I think Bay might be angry, too.
She has also been trying to hold things in all her life. Trying not to upset me so that I wouldn’t risk speaking too loudly, trying to build her own life around protecting me. It couldn’t have been what she wanted, but she did it anyway. When our eyes meet, I know we are both angry at each other and that we love each other, just as it has always been and will always be.
“Maire wasn’t supposed to die,” Bay says, and her voice breaks. “She and I talked about it, before I left. She was supposed to keep you from coming here. She was supposed to use her voice to keep you safe.”
Maire was supposed to use her own voice.
Instead she taught me about mine.
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.