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"I alad to hear that," Nevio says, and then he walks past allery toward the door to the tohere Justus works I wait until Nevio closes the door behind hiain

Why would so she knew? So she did?

Who she was?

Back in ave me It feels hard and knobby It was once inhabited by soain? Will I hear erous

But I have so e of notes, the part Nevio didn’t mean for me to see, my mother wrote the word sirens And she wrote to Ask Maire

So I do

"Can you tell me the history of Atlantia and the sirens?" I say into the shell "Froainst my lips I hold it up to my ear and wait

Yes Maire’s voice coreat distance, which of course it has, all the way from her prison cell in the Council block to my room in the temple Her voice sounds sed to hearway

And then Maire repeats the history of the sirens to h, because the voice she uses to tell me the history is a quiet but perfect parody and put-on of Nevio’s voice when he serh to make it ridiculous I didn’t know Maire could be funny

In the beginning there was the Divide

The world began to fall apart, and so the gods helped the engineers and the Minister create Atlantia But not everyone could go down To ensure that the system would work, they made sure that every person who had to stay Above had a loved one Below Many agreed to remain Above because they wanted their loved ones to be safe They selected numerous adults for life in Atlantia, of course, because they could keep Atlantia running and fix any problems that occurred But there were also plenty of children chosen Children were particularly effective selections for the Below, because you could convince randparents, uncles, aunts, teachers--to stay for a single child This is hoas in the beginning

"I know all of this," I say "Can you tell me more?" I stop and try to think of what I really want to knohat I want her to ain To tell it to you means that I must tell you a secret One that could ruin me if you share it with anyone else

I hold my breath Maire has another secret? I already know that she is extremely powerful, that she can save voices in the shells

She says nothing, and I realize that I have to ask

"What is your secret?"

I can hear voices froone, Maire says Who died hundreds of years ago