Atlantia

When I crouch down beside him, True has already found a way to open a panel in the boat. It’s strange to see the metal inner workings of the gondola. “I can make it go,” he says. “It might not take us all the way down to the deepmarket, but we’ll get there faster this way.”

“The peacekeepers will see the gondola,” I say. “Or hear it.”

“Of course,” he says. “But if the fog is like this all through Atlantia—like it was after your mother died—they might not catch us.”

The engine takes, starts whirring. “Get in,” True says. “Get low. I’ll be right there.”

I climb over the side and sink down between two benches. After a moment True appears beside me, landing lightly, and as he does the gondola moves.

We slip through the fog, whisper-white.

Neither True nor I say anything.

When we kissed under the trees, anyone could have found us and still there we stood, touching each other, clinging on. Now that we’re alone, we don’t do anything but look. Even when the wisps of clouds come between us, I feel his gaze on mine, as certain and deep as the way he kissed.

No one stops us on the gondola. It’s eerie how empty this part of Atlantia is. But then, as we get closer to the deepmarket, I hear shouting. A few dozen people have gathered near a barricade. They are either immune to the sirens’ song or so worried about someone in the deepmarket that they are able to resist, for now. One woman holds her hands over her ears and weeps, shaking her head back and forth against the song, her body trembling.

Peacekeepers call out to us to leave. “There’s nothing you can do here,” they say. “There are no survivors. Go home or you risk arrest.”

“Tell us,” a man calls out. “Was it water or air?”

“Did they suffer?”

“It was water,” someone says, and everyone turns to see who’s spoken.

Maire.

She comes from behind the barricade, and she’s wearing dry clothes, but her hair is braided back and wet.

I thought she was in prison. What is she doing down here?

“And it was air,” Maire says. “It was water that drowned them, but they may have been unconscious if there was a loss of air pressure first, which we believe was the case.”

Everyone listens to her, even the peacekeepers, although she’s not using her voice in the way she usually does. She’s simply speaking and telling us something, matter-of-fact. Not manipulating.

At least that’s what I think.

“They are recovering what they can,” she says, “and they hope to have bodies to be identified soon.”

Someone shouts out in anger and agony.

Maire closes her eyes. She’s about to use her voice. She always gives some kind of signal, I realize. She always lets you know.

“More peacekeepers are coming,” she says, the tones of her speaking rich with warning, “and some of the Council and Nevio the Minister. If you are still here, they will take you to the holding cells in the prison to preserve the peace. I can promise you that prison is not a pleasant place to grieve.”

A few people turn away, still weeping. But others stand their ground.

Maire begins to sing, joining with the other sirens whose voices come over the speakers around us, telling us to go home.

How long has she been out of holding? The Council let her out before to help them. Did they free her this time so that she could help in the deepmarket? Or was she released before that?

Did the Council ask her to do something else?

A terrible, dark thought crosses my mind.

The Council killed my mother. They are capable of killing when it suits their purposes.

Is Maire?

Her eyes light on me, and an expression of surprise crosses her face. She didn’t see me until now. Still singing, she moves in our direction. She pushes past True and leans to hiss something into my ear.

“Save your voice,” Maire whispers. “Whatever you do now, do not speak.”

Then she turns her back on me and walks toward the woman who is still trying to resist, who shivers with the effort. Maire leans down and sings right near her, and though it’s terrible what she’s doing—trying to make someone do something against their will—there is a gentleness in my aunt’s eyes, an anguish in her expression that hurts me to see.

She couldn’t have caused the breach in the deepmarket. She’s strange, but she isn’t evil. She can’t be. I can’t be.

True touches my arm. “We should go,” he says. “I don’t think either of us would do well in prison.”

He’s right. We’re both hiding too much.

We find the gondola where we left it sitting silent in the fog. True brings the boat to life, and we slide back toward the temple. The fog hides us, and so do the screams of the people as the Council members and Nevio reach them.

“The last time the fog came,” True says, “some people called it the breath of Oceana. They wondered if it was the third miracle.”

“I don’t think that it is,” I say.

“Neither do I,” True says. And then, “I’m sorry about the ring.”

“The ring?” Then I remember. My mother’s ring, the one True thought that I was trying to buy.

“It’s all right,” I say. “Much more than that was lost today.” All those people—Aldo, Cara, the bettors.

And I truly am a terrible person, because tears come to my eyes, and they’re for the people who died, but they are also because I will never perform for them again, I will never see how fast and good I could have been in the lanes today. I will never stand up in my Oceana robe and show them that even though they didn’t want me to race, I found a way to get what I needed, and I never even had to use my voice.

My mother was right when she said that thinking of the greater good doesn’t come naturally to me. So this is why I really wanted to swim in the lanes. It wasn’t to prepare. It was to perform.

“I’m sorry,” True says, “that I won’t get to see you swim again.”

“You said you weren’t coming,” I remind him.

“I wouldn’t have been able to keep away.” I feel True’s hand on mine. “You’re not planning to stay Below,” he says.

“I want to find my sister,” I say. “I want to be with her.”