Page 72 of Song of the Abyss

Maybe she was too tired. She normally didn’t care this much.

“Oh, right,” she read from Mira’s lips. “Bitsy —” and then some words that didn’t really make a ton of sense because Mira had tilted to look at the droids on the table and her mouth wasn’t facing Anya any longer.

Considering Bitsy charged toward her and climbed up her arm, she could assume Mira had ordered the little droid up so they could talk.

The lens came down over her eye and Anya tried a smile that felt fake on her face. “Sorry, I didn’t think it was necessary for me to be part of the conversation.”

Mira winced. “That’s not how we want you to feel at all, and I apologize if that was how it seemed. Bitsy was showing us the inside of your home. It’s very different from where I grew up.”

“Beta?”

Mira shrugged. “I just assumed we were all living in tin cans that were falling the fuck apart.”

Right. Of course, that’s what Alpha wanted everyone to think. The last thing they needed was for the other cities to realize there was one in particular that was green and full of life.

“My father didn’t want people to know just how much we had.” She twisted her hands in her lap, trying to keep them from shaking. “He wanted to keep Alpha a utopia where only the rich and the better off could go. That way, when he needed someone talented like a doctor or an artist, they were being given a gift that no one else was often given. It makes controlling people very easy.”

A shadow of doubt crossed through Mira’s expression. She flicked her gaze over to the undine half in the water and half on the landing area of the moon pool.

Perhaps they didn’t think she understood their facial expressions, but Anya had spent the better part of her life observing others. She had to know how to read faces as much as she had to know how to read lips. What she’d just said worried them, as it should.

Coughing into her hand for attention, she adjusted Bitsy, so it was easier to read a lot of words very quickly. “Is there a problem?”

Mira bit her lip, that worrying movement already telling Anya what she was going to say. “We’re not sure what to do at this point. You say your contact is incapable of doing any more than what they already have. There is no easy way into the city. We cannot use your propaganda idea without your friend. And if what you say is true, your father has very little interest in getting you back.”

“I would suggest that me being missing is only helping him spread the idea that the undines are dangerous,” she said with a slow nod. “Look at the reality of all this. He has footage of Daios kidnapping me. The people of the city have already been told that undines are dangerous monsters who would feast upon their children’s flesh if they could. They have seen footage of attacks on other cities. And now I’ve gone missing.”

“So our only other choice is to bring you back.” Mira frowned, though. As if even she heard the flaw in that plan.

“We can’t get me back in,” Anya replied, even as Bitsy sent warning signals all over the lens. “I don’t think he would let me return to the city, to be honest. It’s easier for him now to say I’m dead.”

There was the worst part of all this. It was easier to claim the death of his daughter. It was easier for him to play the martyr, the father who had lost a dear daughter and who couldn’t possibly ever recover from it without the help of his loyal city.

They’d fallen right into his greatest dreams, and now they had to suffer through the consequences.

Arges’s gills flared and then flattened. “I will seek my brothers. Perhaps they will have some idea.”

Mira gave him a kiss before he left. It made Anya’s cheeks flare bright red, and she wasn’t sure why. But then again, yes, she did. Jealousy burned in her heart every time she looked at them. It was so easy for them, and far too painful to watch their interactions when she wished it was herself and another undine who had forgotten she existed.

Bitsy fidgeted on her head while Anya stood and wandered into the small garden area. This needed to be expanded greatly. Two humans went through a lot more food than one human did. If she was going to stay for a while, then they needed more plants. More space.

Unfortunately, it didn’t seem like that was going to be very easy.

Bitsy put an arrow in front of her face, pointing behind her. Of course, Mira would follow her. Of course, she would also want to talk about... whatever it was Mira talked about.

Sighing, she turned and pasted that fake smile on her face. “Hi. I assume he’s gone?”

She still hadn’t figured out how to say ‘Arges’. The undines used their lips in such a strange way, and it was hard to guess what that might sound like. She’d said it a few times, but considering the way his eyes had pinched in, she knew she’d said it wrong.

“He’s headed out.” Mira leaned against the wall, her arms looped over her chest and her ankles crossed as well. “So you’re here. I can only imagine it’s a relief to be with us instead of wherever Daios was keeping you.”

She’d brought this up a few times, and it always made Anya strangely defensive. “It wasn’t so bad.”

“The facility you talked about? I looked it up. You barely had power enough for heat, let alone for whatever else you were doing. So I can’t imagine it was easy. Especially with...”

That’s when Mira always stopped talking, as though she were fishing for information about Daios. Anya knew people like this in Alpha. They were always interested in the gossip, although they never said anything themselves. They hoarded information, likely because they felt like it gave them power.

Unfortunately, it gave Mira power. And she didn’t want to tell anyone about anything but also...

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