Marina Soleil had four hours until the Wildcrown opening walk, and no face the judges would remember. She stood alone in the fitting room, staring at the rack of gowns her stylist had left. Six years her mother had told her she would never enter this pageant. Six years, and her mother had still not come to watch. Girls died in Wildcrown. Last year one quit mid-tank and was never seen on camera again. Marina planned to win anyway, and winning started at the door. If the judges did not lock onto her in the first three seconds of the opening round, she would be another pretty face drowned in the endurance tank before her name was learned. Every gown on the rack was beautiful. Not one of them was hers. She went upstairs to the lounge above the pageant floor, where the useful people drank before the cameras rolled. Velvet Mirage sat by the window with a glass she was not drinking. Omaha was on the low couch, tail flicking, ears tracking every door. Marina sat down between them without asking. "I need a look," she said. "Something the judges cannot blink past. I have until six." Velvet studied her over the rim of the glass. "Relax. I already know why you came." Omaha grinned. "Sweetheart, you walked in here wearing panic. That's your problem. Judges smell it." Marina kept her hands flat on her knees. "Then fix it. I have nothing to pay you with yet. I will owe you." Velvet set the glass down. "Owing me is payment." She looked at Omaha. "The black mesh. The one from the back room. And the gold hoop." Omaha was already standing. "On it. And she needs to walk in barefoot. Everyone else will be in heels. Bare feet make the front row lean forward." They worked on her for two hours. Velvet stripped the gowns off the rack and threw them in a pile on the floor. Omaha zipped Marina into a sheer black mesh piece cut in sharp diagonals across the ribs. One gold hoop, left ear only. Hair down, wet at the ends, so it would look like she had already come out of the tank and survived. No shoes. Velvet stood behind her and turned her toward the mirror. "When you walk out, pick one judge. Only one. Look at him like you already know his name." Marina nodded. Omaha licked a thumb and smudged the liner under her eye until it looked bruised on purpose. "There," Omaha said. "Now they will remember." At six, Marina stepped onto the opening walk barefoot, wet-haired, marked. The front row leaned forward. Two judges wrote before she reached the mark. She owed Velvet Mirage a favor she could not yet name, and the endurance tank was three rounds away.

The opening walk bought Marina forty minutes before the next round call. She used them. The judges' table had already emptied for a break, but their notes were still there, and the judges themselves were somewhere in the building drinking free wine. She needed to know what they wanted in the tank. Charm did not work through six feet of water. She had to walk in already knowing which judge liked what, or the endurance round would strip her down to a stranger they could vote out without guilt. She left the floor barefoot and went back up to the lounge. Velvet Mirage was still at the window. Omaha was gone. Marina sat down and did not waste the opening. "I need to know what the tank judges want. Private tastes. Who leans which way. I cannot walk in blind." Velvet tilted her glass and watched the light move in it. "That is a second favor." "I know." "You have not paid the first." "I know that too." Velvet was quiet long enough for Marina to hear her own pulse. Then she lifted one finger. Omaha slid out from behind the bar curtain like she had been waiting for the cue, tail flicking, green eyes bright. "Sweetheart," Omaha said, "I already walked their coats." Omaha dropped onto the couch and counted on her fingers. The head judge liked stillness, not smiles; last year he marked down every girl who kicked. The woman on his left wanted eye contact through the glass and hated hair across the face. The third judge, the one who never spoke, scored on breath control alone and timed it on his watch. The fourth had a daughter who drowned two seasons ago and could not watch panic; any thrash and he closed his eyes and gave a floor score. "Do not fight the water," Omaha said. "Hold his gaze. Show the quiet one your ribs going slow. And keep your hair back." She pulled a thin black cord from her leggings and pressed it into Marina's palm. "Tie it before you go in. They will not see it wet." Marina closed her hand around the cord. Velvet was watching her, not Omaha. "Two favors now," Velvet said. "I will pay," Marina said. On the way to the tank corridor a woman stepped out of a service door and matched her stride. Wet black hair. Blue eyes lit from under. Tattoos down one arm. Marina had never seen her before. "You are going in the water," the woman said. Not a question. "Yes." "The water reads what you bring to it." The woman touched two fingers to Marina's wrist and let go. "Bring less." She was gone before Marina could ask a name. Marina tied her hair back with the cord and kept walking. She had the judges now. She owed two favors and something colder she did not understand yet.

The corridor ended at a steel door and a matron with a clipboard. Marina gave her name and was waved through to the wet room. The tank stood in the center under a rig of lights, glass on all four sides, water already high. Cameras hung on booms. The other contestants were lined up against the tile, robes on, faces set. Marina put her robe on the hook and walked to the ladder. She had the judges' tastes in her head. Stillness. Eye contact. Slow ribs. No panic. She climbed. The water took her feet, her hips, her chest. She let go of the rail and tried the first thing she knew how to do, which was smile at the head judge through the glass. The smile bubbled out of her mouth. Her hair floated up against the cord and stayed back. Her arms drifted wide. She tried to pull them in and her legs kicked to balance. The judge with the watch looked down at his wrist. The father judge closed his eyes. Marina understood in one second that everything she had practiced on dry floors was gone. Charm needed a face that moved. Under here her face was a held breath. She was going to lose in front of four men in under a minute. A hand closed on her wrist. Marina turned. The tattooed woman from the corridor was in the tank with her, hair loose in the water, eyes lit pale blue, tattoos moving down her arm like they were painted on the current. No one on the deck reacted. Zira put her mouth close to Marina's ear and the words came clear through the water. "Stop selling. The water shows what you are. Be less." She pressed two fingers flat against Marina's sternum until Marina's shoulders dropped. "Do not smile. Do not reach. Let your hands open." Marina let them open. Zira held her wrist a beat longer, and Marina felt the choice in the grip, hold or release, and then the release. Zira was gone. Marina hung in the water with her arms loose and her mouth shut. She found the head judge's eyes through the glass and did nothing at him. She let her ribs move on their own, small and slow, for the man with the watch. She kept her face flat for the father. A camera boom swung closer. She did not track it. When the buzzer went and hands pulled her up the ladder, the head judge was still writing. The woman on his left gave a short nod. The father judge had not closed his eyes. Marina stood dripping on the tile and knew two things at once. She had passed the tank. And a stranger with a grip that could have opened had chosen to close, and now owned a piece of her she had not agreed to sell.