“But you believe me?”

“Yes,” True says. “I do.” His eyes narrow; his lips press together. For the first time since I’ve known him, I have to look hard to see the kindness in his face. For a moment his expression is different—closed-down, cool, and still.

We’re both quiet as we walk out into the deepmarket. I listen to the people laugh and talk, and I try to catch the sound of Atlantia breathing in the gaps.

The two of us pass Cara’s stall. A new cluster of people has gathered around my mother’s ring.

“We’ll get it back,” True says. “Don’t worry.”

I feel another needle of guilt. He doesn’t even know that I’m not trying to buy the ring, that I’m saving for an air tank instead.

He doesn’t even know that I’m going to leave him.

A woman has bought the chance for her child to touch my mother’s ring. This makes me nervous. What if the child drops it? What if the mother is a crook and has another ring like it to palm and trade back?

But then I see the girl touch the ring, reverence in her expression.

“Maybe it’s not so bad that the ring is here for now,” I say to True. “It’s a way for the people to remember her.”

As I say this to True, I realize that this might have been exactly what Bay intended.

Maybe she had Fen sell the ring to keep my mother’s memory alive in a way that our having the ring could never do.

Or was she trying to help me by leaving me the money?

Or both?

Tears of relief rush to my eyes. I still know Bay. Not perfectly, but in some ways.

“While we’re telling secrets,” True says, “I have one, too.”

“You do?”

“I’m immune to sirens,” he says. “And not many people know it. My father and Fen. And now, you.”

I should have realized. There is something unmovable about True, in spite of all the laughter on his face and the gentleness in his eyes. Something at his core that can’t be taken away or changed.

I have a very strange and interesting thought—could True resist me, if I used my real voice?

“So you could be the Minister someday,” I say. My attempts at humor usually fall as flat as my voice, but True smiles.

“There’s more to being the Minister than that,” he says. “Isn’t there?”

“Of course,” I say. “But that’s an important step.”

“If you’re immune, you’re supposed to declare it to the Council, but I never have.”

“Why not?” I ask.

“My mother thought we should keep it to ourselves,” he said. “My father went along with her wishes because he loved her. And after she died, it was too late to tell anyone. They’d wonder why we’d been keeping it secret for so long.”

There are so many secrets in Atlantia. And maybe this is part of why I’m drawn to True. He’s been keeping a secret, too. Not one as dangerous as mine. But he knows what it’s like to hide at least some of what you are.

“My father doesn’t care anyway,” True says. “I don’t live with him anymore—not since I started working full-time on the gondolas.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. I wish I could say it better.

“It’s hard,” True says. “He hasn’t taken much interest in anything except his work since my mother died.” Before I can ask how—though I don’t know if I would have dared—True tells me.

“Water-lung,” he says. “I know not many people get it, but she did.”

“My father died of it, too,” I say.

“The Council would never let you and I marry,” True says thoughtfully. “Because the illness was so recent in both of our families.”

I must look surprised, because he hurries to clarify. “I was thinking out loud,” he says. “I was thinking that might be a reason for Bay and Fen to go up, if they both had the illness in their lines. But there’s no water-lung in Fen’s recent family history. I’m sure of it. His parents and grandparents are all still alive, and his brother is fine.”

“Do you have any brothers or sisters?” I ask True.

“No.”

“I see,” I say, and I feel sorry for him, not only because he doesn’t have a sibling, although it’s always seemed to me like a terrible thing to grow up alone. He can never go Above. He would never have had the choice.

“So you’ve always known you couldn’t go,” I say.

He nods. “And you always dreamed you would.”

I look at him in surprise. How did he know?

“I can just tell,” he says simply.

There are many things I could like about him if I weren’t so ruined.

“Well,” I say. “We don’t always get what we want.”

“No,” True says. “We don’t.”

CHAPTER 15

There’s one more thing I need for my Oceana costume, and I don’t see why I shouldn’t have it.

I need the insignia. The waves that turn into trees.

Nevio never takes it off, but I also know that the Minister has two insignia. One to wear and one kept in a safe in the Minister’s office as a backup. The Minister is the only one who has a key to both office and safe.

But that is no longer a problem for me.

I take a piece of soap from the temple and hurry down the hallways while the Minister and the priests are at dinner. I should have plenty of time. All I have to do is press the insignia into the soap, to make an imprint that I can use as a template. I’ll make my own insignia, with melted-down silver from the trees and a stolen torch from the temple workroom.

“Unlock,” I whisper to the door.

It doesn’t open.

Could it be that I have to be underwater?

You are underwater, I imagine Maire saying. Everything in this city is underwater.

I envision all the weight of the ocean above Atlantia pressing down. I can’t control the water, but something about it seems to be a conduit for the sirens, a channel for our power. “Unlock,” I say again.

This time it works.

I close the office door silently behind me.

For a moment I have a childish desire to vandalize everything that is Nevio’s—his books, his trinkets, the painting he’s hung on the wall to replace the one my mother had. I’d tear out pages, rip up the canvas, smash things, write all over his notes, read his journals, and leave everything that belonged to my mother untouched.