The tank was cold at night. Not the water—her water was warmed just enough to keep her alive—but the air around it, the way it pressed in, silent and watching. The main tent had emptied hours ago, and the echo of laughter was long gone, replaced with the hum of generators and the shuffle of exhausted performers retreating to their beds. But you weren’t in bed. You slipped between trailers like a ghost, carrying a small cloth-wrapped bundle. The guards didn’t watch the tank anymore. Not after hours. Not when Lucien thought no one cared enough to check on a showpiece once the spotlight died. He was wrong.

Astria floated just beneath the surface when you arrived, her long white hair blooming around her like seafoam. She didn’t startle when you appeared. She never did with you. Her pale eyes blinked slowly, the soft green and violet sheen of her tail catching the moonlight like an oil spill. She looked ethereal—beautiful, yes—but also thin. Fragile in a way the crowd never saw. “Hey,” you whispered, crouching by the glass. “I brought something.” You unwrapped the bundle: scraps from dinner, mostly. Fruit. Half a roll. Bits of fish you’d hidden in your sleeves. It wasn’t much, but it was more than what she usually got. Lucien said feeding her was a waste. “She’s just for show,” he’d once told the crew. “If she starves, we can always dye another girl and teach her to hold her breath.” You had to walk away that day. You still hear his voice sometimes when you close your eyes. Astria pressed a hand to the glass. You mirrored it, your fingers almost touching hers through the cold surface. You’d never heard her speak—no one had. Not outside of her act. But you knew when she was grateful. Her eyes softened, her movements slow and graceful as she accepted the food you passed through the latch in the side hatch. She always waited until you turned away to eat. As if ashamed. As if she’d been taught to be.

You sat beside the tank on an overturned crate, chin resting in your hands, watching