She convinces her.

The cafeteria smelled of roasted beans and burnt sugar. A warm, noisy place, the perfect antidote to the cold solitude of the aquarium. Magi had taken a table by the window, pretending to read an art book May had provided as a prop. Every time the door chime rang, her heart clenched.

When Julia entered, Magi recognized her instantly. She was even smaller in person, petite, almost ethereal, shrunken inside a large, baggy sweater. The fabric of the garment, a thick gray wool knit, hung shapelessly, concealing the curve of her shoulders and the contour of a fragile, thin torso. Her jet-black hair was cut in an uneven style that framed a pale, angular face. Her hands, with closely cropped nails, tightly gripped the strap of a worn canvas bag. Her eyes, surrounded by dark circles, scanned the room with a mix of hope and fear. When her gaze met Magi’s, Magi smiled—a small, understanding smile she had practiced in the mirror. Julia approached hesitantly.

"Magi?" she asked, her voice a silk thread.

"Yes. Julia, right? Please, sit down. Coffee?" Magi offered, gesturing to the chair opposite her. Her tone was warm, peer-to-peer, not recruiter-to-prey.

"Yes, thank you..." Julia murmured, dropping her heavy canvas backpack.

Magi signaled the waiter. She ordered two coffees. She allowed an awkward silence to settle for a moment, letting Julia feel observed, a little exposed, before breaking it.

"Your professor, Mr. Arditi, told me about you," Magi began, playing with her cup. "He said you had a raw talent... and that you were trapped."

Julia lowered her gaze, blushing. "I can't pay for materials. Or the semester. Everything is... so expensive."

"I know," Magi said, her voice weighted with empathy that wasn't entirely feigned. "This art world... it demands everything from you and gives you scraps in return. It asks you to bleed for your art, but scoffs if you show the wound."

Julia looked up, her eyes meeting Magi's with a flash of recognition. That was her exact truth.

"He told me you were working on a project..." Julia ventured.

Magi smiled, a tired but internally illuminated gesture. "Yes. It's hard to explain. It's not for everyone. In fact, it's for almost no one." She paused, letting Julia's curiosity build. "It's a performance art collective. Avant-garde. Very physical."

"Performance?" Julia asked, intrigued.

"Something like that. It's about... becoming the art. Not representing it. Being the canvas, the sculpture, the concept." Magi lowered her voice, as if sharing a secret. "It is painful. It’s exhausting. It exposes you in ways you can't imagine. It strips you bare, literally and figuratively."

She watched Julia pale slightly, but she didn't look away. Morbidity and desperation were a powerful combination.

"It sounds... intense," Julia murmured.

"It is," Magi affirmed. Then, she made the key move. She subtly pulled up the sleeve of her cotton sweater. On her forearm, faint but visible greenish-blue marks—the last vestiges of the "Abyssal Bloom"—looked like a strange tattoo or a bruise. "This is just a residue. From my first performance. The process is... transformative. Demanding. It accepts no limits. It redraws you, reconverts you."

Julia stared at the mark with horrified fascination. "Does it hurt?"

"Yes," Magi replied without hesitation. "Like a hot iron sometimes. And it hurts here too," she pointed to her temple. "The shame. The total surrender. You feel... violated and exalted at the same time. It's a purge. A burn that cleanses you of all vanity, of all fear of judgment."

She took a sip of coffee, letting her words sink in. "But afterward... after that, something breaks inside you. And what remains is stronger, purer. You stop caring. The gaze of others no longer defines you because you decided what to show them. You control your own humiliation and turn it into power."

It was the most elaborate and brilliant lie. Magi was selling her own submission as if it were empowerment. Wrapped in the language of art and transformation, humiliation sounded like illumination.

"And... do they pay you?" Julia asked, her voice even softer, the crucial question.

Magi smiled, this time with a hint of gentle triumph. "They pay you not just to survive, Julia. They pay you to live without worry. To buy all the oils, all the canvases, all the semesters you want. Money stops being a problem. The only problem you have is enduring the process. And transforming."

She let the silence settle again. She watched Julia look at her own hands, calloused and stained with charcoal and dry oil paint. She watched her calculate pain against debt, shame against financial freedom.

"Do you think... I could?" Julia finally asked, raising a look full of fear and a poisonous glint of hope.

Magi reached out and covered Julia's hand with her own. Her touch was firm, warm. "I know you could. Because I see in your eyes the same need to burn everything down and start over that I had. I won't lie to you: it will be the hardest thing you do in your life. But it will also be the key to making everything else... easy."

"And will you be there?" Julia asked, clinging to the only lifeline she saw.

Magi squeezed her hand gently. "Throughout the whole process. I will be your guide. I will help you survive. Just as they helped me."

The final lie, the cruelest and most effective. Magi would not be her guide to salvation. She would be the one to lead her by the hand to the edge of the cliff and push her, assuring her that she would fly.

Julia took a deep breath, as if making a life-changing decision.

"Okay," she whispered. "I want to try."

Magi smiled, a smile that reached her eyes for the first time in days. It wasn't joy. It was the cold, efficient satisfaction of a successful catch.

"Perfect." She took out the phone May had given her. "Then, we need to schedule a meeting. The collective's director wants to meet you. You'll love her."