CHAPTER 22
My entire world is in motion, the transport slipping toward the surface, the pieces and people I thought I knew moving into new places.
My mother knew I wanted to come Above.
My sister left to try to save me.
I’m going to the surface with my last family member from Below, one I’m not at all sure I can trust.
And True is here. Why? He is not a siren.
I haven’t seen him since that night after the breach in the deepmarket—less than two days ago, but it feels like much longer. Does he know what I tried to do at the floodgates?
True’s eyes lock on mine. The lights of the transport flicker briefly off and then back on, and I remember how the light filtered through the slats of the stall in the deepmarket and how it felt to kiss him under the naked silver trees, in the gondola in the fog.
“Who is this?” the deepmarket siren asks.
“Another siren,” Maire says. “Nevio found him at the last minute.”
True nods, going along with her.
“I hope you’re telling the truth,” the siren says. “We need you with us, Maire. This mission has to go perfectly.” She appeals to True and me. “Do you know what the Minister has promised in return for our success?”
I shake my head.
“If we succeed,” the siren says, “Nevio is going to make us part of the Council. Can you imagine?”
I can’t. Nevio would never let such a thing happen. He’s lied to the sirens, and for some reason they’ve chosen to believe him. I glance over at Maire, and she smiles very slightly. So she knew what the Minister promised. Once again she hasn’t been completely honest with me.
One of the sirens hands True a blue robe, and he pulls it on over his clothes. He and Maire and I sit down together at the far end of the transport so that the others can’t hear us talk. It feels strange and wrong not to touch him, but there are too many people watching.
“Why are you here?” I ask True. It comes out flat and cold and nothing like my real voice, or my real feelings.
“The Minister found me,” True says. When he speaks, I love the sound. But it’s my fault he’s here. And Maire’s, for giving out his name.
“Nevio told me you were going Above,” True says. “He wanted to know if I’m a hidden siren, too. I’m not. But I told him what I can do, and he let me come.”
I feel us ascending, the slow pull of the transport through the water. I hear the air changing, feel the pressure inside the transport adjusting. Even though I’m worried about everything—Maire, Bay, True—I can’t stop the pulse of excitement, the thrill that I am at last going to see the Above. This is what I’ve wanted for so long. What will it be like?
And True is with me.
It would be safer if he stayed behind, but I don’t know if I would wish him away.
“What do you mean?” I ask True. “Did you tell him about all the things you can make?” I’m thinking of the metal fish, the eels, the locks. And then I realize that of course that’s not what True means—he means that he told the Minister about being immune. But why would Nevio send True up with us? There are many other people in Atlantia who are immune to the sirens’ songs, and they’re not here.
“No,” True says. He takes a deep breath. “Rio, I haven’t told you everything.”
What else can there be? He’s immune, he heard me speak—isn’t that everything? Isn’t that enough secrets? “What is it?” I ask.
“I can tell when a siren is lying,” he says. His voice sounds shaky. “Once I knew what Nevio was, I listened carefully. And I could tell that he lied in the broadcast when he said the breach was an accident. Someone caused it.”
“Who?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” True says.
I glance at Maire. I remember how I saw her down in the deepmarket, how I wondered if she had had something to do with the break.
“I didn’t help them,” she says. “It was Nevio, and the Council. They altered the controls and compromised the pressurization system. They wanted the deepmarket dead.”
“I believe her,” True says.
Maire smiles. She does not seem surprised at True’s secret. But I am.
“I’ve never heard of someone being able to do this,” I say.
“I know,” True says. “I hadn’t, either.”
“So you’re immune to sirens,” I say, trying to get it straight, “and you know when they’re lying?”
“Yes,” True says.
“How can you be sure?” I ask, because how could anyone know that?
True shrugs. “Things have happened,” he says. “I know.” The laugh lines, the sun on his skin, the brown and gold of his eyes—it is all still the same. He’s still the same. But I should have known there was even more to him, that all the empathy he has shown me also indicated an understanding of mystery, of keeping back part of yourself. He knows what it’s like to have depths that others don’t, that are dangerous to share.
“So I’ll have to take your word for it.”
True nods.
“Even though you’ve lied to me,” I say, trying to put up one last wall.
“I didn’t lie,” True says. “I had secrets I wasn’t sure I could tell you. You felt the same way.” He’s right, of course. I never did let him know what I planned to do to get to the Above.
“Does it work with people who aren’t sirens?”
“No,” True says. “Only with sirens. If I listen closely, I can hear something in their voices when they’re not telling the truth. It sounds like the wrong note in a song. I don’t know how to explain it better than that.”
“But you were affected by me,” I say, trying to understand everything. “You said that you heard me calling to you in my real voice when the breach happened.” Even though that was imaginary, the thought of my real voice was enough to impact him, which shouldn’t be the case if he’s truly immune.
“Yes,” he says. “I’m affected by you. Not your voice.” I hear him swallow. “Do you believe me?”
“I want to believe you,” I say.
“Nevio tested me to make sure I was telling the truth,” True says. “He told me some things, said for me to tell him if he was lying or not. I guess I passed his test, because he decided to send me with you. He said that I’ll be useful, because I can tell if any of the sirens are trying to sabotage the mission. He said it was my responsibility to stop them.”
“And you believe that’s why he sent you?” Maire asks.
True looks right in her eyes. “No,” he says. “I acted like I did. But he knew I was lying. We all know why I’m really here.”
“Why are you here?” I ask.
I want to hear him say it. I want it almost as much as I want the Above.
“Because of you,” he says. “I wanted to come with you.”
True’s arm and shoulder are warm next to mine, and I want to turn right into him, to have his arms around me and mine around him, as we come to the Above. But I don’t want the sirens to see, to think there’s any reason for him being there other than the one Maire’s given. I want to protect him as much as I can, though it may be too late.
Nevio sent True up so he wouldn’t have to worry about True’s talent and the problems it could cause for a lying, siren Minister. And Nevio made promises to the sirens because he doesn’t think he’s going to have to keep those promises.
The Minister doesn’t plan on any of us coming back from the Above.
And even though I realize this, I still want to go. Something in my heart feels like it is opening. I imagine the water outside lightening, too, the deep ocean blue of it turning the color of the sky and the sun. If I could get off the transport this moment and go back home, I wouldn’t do it. Is it because of Bay? Or because True is here? Or because the Above is where I’ve always wanted to be?
“We can’t stay on the transport when we arrive,” Maire tells the two of us, her voice quiet. “They’re not going to send it back down with anyone aboard, and we’re trapped in here. Our best chance of escape is to get out and do what we can.”
“The sirens aren’t what I expected,” I say. “They’re so—tame. So controlled.”
“There used to be more of us,” Maire says. “There used to be more like me.”
“What happened?”
“The others were culled and eliminated,” Maire says. “They were too dangerous.”
“Why not you?”
“I think Oceana did what she could to protect me,” Maire says. “And I told you. I am always willing to do what I must to stay alive.”
Her voice is hard. I wonder what she has done. I don’t want to ask.
“Stay with me when we get Above,” Maire says. “Do what I say. I promised my sister I would take care of you, and I will.”
In this moment I believe her. I can see from True’s face that he does, too.
If this is the moment of my own death, this time I want to inhabit it. I reach out and hold True’s hand, and his fingers tighten around mine. And I imagine what our transport looks like moving up through the water, from dark to light, past the uncurious fish and the dying coral, on to things I have never seen but know enough to imagine, like sand on a shore, and birds swimming on the surface of the ocean, dipping their beaks down to eat.
“Remember,” the deepmarket siren says to all of us as the transport stops. “Our voices are the Below’s best weapons. We are miracles, meant for this moment.”
I don’t know that I’m a miracle, but I do believe I was meant for this moment Above, however long or short it may be.