CHAPTER 30
You see, Maire says. I was right. You are the only one who could do this.
“Because of my voice,” I say.
And because of the work you did that had nothing to do with your voice, Maire says. You made yourself strong enough to swim in the lanes, which meant you could get to the shore from the island. You cared for the bats for years, so they would come to you without your having to call. You were brave enough to speak in the temple Above, and when you did, the people felt like they could believe you. They knew that you spoke the truth.
I open my eyes.
I know the voice I heard was Maire’s—whether in my mind or saved somehow, I’m not certain.
I know that the face looking down at me is Fen’s. I know that the soft sounds around me are the temple bats. And I know almost instantly where I am.
I’m on the transport, going Below. I can tell. I feel the Above vanishing behind us, the place where I spent a single day in all my life. The sun is in the past for me for now; the water feels deeper than it did before.
“We had to get you back down,” Fen says. “You wouldn’t do what Nevio did and take the life from the bats. We used all the seawater in the temple to get you here, and then some. People went down to the shore and brought water back for you.”
I can feel that, too. I’ve been drenched, and the salt is left on my skin. I smile. If I’d chosen the Above that day in the temple, I would have had a sprinkling of the sea and now I am covered in it.
Fen and I are not alone. Priests and Council members of the Above sit and speak in groups, and bats settle on the armrests of chairs and fly about the transport. Their presence indicates to me that we are not being sent down to die.
“It worked,” I say.
“It worked,” Fen agrees. “For now.”
The Above is going to let us live. For now.
I feel my strength coming back the farther down we go.
“You shouldn’t be coming Below,” I say to Fen. “Isn’t the changing pressure bad for your lungs?”
“Yes,” he says. “But I have to see Bay. I have to find out what happened to her.”
But I think I already know. I think that my sister was able to reach them, to help them understand. I think that those who were hidden might have finally dared to reveal themselves. I think voices from the Below, siren voices and regular voices, cried out to the gods for help and to one another to change. I think the Below might have been calling out in the very moment the bats came to cover me.
One of the bats stretches out its wings. In this light they are the same blue as the sirens’ robes.
“They followed us to the transport,” Fen says. “Some settled in the trees and stayed Above, but these ones flew on board. We thought it best to let them go where they wanted.”
One of the priests in his brown robes edges closer. “I don’t mean to interrupt,” he says. “But can you—will you—tell us about the Below again?” He is young. His voice sounds eager, like he’s thought about this all his life. Maybe he had a brother or a sister who indulged his dreaming of another world, the way Bay always did for me.
“It’s beautiful,” I say, “and broken.”
I tell him again what I said in the temple Above, about the city and the people, and as I do, he weeps.
I have brought him to tears, and for a moment that scares me. Did I manipulate him unintentionally? But I have not tried to persuade him. I’ve tried to tell him the truth.
And I realize something else.
My voice is gone. It is no longer the voice of a siren. But it is powerful, strong, and mine.
“You think we can learn to live together?” the priest asks.
“I do,” I say.
He nods to me and goes back to his seat. I hear him telling the priest next to him what I have said, and I think, That’s good. Let them convince one another.
“Your siren voice,” Fen says. “What do you think happened?”
“I think,” I say, “that I gave it to the Above.”
“You don’t sound sorry,” Fen says.
“I’m not,” I say.
Because I am strong. I was born with a siren voice—it was a gift that I chose to give up to save my city—but I still have all the power I earned for myself.
And I can speak. I will never stop speaking.
I think Maire knew that this would happen. I think she understood, and she didn’t tell me because she thought I might not be willing to give up my voice. I believe that in the end she did love me, but she loved the sirens more. She loved the city more. She wanted it all saved. And she was right.
It was worth it, what I lost, if it gained the lives of those who live in Atlantia.
The door of the transport slides open. A mass of people waits for us, and the city breathes.
I wonder if they can smell the sun on our skin or see the stars in our eyes?
This time it is not hard to find her. She’s right at the front of the crowd, looking for me.
“Bay,” I say. “I came back.”