She has to give the mission report.

Sleep, if it could be called that, was a succession of fractured images and disturbed sounds: the roar of the music, the tearing of the zipper, Adrian's laughter, Costa's metallic voice dictating orders. Magi woke up with frayed nerves before the alarm sounded, the gray dawn filtering through the window. Her body ached as if she had been beaten, although she had no visible bruises, only the memory of the foreign hands and the pressure of the lace.

She put on the standard training uniform, a baggy, worn one that had been temporarily assigned to her. The rough fabric chafed her sensitive skin, a constant reminder of the black silk she had worn—and abandoned—the night before. Every movement was an echo of those she had made on stage, but now clumsy and heavy, lacking the **** energy that had propelled her.

The journey to the academy was a trance. The streets seemed noisier, the stares of the people more intense, as if everyone knew what she had done, what she had become. As she crossed the main door, she felt the weight of the walls as if it were a prison.

Costa's office smelled of strong coffee and relentless neatness. The Warrant Officer was behind her desk, impeccable as always, reviewing a report. She didn't even look up when Magi entered and stood at attention in front of her.

"Cadet Rojas. Report," she said, without preamble.

Magi took a deep breath. She recounted the events of the night in a monotonous, flat voice, as if reading a script that didn't concern her. She mentioned the names she had heard, the insinuations about money laundering through art, the mention of tax havens, the apparent impunity of the owners of Ébano. She omitted the feeling of the hands, the panic, the shame. That was not relevant information. That was just the cost.

Costa listened in silence, taking brief notes. When Magi finished, she put the pen down on the desk and looked at her for the first time. Her eyes, gray and cold, scrutinized her as if checking for faults in a weapon after a firing.

"Adequate," she said finally. "Superficial information but a good entry point. The name Adrian Soler is useful. He has connections in key sectors." She paused, letting the praise, minimal and poisoned, hang in the air. "We need to go deeper. You must establish contact again."

Magi felt an emptiness in her stomach.

"Warrant Officer, he... gave me his number. But I think trying to contact him so soon might seem... ****. He might become suspicious."

"I am not interested in your psychological interpretations, Cadet," Costa cut in, her voice sharp. "He is interested in you. You piqued his curiosity. That is an asset. And assets are used." She opened a drawer and pulled out a simple, disposable mobile phone. "Take this. Use it to text him. Now."

Magi looked at the phone as if it were a snake.

"Now? What... what do I say?"

"Something to maintain interest. Something flirtatious. Thank him for the night. Say you can't stop thinking about... the opportunities he mentioned." Costa pronounced the last word with a hint of sarcasm. "You are intelligent. Invent something."

"I don't think it's a good idea," Magi insisted, with the little strength she had left. "It might ruin what we achieved. We should wait, let him..."

"Cadet Rojas," Costa's voice didn't raise in volume, but it cut the air like a knife. "I am not asking for your opinion. I am giving you an order. Did you lose your ability to obey last night as well as your clothes?"

The humiliation was so brutal and precise that Magi felt it take her breath away. She lowered her gaze, fixing it on the polished edge of the desk. The images of the previous night assaulted her: the lights, the stares, the feeling of total vulnerability. And now this. To surrender the last vestiges of her will, to initiate the next round of her own exploitation herself.

Costa slid the phone toward her.

"Now."

With numb, clumsy fingers, Magi picked up the device. It was cold and light. She turned it on. The bluish screen illuminated her pale face. She searched her memory for the number she had instinctively memorized when she saw the card, before tearing it up. Every digit she dialed was a door closing on her.

Costa watched, motionless, like a hawk.

Magi took a deep breath, trying to find the voice of "Magda," the girl in the black dress, in some corner of her mind. She wrote a message, deleted the first version, which was too cold. She wrote another, too ****. Finally, with a churning stomach, she typed:

Hi Adrian, it's Magda. Last night was... intense. I haven't been able to stop thinking about some of the things you mentioned. About opportunities. Are you still interested in talking?

She read it once. It sounded like another person. The person she was becoming. Before she could regret it, before her will, weakened but subtly present, could rebel, she pressed the send button.

The message departed with a digital sound that felt definitive.

She placed the phone on the desk, as if it had burned her fingers.

Costa managed a thin smile, a fleeting expression of pure satisfaction.

"Good. Now, we wait." She picked up the phone. "I will keep this. I will inform you of any response." She paused. "You may go. And Cadet... well done. In the end, it seems you are good for more than just tearing up uniforms."

Magi turned and left the office. She walked the corridors with her eyes downcast, feeling the weight of the sent message like a heavy slab on her shoulders. She had won nothing. She had lost even the right to choose when and how to be humiliated again. She had texted Adrian. She had obeyed. And in that final act of submission, she felt the last resistance within her break, leaving only a cold and obedient emptiness. The mission continued. And she was little more than an instrument, awaiting the next command.