We’re all going to die.
How is Fen staying so clear about all this?
And then I remember. He is already dying. He’s been dying for months.
But Bay and True—they have to live. I have to do what I can to make that happen. And I want to live, too.
Maire said I would know when it was time.
It’s time.
I have to go out in the temple. I have to speak.
I put my hand on Ciro’s eyes to close them. He was willing to help me. But I have to do it alone. I touch the bats’ cage as I stand up.
“You’re right,” I say to Fen.
He stands up, too. “I’ll come with you. You shouldn’t have to do this alone.”
“I won’t be alone,” I say. I feel like Bay will be with me. And my mother. And her sister.
And there is something else I need Fen to do.
“Please,” I say. “Let them go.”
His face changes. For the first time, I see him break. “I can’t,” he says.
I realize that he thinks I mean Bay, and True. And I understand.
“The bats,” I say, pointing to the cages. “Can you find a way to let them go?”
Fen nods. Relief washes over me. The bats are not meant to be locked up like this. They need to be free. I will speak better if they are free.
“Thank you,” I say to Fen. “I’ll see you again.” And then, before I creep out into the hall of the temple, I touch Fen’s shoulder in farewell. Even though I’m not who he wants and he’s not who I want, we understand each other. I will do what I can to save what’s left.
CHAPTER 29
Priests and guards line the halls. Many of them; one of me. But I remember Maire at the floodgates, and on the small island.
You don’t see me, I say to the priests and the guards, as I walk among them down the narrow hall, our robes almost brushing, their faces so near that I know the colors of their eyes.
And they don’t see me.
It is a strange feeling to walk among the people of the Above and have them look past me and through me. In a way, however, it is like speaking in the Below without my real voice. In a way, it feels familiar.
The temple is full, and Nevio stands at the pulpit. Where are the sirens? Ciro said the Council planned to bring their bodies to the temple for a public viewing. Then I see black boxes set up in the side aisles, and a note of foreboding rings in my heart. The boxes weren’t there when I came in last night.
I count them. Twenty-seven.
I stay to the side, pulling up the hood of my brown robe. The temple is full of people—they even stand in the aisles, in the nave—and if I keep out of the main aisle, and move slowly, I don’t think anyone will notice me. I don’t want to use my voice again, not yet, but I have to see the sirens’ bodies. I have to know.
“People of the Above,” Nevio says, “we are glad and grateful to be back among you. We have yearned for this moment for so long.”
His voice sounds perfect here. His tones seem familiar and comfortable, right, and what he says is a flawless combination of coercion and command. Even now, even knowing what he is, I can’t tell when he speaks the truth. There is often some of it mixed in with his lies.
I walk until I reach the nearest box. It is raised above the ground but low enough for me to see inside.
And there is a siren.
She died screaming.
It is hard to look.
Nevio keeps speaking. Has he seen me yet? I don’t think so. I keep walking, my head low. People let me pass without noticing. Was my single command enough to hold them all for this long?
Or is it Nevio’s voice that has them held?
“The sirens are gone,” he says. “The day has come at last when the Above need no longer fear anything from the Below.”
And then, at the end of the nave, there she is. They have tucked her away, and at first I find this strange, because then fewer people can see her, and I thought the point of bringing the bodies here was for people to see the sirens dead. But then I understand why they didn’t put her body near the front.
Because Maire’s face is at peace.
She looks beautiful in a way that is something like the sea, something like the sun. It is difficult to turn away, though it hurts so much to see her like this. I touch the edge of her robe and move toward the center aisle of the nave. It is time to be seen. It is time to be heard.
“We knew this day would come,” Nevio says, his voice rolling over the pulpit, down the aisle. He opens his arms. “It is time for the Above to rid yourselves of the burden of the Below once and for all. It is your time.”
I step out into the center aisle. Nevio looks up and our eyes meet, with the gods watching all around. And I realize that he has come to believe his own lies. He believes that he shapes the world as he speaks.
People turn to see what Nevio sees. Does he know who I am? Does he remember now that I came Above?
“Who is that?” someone asks.
I push back the hood of my robe. People move out of my way to let me pass. My feet on the marble sound like my mother’s did when she went up in the near silence before a service. The jar of water still sits on the altar, and light shines through the windows Above.
“I am Rio Conwy,” I say, and for a moment I can say nothing more.
Lies and truth have been spoken in this temple, and now my name is there with all the rest of it.
I see hatred and recognition in Nevio’s eyes. He remembers now that I came Above, and he must also realize who made him forget. Maire. She was more powerful than Nevio in that moment, and in many others.
I am not afraid.
I know how to do this. Maire showed me, every step, from the first day in the deepmarket to the last day on the island shore. She even showed me what to say.
I turn my back on Nevio and face the people of the Above. I speak. I ask.
“Listen.”
I feel it coming to me, going from me—all my siren power in that single word, everything I have saved, spent.
I want it to be this way. I want them to listen, but I want to speak to them as a person. Someone like them. Then maybe they will understand.
I want to be heard.
I can use my real voice now, stripped-down, still strong. I am as human as each of them, and they will hear that, if they can do what I asked and listen. I won’t command them to do anything. That would be wrong. And that would not hold. They have to want to save us.
I know what Bay is saying at this moment, Below. What we are saying, together. I know her mind, and she knows my voice. We are water, the same; the river and the bay.