“We would have to trust you to do the same,” I say. “We are human. We are no better or worse than you.” I remember that there are people like True now, people who developed traits in response to the sirens. “You shape us; we shape you,” I say. “I believe it is what the gods intended. For us to change and teach each other.”
And I realize: I know the third miracle. It’s Maire and what she did. And it wasn’t only her grand act of sacrifice, her superb display of power on the island. It was the way she saved voices and sent up shells for years, each one a personal, critical expression of faith and hope and humanity. “You have heard some of us.”
“Yes,” someone says. “We have.”
I hear the sound of a hundred tiny wings, the soft cries of small miracles. The bats leave their perches on the gods and fly above us. “Oh,” the people say in unison.
As the bats pass by the windows, their blue wings outstretched, it is as beautiful as the ocean.
I am crying and I am strong.
I see Fen in the crowd. I smile at him. He did what I asked. He let them free.
Then one of the bats comes down, closer, closer. It settles on my shoulder.
And then another.
And another.
They soar right past Nevio and land on me. Their claws hurt a little, but I know I seem like home to them. I know they recognize Atlantia in me.
I am bristling with miracles. I wear them like a robe.
Nevio speaks, but the people no longer listen. They stare at me. Will they let Atlantia live?
Will the people Below listen to Bay? Will they accept the truth? Do they understand that they have to change, too?
“Thank you,” I say to the bats. “But you can go. It’s all right.”
I won’t use my voice to make people do what I want.
And I won’t take from the bats in order to stay here.
The bats fly up, and I feel their strength leave me. My knees buckle.
Peacekeepers close in on me. Nevio’s voice rings in my ears, but I clap my hands over them, tight as a shell around a sea creature. I hear my own breathing, steady as my sister’s.
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.