I roll over onto my side, feeling my braid underneath my head as I do. I haven’t undone it since Bay left. It’s wound with those blue ribbons, a complicated, beautiful style, and though I know I look rough and that pieces are coming out, flyaway bits escaping, I don’t want to undo it. I braided her hair this way that morning, but it’s much easier to do on someone else than it is to do for yourself. Once I take it out, I won’t be able to put it back.

Is Bay having the same trouble Above? Did she throw away the blue ribbons? Do they prefer to wear other colors where she is now?

Maybe if I talked to Maire, she could help me. She could teach me how to use and manipulate my voice to get what I need. And she said she knew what I wanted.

But has using her voice really worked for my aunt, the sea witch? There are stories about her, and people are afraid of her, but has she ever gotten what she wanted? What good has it done her, in the end?

Look what happened when I said one little word, no. Now Justus can’t look at me and Maire won’t leave me alone. What if someone else, a stranger, had heard me?

I hear Maire in my mind again. You think I’m the evil sister, and that your mother was good.

Must there always be one of each? That’s what I’ve always secretly wondered. If so, I know which sister I am. Bay is not perfect, but she is good. She believes in the gods. She loves our city and our people. She meant to stay Below and serve them all her life.

So if everything is reversed, if she’s gone Above and I’m trapped Below, then perhaps I am the good sister after all.

I don’t feel it. And if I use my voice on purpose, I will have crossed a line, and there will be no coming back.

Maire is not the answer.

I know I need to go Above. I don’t yet know how. The wave of hope I felt in the temple has spent itself on the shore of exhaustion and loss.

The pillow is wet from my tears. Perhaps I should try to catch them in a bowl and give them to the priests to use for those who decide to spend their lives down here in the dark Below. We’ll all weep and bless one another, those of us too scared or stupid or late to try a life Above.

CHAPTER 4

I cried so long that I slept in, and I’m tardy for work. I dress in my robes and snatch up my air mask by the strap and sling it over my shoulder. When I glance in the mirror, I see that my hair looks unkempt like Maire’s and that I have the same blue smudges under my eyes that I saw under True’s last night.

I know his pain was real. But I can’t care about anyone’s pain but my own. I am an aching, raw, walking nerve. Summoning enough restraint to keep my voice back is the most I can manage.

My classmate Hali notices the shadows. She and Bay were friends, and in the days since my sister left, Hali has been protective, providing a buffer between the rest of the temple acolytes and me at prayers and in the dining hall. I’m grateful to her, especially at mealtime, when we give thanks for those Above who sacrificed to provide our food and I can’t help but think of Bay.

I wonder if we are always with the people who live Above the way they are always with us Below. We think of them when we eat the food they provide, knowing that each sweet or savory bite cost them some of their limited time on earth to produce. Do they resent us? I would.

“Maybe you should rest,” Hali says. “You seem more and more tired every day since . . .” Hali trails off, as if waiting for permission to say Bay’s name. I can’t seem to find it in myself to give, so I stand there, unhelpful and unbending.

“It’s good for me to work,” I say. “We lose ourselves in service.” It’s a parroted, pet phrase of the priests in the temple. “Bay would have wanted it this way.”

Now I’ve said my sister’s name, and it hangs over us, pressing down. She weighs on us the way the water weighs on the city. She is everywhere and all around.

“Oh,” Hali says, “of course.” She holds out a pack for me. “I brought you your work kit.”

“Thank you,” I say. She’s saved me a trip down into the workroom with all the other acolytes so I don’t have to face more questions.

Hali nods, and before I can overthink it, I ask her something. “Were you surprised when she left?”

Hali holds her work kit on her hip, the way I’ve seen her balance her baby brothers and sisters when they come during visiting hours. “Yes,” Hali says. “Bay loved Atlantia. She loved the temple. I never thought she’d leave. Some of us thought that she might be Minister someday.”

I nod. I knew that people whispered about Bay following in my mother’s footsteps. Bay knew it, too. But she never wanted to be the Minister. “Too much pressure, too many eyes watching,” she always said. “I’d rather be a priest and serve the people and the gods that way.” Bay always thought she’d like to teach in the temple school or administer at the floodgates. “I want to help people when they have to let their loved ones go,” she said. That was before we had to prepare our own mother’s body to go up through the floodgates. The memory washes around the edges of my mind, but I refuse to look at that dark place.

“But I can also understand Bay wanting to live a life of sacrifice,” Hali says. “And the best way to do that is to go Above.”

“So that’s why you think she left?”

“Of course,” Hali says. “Bay is one of the few people I know who could live a life of sacrifice.”

Hali’s argument isn’t without logic. But why wouldn’t Bay tell me that she wanted to serve in the Above? Why did she ask me to promise to stay, and then leave?

Why trick me?

Was she afraid I’d be angry?

“She didn’t tell you she was going, did she?” Hali asks.

“No.”

“She must not have wanted to hurt you,” Hali says gently.

But Bay knew her leaving would hurt me. I move suddenly with the pain of that, and Hali takes a step back. “I’d better get to work now,” I say.

“I’ll see you later,” Hali says.

I go down the hall from our living quarters and through the temple school. I know these rooms and hallways as well as I know the temple itself. I know who lives behind each door in the students’ living quarters. I know the smells of the classrooms and workrooms, the scuff marks on the floors, the way the chairs cut into your back so that you are uncomfortable unless you sit with perfect posture. The walls are tiled in green and blue and white, sea colors, but the grout in between them is dirty brown from so many years of wear, even though the acolytes clean it constantly. That’s what we spend most of our time doing, when we’re not learning about the gods and the Divide. Later we get promoted to cleaning the temple itself, but that’s not much easier. It’s hard work balancing on the ladders while carrying soap and water. And the gods do not seem alive when you clean them. You have to take extra care as you wash their claws and paws, their hooked little hands, because those are the most delicate parts of the sculptures.