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And then the people caion around thethe door to the Council’s secret library forit so that I could read the papers So that I could hold the evidence in my hands

I’m sorry that I couldn’t believe in your voices in the walls

You were right

I should have listened to you

Because now it s in those papers

Did you also know that the air Above becah still polluted, it is much more safe to live there now But by the ti to do with us They hated us for our sirens but loved us for the ore we could deliver So they reached a conclusion--they would keep us alive as long as theout of ore

The Council of the Below decided that the Minister always had to be a true believer, which is part of the reason they selected me How else could I convince the people if I didn’t believe myself? And the people Below had to be convinced, had to believe their lives onderful and safe, so they could keepso that ouldn’t be cut off The people of the Above have no desire to live or work in Atlantia They think it’s dirty, broken They think we as a people are dirty and broken, too

We are not the only Above, and not the only Below We are an outpost, one areat islands of the sea The cities Belohere the fortunate once lived and worked, but now the roles have been reversed

Sirens have appeared in all the Belows Our er than anyone else And the other Aboves have--and I cannot bear to say this--

The other Aboves have killed all their sirens They found that it was very easy to do, because even if so of their cities, even if no one catches or kills them, they can’t survive forto the Below

What? I aetting that I will lose her voice I pull it back fast, to listen again My heart pounds hard inside my chest

I can’t live without the Below I can’t live here Above And everyone like me has been or will be killed

I push my hand, hard, into my mouth so that I won’t scream

We have the last sirens, my mother says, and it is a et rid of our sirens, too And our Council will listen, because if they don’t, they will die Everything they’ve done to deceive us has been to save themselves when the time comes

So we have to save the sirens We have to appeal to the people of the Above and the Below, so that they will see that this is wrong

We have to save Atlantia, too They let us send up our child-ren once a year on the anniversary of the Divide, but I don’t kno many more people the Above will allow to co all of Atlantia Though survival is possible in the Above, the people there see us as drains on their resources, as parasites Which ere, for ht now, the sirens cannot live for long outside Atlantia They can’t last without the water above them

Will you help me? I have to save you, and I have to save--

My mother stops She doesn’t say my name, but I wonder if that is when Maire realized that I could be a siren If, when I spoke in the teuessed