True nods. He looks interested. In the problem, or in me?

It doesn’t matter. But it does.

“And look what I have,” I say, opening my bag. “All these leaves. All this metal. It has to be good for something. If not for this, you can use it for your fish.” I reach for one of the buckets among the work gear on the shelves and dump the leaves inside. “There,” I say. “For you.”

True looks shocked. “Where did you get those?”

I flush. Does he think I’m a thief? I suppose I am. “From the trees by the temple,” I say.

For some reason that answer seems to satisfy True. “I’ll help you,” he says, “but you have to promise me that you won’t try this before it’s safe. You can’t do what you did with the eels and jump right in.”

“I promise. I’ll wait until it’s safe.”

“I can’t tell if you’re lying.” He sounds as if this surprises him.

“I’m not lying,” I say. I’m not, but I don’t know how to get him to believe me. And I have lied to him before.

True smiles. “Good,” he says. “Now, how can we get you a key for the locks without it looking like a trick?” His face lights up. “Maybe we could rig one of the fish to bring it to you in the water.”

I like this idea. “Yes,” I say. “I’ll have to hold my breath and get myself unlocked, and then I’ll swim.”

“The unlocking is just the beginning,” True says. “You still have to make it through all of the metal creatures to the other end of the lane.”

“I’m getting better at avoiding them,” I say. True doesn’t know that I can move the fish and eels. That, if I have to, I can tell the fish with the key to glide right into my palm. “I can do it.”

“I know you can,” True says.

“So you’ll help me?”

“Of course.”

“Thank you, True.” Relief and exhaustion settle over me. “We’ll earn enough money to get what I need and to buy a stall for you, too. This is the beginning, for both of us.”

True nods. “I’ll get to work on it,” he says. “Right now.”

“Thank you,” I say again. I wish I could stay and help him, but I have to get to the mining bays to report for work.

I’m almost at the door when True says my name.

“Rio.”

I look back. “You could buy the locks, and we could alter them,” True says. “That would save time.”

I shake my head. “No,” I say. “It has to be you who makes them.”

“Why?”

“Because I trust you,” I say. “If you make the locks, I know they’ll work.” I’ve been afraid of many things, but I feel no fear about this. I know that both True and his creations are good, and I’m not afraid of what I’m asking the locks to do—to come undone so that I can live. I trust my voice.

It takes True a few days to come up with locks and keys. We schedule an extra practice session in the lane, and we pay Aldo more than the usual rate to make sure that no one will be in the stands or practicing near us.

Bay’s shell stays silent. I don’t ask Maire any more questions, and she doesn’t try to contact me. I’m sure Maire has her own plans, her own work to do, and I’m focused on swimming, getting stronger, using my voice to make things come to me. All small things, so far.

But I feel my voice growing.

True helps me snap the locks into place around my wrists and ankles. On the day of the real event, Aldo will check to make sure that they’re secure. For now it’s enough that I know they are.

“If I think it’s been too long,” True says, “I’m going to come in and get you out.”

“I might drown you,” I say. “Pull you under. Can you even swim?”

He laughs. “Of course I can.”

“I’ve never seen you.”

“I learned when I was young,” he says. “But you don’t forget.”

He’s right. And as I watch True walk down to the other lane, pushing the cart full of eels and fish, I know I won’t forget this—what he’s done for me, and how he did it.

When True raises his arm a few minutes later, I know he’s ready, and I duck under the water. That’s his sign to begin. He’ll put in the fish with the key first and then everything else.

Here they come. I see the swirl of bubbles around each of them as they make their way for me. They are fast, beautiful, precise, and one of them reaches me just as my lungs start to burn from holding my breath. An eel stings me.

“Unlock,” I say, and I feel the locks loosen around my ankles and wrists.

It works.

I let the fish with the key come to me, so that True won’t know that I don’t even need it at all, that I unlocked everything with a word underwater. Once the fish brushes against me, I catch it in my hand, slip the key from under its belly, and tell the locks to fall. They do, and I swim.

An eel shocks me.

Another.

Move away from me, I think, but of course nothing happens. My power is in my voice.

I almost open my mouth to say something to them, let water in and words out, but instead I keep swimming. I go around and through their darting, small bodies with my long, strong one. We are dancing, almost, the whole turquoise length of the lane.

My mind is sometimes a hard place to be, but I have always liked having a body. I like the feeling of having fingers to flex and use, a back to stretch, hair to swing in a braid, eyes to see. Does my mother have a body somewhere or is she only soul now? I can’t imagine such a thing.

My body is strong, and my voice is, too. As I get closer to the end of the lane, I can’t resist any more.

I’ve never tried to control so many things at once.

The words come out of my mouth and the water comes in as I tell the metal sea creatures to move away from me, and they do like a pulse, a compulsion.

My power is growing, changing. I can feel it. Was it speaking in the temple that began it? Letting out that single word when Bay left? Or has it been from learning from Maire or wanting even more desperately to go Above?

When I surface at the end of the lane, True studies me. He knows something’s different. He knows that all is not quite as it should be.

“What happened?” he asks. “In there? In the water?”