Atlantia

I find myself asking Maire one final question.

“Does being a siren mean that you are always lonely?”

Yes, Maire says.

She’s right.

I have always been lonely.

Even when Bay was here, I often felt alone.

This is what I need to face. Even when I care about other people, there’s a part of me that can’t seem to stop being alone. Maybe it means those people are right, the ones who say that sirens don’t have souls.

If I had one, would I be less lonely? If you have a soul, are you always companioned?

But then I realize that even if I did have a soul, it’s not as though someone else would be there. It would only be more of me.

CHAPTER 16

“So,” Aldo asks, “are you ready for tonight?”

I nod. In the days since I last spoke with Maire, I’ve focused completely on preparing for this evening. For the spectacle. The celebration. When I talk to True, that’s what I call it because that makes me feel stronger, more like Oceana. I’m as ready as I’m going to be. I’ve practiced in the lanes and worked with True on the fish and eels. I’ve made an insignia from the print I took in the bar of soap, and it’s cruder than I would have liked, but I did the best I could.

Aldo looks at the pile of turquoise fabric in my arms. “Is that your costume?”

“Yes,” I say. I used some of the coin to buy the cloth and had a seamstress sew it to my cut-down wetsuit. It’s more like streamers than a robe, but the fabric is supposed to hold together in water, and the effect when I swim is that I’m part of the water and also separate, something different to watch. I think of the costume as my Oceana robes, because this was the color she always wore at the pulpit. And the color she wore when we sent her body through the floodgates.

Aldo unlocks the stall where I plan to store my costume. I’ve come here before work to leave some of my things for the event tonight. True should be along any minute with the fish and eels in their buckets. I think Aldo will do his best to keep things secure, but I can’t risk anyone tampering with the locks, and the single fish that will bring me the key. They’ll stay safe in my room until it’s time for the swim.

“We should have a big crowd,” Aldo says. “The bettors are in a frenzy. They’re wondering what you’ll do after this.”

“Who knows,” I say.

Posters hang in the deepmarket, advertising the event tonight. People have started to recognize me as I walk through the stalls. Notoriety will bring me more money, but it also makes it more necessary for me to leave. Attention is a dangerous thing.

But it’s all coming together. This evening I’ll be back to swim. And then, with the money I earn, I’ll be able to buy the air from Ennio and take it with me when I leave the deepmarket.

If this goes as planned, then I’ll have everything I need to leave Atlantia very soon.

All I’ll need after tonight is for someone to die.

True walks toward us, pushing the cart. He nods to Aldo and hands everything off to him except for a bucket with the fish and the key and the locks, which he hands to me, and another bucket, which he keeps for himself.

The entire time his mouth is set in that firm line I’ve seen once before.

“Are you ready, then?” Aldo asks, when we’ve finished.

“Yes,” I say. “We’ll see you tonight.”

We start back up into the deepmarket. I’m not sure what True is thinking. Neither of us says anything, and then True takes my arm and pulls me into an empty stall with him.

“This is for you,” he says, holding out the bucket. Not smiling.

“Did you think of something new?” I ask.

“No,” he says. “It’s not for tonight. It’s five hundred coin. Now you don’t have to swim.”

I draw in my breath. Is he serious? I kneel down and pull back the cover on the bucket slightly. True wasn’t joking.

“Where did you get this?” I ask.

“All of the publicity from your swims has made people interested in buying the fish,” he says. “I can’t keep up with the demand. But I’ve been saving it for you. It means you can buy the ring back. Right now. And you won’t have to swim tonight.”

With this much money, and what Bay left me and what I’ve earned in the lanes so far, I have enough to buy the air tank. True’s right. As far as the money is concerned, I don’t have to swim tonight.

But I still need the practice. I need the added pressure of performance, the time in the water.

And True doesn’t even know that it’s not the ring I’m trying to buy.

“You should use this money to buy a stall in the deep-market,” I say. “Or more supplies.”

“I want you to have it,” True says. “Please.”

“Why are you doing this?” I ask. “We had everything planned.”

“What if it doesn’t work? What if too many eels shock you? Or the locks don’t work right, and I can’t get into the lane in time?”

“It is going to work,” I say.

Light flickers through the slats, and I wish it were the light of the Above.

I wish I could tell True the full truth, that I have to leave. And I wish I could tell him this in my real voice. But I remember the expression on Justus’s face in the temple on the day Bay left. I can’t tell True. I don’t want to change how he sees me.

“You don’t know that,” he says.

“I do,” I say.

“So you’re going to swim anyway?” he asks. “Even though you have enough money?”

“Yes,” I say.

“Rio,” he says. I see anger and anguish on his face, all the happiness and laughter gone. There is something he wants to say and he’s fighting against saying it. Whatever it is, he knows it will change something, perhaps ruin everything.

“Tell me,” I say. I whisper it. Because if I speak now, I’ll reveal myself.

He shakes his head. He kneels down and I kneel down next to him and he runs his fingers over the money in the bucket. I trust his hands. And his heart. I want him to touch me. He is dangerous to me.

He knows too much. No one can know me this well, because then they will leave me. That’s what happened with my mother. That’s what happened with Bay.

“I have to do it,” I say. I make myself sound the way I always do, flat and false.