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"Finding out why she left won’t be good enough?"

"No," I say, and I’m sorry to have to tell hiood enough I have to see her again"

"Why?" True asks He heard le word in the teht even love me So why can’t I stay?

I have to tell hione

"I miss her," I say, "so much that it feels like I’m alone in an ocean that covers all the world I miss her so much that I think I’m not really a person anymore, only pain And then sometimes I think it’s the opposite I do have a body It’s aon a shore, and the salty seawater comes over me in waves that never end and it hurts All the time"

"This is how you feel without her," True says

"Yes," I say

The moment I spoke in the te who my mother was and who my aunt is, he must have realized that I had another siren in e one at that But he didn’t say anything to anyone He’s been keeping secrets for ondola, the fog around us, the sound of the bats winging their way across the skies, Atlantia breathing, lulling us to sleep?

True’s lips brush against ht Earlier, under the trees, ere hungry and relieved to touch each other

We are still hungry

The gondola stops We need to get out and get home before the peacekeepers find us

"I’ll ith you to the te lifts It is lighter here And so we can see that the trees have lost their leaves, all of theods are naked in the branches, their broken ar teeth there for all to see, and as I watch a temple bat drifts down to land on Efram’s shoulder

I have never seen Atlantia like this, unleaved, unloosed The breach, the fog, the trees undone

The city is decaying before our eyes, and I realize that it has always been this way It is such work to keep Atlantia alive, to keep any of us alive But the work is what draws us in, what gives us purpose This city is our ship, sealed tight to keep us safe, and it is breaking

"How could this happen so fast?" True asks "We haven’t been gone for long The trees were fine an hour ago"

"Maire was right," I say "We need to go home"

"We will," True says, and I wonder how his voice is so deep and so clear How his hands can be both strong and gentle How he can knohat I am and still be unafraid to kiss ht

My ht She told me that one word could undo the work of years; could be overheard by many