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A n hour later, Emmett and I were sitting together on the curtained stage as our confused and sweaty housemates filed into the seats with scowls fit to turn the Conjoined Twins gaff into a one-man act.

“Tell me again why we couldn’t just meet in the parlor,” I whispered.

He rolled his eyes. “We’re selling a jailbreak, kid. It won’t work if they don’t know the inmate.”

After I had finished spilling my guts to Emmett, he took it upon himself to summon everyone to the Menagerie (“Emergency meeting at the theater, ya numbnuts!”), then walked ahead with me to sneak me back into the park in case Sam had tipped Oscar off about keeping me away. It meant finally getting to see Río after this morning’s torturous training session.

As soon as I’d tucked myself behind the curtain, I’d had to hold in a gasp at the sight of him huddled and clinging to his tail. Río’s skin now had some sort of film on it that floated around him in a smoky haze, and a quick glance at his lower half showed patches of matte, colorless flesh where scales used to be.

They were scattered across the sand like pennies in a fountain.

“Confía en mí,” I had whispered, then quickly summarized Emmett’s plan through the glass. I didn’t want Río to panic in the sudden company of everyone he’d seen at Lawrence Point, plus some new strangers.

“Goddamn, Em, I got another half hour of lifting before I’m available for the airing of idiot grievances,” sniped Matthias, whose muscles weren’t remotely in need of more weight lifting. He threw himself onto a bench between Navya—whose breakfast debate with Igor on the World Series starting lineup was still going—and Vera, who slumped down looking more like Eli’s sibling than Emmett did in an outfit made up entirely of my spare clothes.

Sonia was last through the partition doors, overheated and pushing Lulu in the wheelchair with Timmy drowsing in his mother’s lap. Lulu had apparently been in the middle of making Sonia’s costume adjustments when Emmett whisked everyone out the door.

“This better be good, Em,” huffed Sonia. “Twelve pins is all that’s holding this onesie together. Twelve!”

Emmett got up and shuffled toward the proscenium where the curtain tucked into the wing. “You’ll get your petticoats back on as soon as we’re done here.”

She sniffed at his own state of semi-dress, Emmett having only bothered to throw on pants and suspenders. “Speak for yourself.”

“Actually, I ain’t here to chat.” Emmett pointed a thumb at me. “Benny is.”

Everyone’s mutterings ceased, leaving only the chugging of the circulation pump for me to talk over. I slid off my cap, got to my feet, and wondered briefly where my anxiety had gone now that the truth was one speech away. A moment later, with a loud hiss of metal rings dragging against the steel track, Emmett parted the curtain to reveal the tank.

The lit chandeliers had left Río without a shadow to hide in. He backed away from the glass and shielded his bloodshot eyes.

“ Matsya! ” Timmy’s squeal made both Río and me jolt. The brazen little manganzón made a dash up the stage steps. Madam Navya looked like she might faint dead away from shock.

Lulu grabbed Sonia’s arm in a move to leave her wheelchair behind. “Timothy Porter, you get back here!” But the kid had already smushed his face against the glass, bouncing on his toes like his underpants hid a set of hydraulic pistons. “He wooks just like the madam’s picture, Mama!”

“Benny,” Lulu implored.

I already had my hands on the kid’s shoulders to steer him away, but when I caught the lonely ache in Río’s eyes, I got a different idea.

“ Amor mío. This is Timmy.” Behind me were rustles to intervene, but I held up a hand. “It’s all right.”

Río’s uncertain gaze shifted between my face and Timmy’s before he brought himself level with el chiquitín , who was comically flattened against the viewing pane. He reached out a webbed finger and gently tapped Timmy’s nose through the glass. Not to be outdone, Timmy blew a raspberry.

A mischievous grin took shape on Río’s lips, and he stuck out his tongue.

“Oh my God,” breathed Lulu.

I turned back to my housemates and gestured to the glass.

“Everyone? This is Río.”

“This a joke?” asked Eli. “What’s goin’ on here, Em?”

“Emmett asked you here on my behalf,” I answered. “So I could convince you to help me set Río free.”

Everyone in the company sat up, except Sonia, who slouched like she was trying to shrink out of existence.

“I know you don’t think he’s one of us. Maybe, now that I’ve said this, you won’t think I am either. But you can see it, can’t you? That he’s not a thing you ditch behind a curtain! He ain’t your competition either. And he sure as hell ain’t Morgan’s prize for being a bigger maniac than Reynolds.” In Navya’s direction, I added, “He’s not even a god.”

Pulling my cap off, I straightened my shoulders. “But he is a philosopher. A storyteller. A singer and an athlete and, yeah, a stubborn knucklehead when he wants to be. And it shouldn’t take me having to vouch for his soul to justify his right to be free.

“My aunt used to say, ‘Hay una infección sobre la humanidad.’ That humanity had a disease. It took meeting Río to figure out what it was. It tricks folks into thinking the only way to survive a lifetime getting pissed on, is to piss on somebody else. It locks a person in jail or some other institution for being different unless they’re willing to get on a stage and let folks pay three jitneys to call ’em ‘freak’ to their face.”

I stared down at my cap where my tears were darkening the tweed. “Río’s kind believes they’re one. Like waves on the water. And Cristo ”—I wiped my nose on my sleeve—“we dragged him away from it. Killed his mother. Cut him off from the one thing that keeps him alive. And maybe it’s Morgan’s fault, but I ain’t innocent. I built his prison. This stupid, maldito tank!”

Vera’s hand was over her mouth. “Benny—”

“Don’t, Vera. It’s my fault no one knows Río like I do. I was so afraid of losing everything that I lied to everyone, especially myself. I thought I could buy time just looking after him and keeping Morgan away, but the joke’s on me, ’cause none of it matters now.”

Here was the truth we were all accountable for, only it felt too heavy for my voice to carry it. My eyes found Matthias nodding encouragingly. It helped me push out the rest.

“Río’s dying.”

Timmy turned away from the glass to stare at me. This was Tití Luz’s funeral all over again, the whole theater shrouded in the gloom of inevitable change.

“You all know what it’s like to beg, so here I am, begging. I can’t do this alone. I love him.” I glanced back to make sure Río was listening. “ I love him ,” I repeated. “And he loves me. And I don’t care if that makes me the wrong kind of freak. I can live with losing the job and the warm bed and the only family I’ve ever had in America. But I can’t live with myself if he dies, and neither should you. ’Cause this world ain’t worth a damn if he’s not in it.”

Río hands were pressed to the glass. The small seed of hope in his blue eyes was enough to loosen the sorrow that had absorbed all the space inside my ribs. Everyone else had gone stock still and quiet until—

“FINALLY.”

Matthias made the whole company jump. He bounded up the steps onto the stage to take me by the shoulders. “You did it, kid,” he whispered. “Ain’t no being free on the outside if you ain’t free on the inside. Though I bet you’d’ve convinced us without making a goldang speech.”

“Thanks, Matthias.” I wiped a sleeve over my wet face. “But the speech wasn’t for you.”

He smiled. “I know.”

“I need some bloody clarification,” Vera declared. “You’re meaning to tell us that you wasn’t out tryin’ for a gig at Henderson’s? Why didn’t you just say you was out chattin’ up the merman?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Emmett said haughtily from the wing. “With you guys going on about the show like the world was gonna end, what else was he supposed to do?”

“You get amnesia, man?” Matthias said as every last person in the room leveled an incredulous look at Emmett, including me. “ You were the one making a rear end of himself about Benny threatening the show!’”

“Well, I’m helping him now, ain’t I?” Emmett squeaked. “Benny came to me ’cause I know a thing or two about getting someone you’d die for outta the ditch, all right? What, you think they amputated my heart below the knee?”

Lulu turned her stunned expression on me. “Is that true?”

I nodded.

At this, Eli stood up and gazed at Emmett the way I often gazed at Río, eyebrows drawn up in the middle over a melted smile. Without a word, he leapt onto the stage, slipped a hand behind Emmett’s neck, and kissed him on the mouth. Thoroughly .

“Well, I for one support Mr. Benny’s wish,” said Madam Navya soberly, “though as I recall, I had said from the very beginning that we should make amends to the—”

“Yeah, yeah, your sainthood’s secure,” interrupted Vera. “What now, then? Is there a plan?”

Looking back at Río, his expression matched my own, a blend of hope and disbelief. “We bust him out,” I said. “The night of the previews.”

“That’s in a week!” Vera gasped. “We’d be sneaking a merman out of Luna Park when Coney Island’s crawling with half a million people—right under Sam’s nose!”

“So we do it anyway,” Lulu said, getting to her feet. “Río’s one of us, ain’t he? I’ll be damned if he goes the way Saul did.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa...” Eli swatted the air like reality had suddenly descended upon him like a swarm of bees. “I know I’m the village idiot here, but what about our jobs ?”

I swayed uneasily on my feet. “Emmett was thinking we could maybe pin it on Dreamland.”

All eyes fell on Emmett’s pink face. “What?” he snapped. “It ain’t un-residented!”

Navya trudged up the ramp to join us, rubbing her temple. “You mean ‘unprecedented’?”

“That too! I mean, what have we got that Reynolds and his gang didn’t wind up stealing and taking the credit for later? I bet my other leg the bastards are over there planning to gaff their own Prince of Atlantis right now!”

“Oi, Emmett’s two-fer-two on acts of intelligence now,” Vera said as Eli helped her hop onto the stage. “Better check the sky for pigs.”

Emmett threw Vera a scornful look.

“We can’t do this.”

It was Sonia. She stood up from her seat in the audience, her coat sliding off her tensed shoulders, leaving her looking as young as a schoolgirl in her frilly onesie.

“What do you mean we can’t?” Lulu asked.

“I mean we can’t! What about the Agostinellis?” she snapped. “What about not letting Luna Park sink like the Slocum ? Don’t you think Sam’s smart enough to figure out a mutiny’s going on?”

“With Río, we’ve got ten heads to his one,” Matthias said pragmatically. “Sam’s been beggin’ for a mutiny if you ask me. And ain’t nobody afraid of a couple o’ two-bit gangsters.”

“Well. I am,” Eli admitted sheepishly. “But I’m still in.”

“You don’t understand,” Sonia protested.

Emmett walked to the edge of the apron. “ What don’t we understand, Sonia?”

“Me, dammit! What about me ? When do I get freed?” she shouted.

Sonia’s frantic expression seemed to liquefy before our eyes. She slumped back into her seat and sobbed into her hands. I made to go to her, but Vera beat me to it. She jumped off the stage, sat beside Sonia, and pulled her into her arms.

“I c-can’t keep this up no more. If Frankie doesn’t kill me, S-Sam will,” she wept into the fire-breather’s shoulder.

“There, there, princess. None o’ them feckers is gonna hurt you,” Vera whispered, rocking Sonia gently. “They’d have to get through us. Go on, say it with me, lass.”

“With it, for it, never against it,” they murmured in unison, and tucked in the shelter of Vera’s embrace, Sonia finally shared the sordid truth of her trips to Manhattan with Morgan, while the company listened in silent astonishment. Thankfully, Río thought to distract Timmy by showing off his carved seashell collection until she was done.

“That sniveling bastard,” Emmett breathed as Eli growled, “Son of a bitch!”

“Aw, Sonia, I sure wish you’d told us,” Matthias said without scolding. “It ain’t your job to pay for Morgan’s sins, same way it ain’t Río’s job to save the show.”

“It’s like Saul used to say,” added Lulu, “‘Sometimes a show’s gotta sink’—”

“—‘before it can be saved,’” finished Madam Navya.

Sonia smeared a tear off her cheek and nodded.

“It’ll be all right, kid,” Lulu continued. “No matter what happens after Río goes home, this company will stay afloat. Ain’t that right, Igor?”

Igor, who until this point had had nothing to contribute, suddenly stood up. He put on his hat and lumbered back toward the museum exit.

Navya marched to the apron’s edge. “Where do you think you are going, you great beenastok?”

“We plan escape for merman?” He raised a finger. “I get the vodka.”