Atlantia

CHAPTER 27

It’s morning when Ciro the Minister opens the door again and comes back inside the temple storage room. I know as soon as I see his face that he does not have good news for us. “I’m very sorry,” he says. “My sources on the Council confirm that all the sirens are dead.” In that moment I hate him, I hate his voice, the way it sounds, what he’s saying.

“There were twenty-seven bodies retrieved from the island,” Ciro tells us.

Twenty-seven. There were twenty-nine of us on the transport, but that number included True and me.

There’s so much I want to say. But Maire said to wait. She kept telling me to wait.

Until when?

She said I would know.

“Are they sure that everyone died?” Bay asks.

“Yes,” Ciro says, glancing over at True and me. Ciro must have deduced that we came with the sirens—how else would we have come to the surface?—but he doesn’t say it out loud. “They seem quite certain that no one on the island survived.”

Maire’s voice worked, at least for a little while. She was the most powerful siren Atlantia has ever known. Why didn’t she save herself to save the world? Why did she think I should do it instead?

“Why would the people slaughter the sirens this way?” I ask. “The sirens can’t even live for long Above.”

“Some people are still fearful,” Ciro says. “They’re afraid that the sirens might find a way to survive up here. They wanted the sirens eliminated permanently. They didn’t want to take any chances.”

“So they killed them,” I say.

“How?” Bay asks. “I thought the siren song was more powerful Above. I thought there was no way to escape it.”

“The Councils of the Above and the Below found a way,” Ciro says. “Or, I should say, your Minister found a way.”

I feel cold. “Nevio,” I say. “Is he Above?”

Ciro nods. His expression and voice are hard to read. “He and some of the Council of the Below came up on a transport right before the sirens did. Apparently he, and the members of the Council he selected to come with him, are immune to the siren voices.”

“It was them,” True says, his voice soft as the sand. “They were the ones who killed the sirens.”

Don’t scream, I tell myself. Don’t speak. Wait. It’s not time yet.

It all makes sense now. Nevio didn’t come up with us. We thought he was coming up after, but he came up before. And then, with the Council members, the ones who killed my mother, he murdered the rest of the sirens. I don’t think he’d get his own hands dirty; he’d orchestrate it, the way he did my mother’s killing. I can picture him sitting on one of the boats and giving the command to mow down the sirens.

Nevio knew I was coming Above. He knew True was coming, too. He should know there are two missing. Why hasn’t he said anything?

Bay’s fingers find mine and she squeezes my hand.

Because Maire won.

Maire saved us.

She hid True and me from Nevio so absolutely, so well, that he forgot we came up at all.

She told the people to listen to her, and they did. It was for a single moment, but that moment was long enough to save our lives.

She was more powerful than the Council members who believed themselves immune. More powerful than their masks. More powerful than any of the other sirens.

In the end, she was more powerful than Nevio.

Why didn’t she save herself?

Why did she save us instead?

What did Maire mean when she said she cared enough about herself to want redemption?

Did she have to save us?

If she believed that, did that also mean she believed in the gods?

I know now with utter certainty that she believed in me.

“How could your Council agree to this?” Bay asks.

“They did not all agree to it,” Ciro says. “I did not agree to it, and neither did many others. We were unaware of the plan to kill the sirens. There is a great rift among us.” He takes a deep breath. “Nevio and the Council members who came up with him have been granted asylum here permanently. It is their reward for helping the Above rid themselves of the sirens forever.”

I should have known that Nevio could never be satisfied with the Below. He wanted the Above, too.

He and I are alike in that way, but I never wanted to rule the Above. I wanted to see it. To be a part of it.

I need to talk to Bay. I know Nevio’s secret. I know that he’s a siren. And she doesn’t.

“Tonight some of the Council plans to bring all the siren bodies here to the temple for a public viewing,” Ciro says. “I believe they hope to stir up public support for the death of Atlantia.”

“But maybe it won’t work that way,” Bay says. “Maybe if they see the sirens’ bodies, they’ll realize they’re human, like everyone else.”

“You can be sure the Council will make them appear as inhuman as possible,” Fen says.

They won’t even have to do that, I realize. The sirens did that themselves—the makeup, the clothes.

“There is more,” Ciro says. “The Council has invited a special guest to give a sermon after the viewing. Nevio will speak.”

Nevio. Of course. He can’t wait to use his voice here.

The people of the Above were right to be afraid, I realize. A siren has come along to control them, and this time they don’t even know that he’s doing it.

Nevio is using his voice on the people of the Above, just as he did on the people Below. He saw that Atlantia was dying, and so he decided to save himself and those who put him in power, those who helped him kill my mother. But how does he think he can survive up here long-term? Doesn’t he know that sirens die Above? Can’t he feel what I feel? I’ve been here for a matter of hours, and already I know I’m losing strength.

“Can’t you stop him from speaking?” True asks.

The Minister shakes his head. “I’ve tried. Our Council is broken. We are split into factions. Those who believe as I do are in the minority.” His voice breaks. It is such a normal voice, the voice of a person—perhaps of a very good, very wise person—but that is all. “I do not know how much longer I will be allowed to retain my position as Minister. Some are already suggesting Nevio as a replacement.”

Ciro cannot compete with Nevio.

True looks at me. Should we tell Ciro? I shake my head the smallest bit. How can we trust someone we haven’t known for very long with such a secret? Would he even believe us? And what could he do?

And I’ve had another thought. If I turn in Nevio, will they kill him? They might. My voice has to be pure if I’m going to use it the way Maire intended. It can’t have caused someone else’s death. Even Nevio’s.

“All the sirens are gone,” Fen says, shaking his head as if he can’t believe it. He doesn’t know about Nevio, either, of course.

“We don’t know that,” I say. “Maire hoped there were more.” I don’t say the rest in front of Ciro, but I can tell that Bay knows what I mean. More like me. Hidden sirens. And there are potential sirens not yet born. I think of all those voices that might never have a chance to sing.

“I’m afraid we don’t have much time to mourn,” Ciro says. “We need to direct our attention to saving Atlantia. The Council majority has already begun debating how many people should be rescued from the Below. As it stands, anyone who hasn’t had a siren in her bloodline is considered suspect, because one could still appear. Those like you”—he looks at Bay and me—“who have a siren in your lineage might be allowed to come up and be rehabilitated.”

The Minister doesn’t know that I’m a siren.

Bay told him about Maire but not about me.

She’s still keeping me safe.

She says she trusts Ciro, but she hasn’t told him everything. Something’s kept her from doing it. And if that’s the case, I’d better not tell him about Nevio.

Maire’s words come back to me. There are some things you only tell a sister. And some things you only ask of a sister.

Ciro looks at Fen. “They’ve also decided that anyone who has lost a family member to water-lung or who is infected with it themselves won’t be rescued.”

“But that’s most of Atlantia,” Bay says. “You’d be hard put to find anyone who didn’t have water-lung in their line somewhere. And if you also rule out all the lines that haven’t had a siren appear, there will be hardly anyone left that your Council considers worth saving.”

“I know,” Ciro says. “They are letting fear control them.”

“They are murderers,” Bay says. “Your people are murderers.”

“And so are ours,” Fen points out.

He’s right. The people of Atlantia have not fought for us. They have been afraid of us, too. They have forgotten to see sirens as human, only as lonely miracles, and in the end they are the ones who killed us when we came Above.

“But someone has to go Below,” Bay says, her face pale. “Someone has to tell the people there what Nevio and the Council have done to the sirens. And that the Council is leaving Atlantia to die.”

“Going Below won’t accomplish anything.” I have to work hard to contain the bitterness in my voice. “We don’t know that the people there will believe you. And even if so, what can they do?”

“Rio’s right,” Fen says. “There’s no reason to risk yourself for them.” He’s trying to protect her. And he sounds as angry as I feel.

“There’s every reason,” Bay says. She knows I won’t survive without Atlantia, but she can’t say that in front of Ciro or he’ll know what I am. She takes a deep breath. “The people living Below now have never known the full truth.”

“If you go down and tell it to them, what does that change?” Fen asks. “The Council up here will still condemn most of Atlantia to death.”

“Maire really believed there could be more sirens?” Bay asks.

“Yes,” I say. “Hidden ones.” There might be more people like me.

Of course there might be more like Nevio, too.

“Maybe, if there are any sirens left Below, and they knew that they were safe to speak, they could cry out to the gods to help us,” True says. “Or maybe they will be heard Above somehow. They are miracles, after all.”

“We need to tell the people,” Bay says. “Whether they die or live, they need to know the truth. They need to send their voices, siren or not, up to the gods and to the people Above to beg for their lives. They need to agree to change, too.” Bay pauses. “But it can’t be a siren who tells them.”

She’s right. I know it. I know she was born for this. She has always loved Atlantia; she has always heard the city breathing. Thinking of the greater good comes naturally to her. She could have been the next Minister if she hadn’t always been so busy protecting me. “How are you going to get Below?” I ask, and Bay turns to look at me in surprise. And then she smiles.

“They are sending one more transport down tonight,” Ciro says. “There are a few Council members of the Below who have been granted asylum who were not in the initial group. I may be able to get you on board that transport, hidden somewhere. I have a favor I can call in. But we must be certain we want to spend it on this.”

“Can you think of anything else we might do?” Bay asks.

Ciro pauses for a moment, then shakes his head. “I will ask those here to speak for the people Below. But perhaps the gods cannot answer our prayers until both the Above and the Below plead together.”

We are all silent for a moment. The temple storage room smells like stone and books and old cloth, just like the temple Below.

“Then I will go,” Bay says. “You believe you can arrange it?”

“Yes,” says Ciro the Minister. “I am sure I can get you to the Below. But I don’t know that I will be able to bring you back.”

“I understand,” she says.

“And I can’t guarantee your safety in the Below,” Ciro says. “How do you think your Council will react when they see you?”

“I’ll do my best to avoid them,” Bay says. “I’ll try to slip out of the transport and go straight to the temple, as fast as I can. There are people there who will help me.”

“What about the peacekeepers?” Fen asks. “And the other citizens of Atlantia? No one has ever come back who chose the Above. You don’t know what they’ll do. They might be angry or afraid when they realize you’ve returned.”

“Maybe if they see me,” Bay says, “they’ll think of her. Of our mother.”

“I’m coming, too,” Fen says.

“No,” Bay says. “You know what the change in pressure did to your lungs on the way up. You can’t risk that again.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“No,” Bay says. “You won’t.”

Something passes across True’s face, his kind, laughing face that has always known the sun before he even set foot on the sands of the Above.

True should go back, too.

He knows it and I know it.

If he goes, he’ll tell the people what he can do. Perhaps he’ll find out that there are more like him. It’s possible. The citizens of Atlantia have been hiding our real selves from one another. If there could be more people like me, there could be others like True.

Would those Below be more willing to let the sirens live among them if they knew there were some who could tell when the sirens spoke lies or truth?

And True has always known that he loved the Below. He has always known that he belonged there.

He and I rode in that gondola together through the fog, but we have always had our own journeys, and I have known that from the beginning. I’ve felt it somehow.

Perhaps that is why I was so afraid to love him.

“It’s the best way for you to help save us,” I say.

True’s jaw is clenched and I see tears in his eyes.

“We made it Above, together,” I say, and though I don’t use my real voice, I know he hears it, as he always has. In front of everyone, he lifts my hand to his lips and kisses my palm.

“I’ll go with you,” he says to Bay.

“What?” Fen asks, surprised.

“We have to go now,” Ciro says. “There isn’t much time before they’ll send the transport down.”

Bay looks at me, and for a moment the question passes between us—should I go, too? We don’t know how long I can last up here. And if she and True both go back, then everyone I love will be Below.

I see the realization on Bay’s face the minute I feel it in my own heart. I feel us coming closer, the time and space of our separation dwindling the more minutes we spend together. We have been apart, but we are one again now, the same thoughts, the same purpose.

And we both know that I have to stay here.

Maire sacrificed everything to bring me Above. It was so I could do something here, not so I could go back Below. Not yet. I haven’t yet done what I came to do.

I came to speak.

“Tonight,” I say to Ciro the Minister. “In the temple. When Nevio speaks. I need to try to say something to the people.”

Ciro nods. “I will help you,” he says. “I will make sure that we get you to the pulpit.” And I wonder if he has guessed what I am, though none of us have said it out loud.

“No,” Bay says. “Then Nevio will know you’re here. It’s too dangerous.”

“It’s dangerous for you, too,” I say. “But we will be speaking at the same time, or close to it.” Maire said I would know when it was time, and I can tell that it’s coming. Can Bay feel it, too?

She puts her hand to her mouth, and her eyes well with tears. She does.

She knows I could die up here, and I know she could die down there.

And I know I will mean it more, I will ask for Atlantia with all my heart and voice, when the lives of everyone I love depend on what I say. That way, the people Above can hear my love for True and Bay—my missing them—in my voice. And hopefully, though she’s not a siren, the people Below will be able to hear Bay’s love for Fen and me.

To save our city, we have to leave the ones we love.

To save our city, we have to love each other more than ourselves.

Which is how much, I now know, Maire loved my mother. And it’s how much Bay loves me.

She came up here to try to save me. Now we are both going to have to try to finish what our mother and our aunt began—the saving of the sirens, of Atlantia itself.

I pull my sister close and she wraps her arms around me tight. “At least you know why I’m going this time,” she says, and I smile but I’m very close to tears. I do know why, but as it turns out, that does not make it easier.