She’s right. I do. Though I don’t know their names, and though Maire didn’t tell me this straight-out, I heard it in her voice. I knew it from the story. “They were sisters,” I say.

“Yes,” Maire says. “No one else knows this anymore but you and I. There had never been two sirens in a family before. There have never been two since.”

Until the two of us.

Until now.

CHAPTER 14

By the time I walk all the way from Maire’s apartment back up to the main part of Atlantia, it’s almost morning. The lights will come up soon. I have to hurry. I crouch under the temple trees, and carefully gather the metal leaves into the bag that holds my air mask. I hear the rustling of something, and at first I feel afraid, but then I realize how high the sound is.

It must be one of the temple bats.

It settles in a tree above me and I smile to myself. “Knock down all you want this time,” I say, and as if to oblige, the bat moves and a silver leaf comes shaking to the ground. I gather that leaf, too.

The light begins to rise in our false sky.

I hear the bat lift off out of the tree above me, and I look up hoping for a glimpse of it, but all I catch is a slip shadow flitting in the faint light. This is the time when Bay would be climbing back into bed, when she would have stolen an hour or two of sleep before we put on our robes and began another day of work in the temple.

I stand up and pull the bag over my shoulder. It’s heavy, full of leaves. I hope no one looks at it too closely.

The story of the two sirens in the temple has given me an idea, and I need to talk to True. There are several gondola stations large enough to have sheds where the gondolas can be taken for repair, but I’ve seen True’s work and I think he must be one of the best machinists. So I hazard a guess and go to the biggest station in Atlantia, the one near the Council blocks. I hope I’m right about where he works. I hope his shift hasn’t ended yet.

Workers spill out of the station, laughing, talking. I listen for True’s voice among them and, to my relief, I hear it.

I’ll have to follow him until he separates from the others. They’ll wonder what I’m doing out so early. The only people allowed out now are those leaving work.

It doesn’t take long, thankfully. True calls a good-bye to the group and then starts off down a road on his own. It’s lighter every moment. I follow him for a few steps, gathering my thoughts, preparing to flatten out my voice.

I haven’t yet called to him, but his back stiffens. He knows someone’s following. Is this what it feels like to be Maire? Spying, waiting, hiding?

“True,” I say, and he turns.

“Rio,” he says, relief and concern in his voice. “Is everything all right?”

“I’ve had an idea,” I say. “Can I talk to you?”

“Of course,” he says. “In here.” He guides me the short distance back to the gondola shed, keying in a number on the door and then pulling it closed behind us.

The shed is well-lit, and I blink, taking in True. His fingernails are black with dirt and he smells like oil, and yet there’s that cleanness about him, and I think, He is exactly the kind of person that Atlantia was designed to save.

“What is it?” he asks. “What can I do?”

“I’m wondering if you could make me some locks.”

“Locks?” he asks. “Like for a door?”

“For me,” I say. “To wear on my hands and feet when I swim.”

“I don’t understand,” True says.

“Remember how I said that the best way to get the coin fast is to do one big event? So that I can get the money and be finished?” I wait for him to nod. “Imagine that I’m at one end of the lane, hands and feet locked together, and that there are dozens of eels and fish coming for me from the other end of the lane, and the crowd knows that the eels and fish are electrically charged. And they know that I have to break free of the locks before I can even move.”

Can True picture it? I can.

I’ve had a long walk up to think about everything that I learned in my aunt’s house, in the place where my mother died. And I’ve decided I want to follow my mother to the surface—not take my chances with Maire.

From now on, my focus is on the floodgates. On getting through them alive. Not on listening to voices from the past or to Maire. I don’t trust her.

I’ve decided that when I create this moment, I will be Oceana, alive against all odds. I will find a robe to wear that looks like hers. I will fetter myself with locks and chains, symbols of death. The fish with their sharp currents and winding ways will represent Nevio and others like him, and then, as Oceana, I will break away and swim past it all. I will come to the surface and breathe again.

“This will draw a crowd,” I say. “I think people will want to bet on it. We can advertise. Aldo will tell everyone. If you can get the locks made fast enough, we could do it soon. Like next week.”

But True shakes his head. “Too dangerous,” he says. “If you didn’t get out of the locks in time, and if enough of the fish and the eels got to you, you could go into shock and drown. You could actually die, even though I’ve tried to make them as safe as I can. They’re still charged.”

“That’s the point,” I say. “People want to see something dangerous.”

“Then let them go to the night races,” True says. “Take it more slowly. The crowd hasn’t lost interest in you. They like what we’ve done so far.”

He’s right, of course. And, if I take more time to earn the money, that gives me more time to train.

But I don’t know how much longer I can last here. How much longer I can go without saying something in my real voice. It’s getting worse than it’s ever been—as I miss my sister more each day, as I learn more about my power and about the sirens who came before. Listening to Bay’s shell each night helped me have enough strength to keep myself in control, but now her voice is gone.

“I don’t think I can wait,” I say. That’s all I tell him. But as always, True seems to know that there is more I can’t say. He seems to understand.

I don’t know how or why.

“So how will you get out of the locks?” True asks.

“That’s the hard part,” I say. “We want the audience to feel like they’ve seen a miracle, but not like they’ve been tricked, once we tell them how it was done. Which we’ll have to do, at the end. And we’ll probably have to let someone else put the locks on me so that they know that part is fair. Aldo, maybe. Someone the bettors trust.”