May is having a breakdown.

The party flowed like champagne, a bubbling river of banal conversations and calculated laughter. Magi moved among the elite, her body a map of silver cords under their stares, reciting the "Creatures of the Deep" script with a fixed smile that made her facial muscles ache. May was an unperturbed beacon of control orbiting Alexander Vance, always watching, always correcting with a slight tilt of the head or a cold look.

Until he wasn’t.

It was a subtle shift at first. May paused in the middle of a sentence, a microsecond of emptiness in his always-alert eyes. Then, a slight tremor in his hand, which held a glass of sparkling mineral water. The glass vibrated with an almost inaudible chime.

Magi, a few meters away, felt the anomaly more than she saw it. Her radar, so finely tuned to May’s moods, caught the glitch. Her gaze locked onto him.

A cold, waxy sweat began to break out on May’s forehead, turning his complexion to an ashen gray. His breathing, usually measured and silent, became visible—shallow and hitched. He tried to bring the glass to his lips, but his hand failed him, spilling a thin stream of water onto his impeccable white suit. The stain expanded like a small banner of defeat.

Alexander Vance frowned.

—May, everything alright? You look… pale.

—A… momentary dizziness, Mr. Vance —May managed to articulate, but his voice, usually a steel edge, sounded raspy and weak—. The motion of the yacht… Excuse me.

He took a step back, seeking the support of a column, but his movement was clumsy, faltering. For the first time since Magi had known him, May looked… ****. Fragile. Human.

A wave of panic, as intense as the nausea May must have been feeling, surged through Magi. What was happening? A heart attack? Something he had drunk?

The nearby guests began to murmur; the music and laughter could no longer hide the host's clear distress. The girls noticed. Lara stopped her languid walk, her eyes wide. Cloe froze like a deer in headlights. Even Julia emerged from the shadows, her vacant stare fixed on May’s staggering figure.

With superhuman effort, May straightened his back. His gaze, clouded by pain or nausea, swept the deck until it found Magi. He reached for her with the strength of desperation.

He approached her, every step an ordeal. The smell of cold sweat and something sour emanated from him. He grabbed her arm with a **** that hurt, his fingers like claws through the fine silver net of her bikini.

—Magi —his voice was a sliver of sound, a **** whisper that only she could hear, yet heavy with the weight of an iron command—. Don’t… ruin… this.

His breath hit her face, and she knew he was truly ill. Very ill.

Before she could respond, before she could even process the order, May let go. With a dignity that was cracking by the moment, he turned and headed with an unsteady gait toward the stairs leading to the cabins. An assistant of Vance, alerted, stepped forward to help, but May brushed him off with a sharp gesture before disappearing through the hatch.

The awkward silence he left behind was deafening. The music played on, but it no longer covered anything. All eyes—guests and girls alike—turned toward Magi.

She stood planted in the center of the deck; the arm where May had grabbed her still burned. Her heart hammered against her ribs. The tablet felt like a concrete block in her other hand.

Don’t ruin this.

The words echoed in her skull like a war drum. Lara was the first to approach, her elegance fractured by panic.

—What… what happened? What do we do? —her whisper was urgent, loaded with a fear Magi had never seen in her.

Cloe joined them, trembling.

—Is he going to die? —she asked, with the rawness of terror.

The news had spread among the girls like a wildfire of panic. The only wall separating them from absolute chaos—their jailer and protector alike—had just crumbled. And Magi, in her thread-thin bikini and her tablet, was the only thing standing between them and the void.

Everyone was looking at her. Waiting. The nearly naked siren turned captain of a drifting ship.