As always.”
“I’m right, as always,” Maire says. “By telling Rio what’s happening, I’m giving Atlantia a chance.” She nods to me. Her lips form the word speak. But she doesn’t command me to say it. Why? Even now, she still wants me to have the choice?
I don’t understand any of this. They’re working together, that much is clear, but I see nothing warm, no sign of collaboration between the two of them. In fact, when Maire addresses Nevio, I hear a simmering, long-brewed hatred that she doesn’t bother to hide.
Maire meets my gaze. “This is the last chance, Rio,” she says. “We’re out of time. If you want to go to the surface, this is the way.”
My mother trusted Maire. So did Bay. And Maire gave me the shell and told me many things I’d never known. And I have no other way to the surface. I have to trust her, too.
And I want to speak. I want to go to the surface.
I tried to get there myself, and I failed.
So I do it. I use my real voice. I say what I’ve wanted to say all my life.
“I am a siren.”
Maire closes her eyes.
I’ve spoken the truth. I’ve said what I am as loud as I can.
It sounds so powerful that I feel my heart will break, or break free from me.
I am.
A siren.