Magnus's hunch turned out to be correct: Tony would not be the only uninvited guest crashing their vacation. But that wasn't proven until that afternoon. For now, Monday morning started deceptively peaceful.
While Alex and Sofia slept in, Magnus woke up at the usual hour. Jordan's training schedule had permanently ruined any chance of him behaving like a normal college student during breaks. By seven in the morning, he had already finished the day's workout (or as he called it, Jordan's torture sheet), showered, and started making breakfast.
The beach house was quiet. Waves rolled against the shore outside. Sunlight spilled through the large windows overlooking the water. For a brief moment, it almost felt like a normal vacation. Except the System still existed. And so did all the chaos that followed it.
Magnus sighed and focused on the task at hand. One of the unexpected side effects of spending so much time around Alex was that he had gradually become the default cook whenever circumstances allowed it — simply because he was better at it. Which wasn't exactly a high bar. Alex made edible food, but culinary skill was one area she wasn't particularly talented in.
By the time Alex and Sofia finally wandered downstairs around nine in the morning, he already had breakfast waiting.
Alex immediately wrapped her arms around him from behind. "You spoil me."
"I made eggs."
"You made eggs for me."
"Pretty sure everyone eats eggs."
Sofia yawned loudly as she collapsed into a chair. "God, you two are disgusting."
"You say that all the time."
"And somehow you're still disgusting all the time!"
"Also," she added after a beat, "shouldn't you be focusing on me? I am your monthly quest target, aren't I?"
Magnus set the food down on the table and sat down himself before bringing up the menu.
"It says your Trust in me is at sixty percent, and I'm supposed to get it to ninety in four weeks. What should we try? Trust-building exercises?"
Sofia snorted. "What's Alex's at?"
"Hundred percent, last I checked," he replied but pulled up Alex's menu to check anyway. "Yep, still maximum value."
"Really?!" Sofia stared at her best friend. "You trust him completely?"
Alex looked almost proud of that. "What? He deserves it."
"Yeah, okay," Sofia said slowly. "You're probably too far gone."
She paused for a bit, considering. Then:
"Okay, how about we just try talking again. Sharing stuff about ourselves," she said, scratching her chin before pointing at him with the same finger. "That raised the initial Trust to its current value, right?"
"Can't hurt to try, I suppose."
And so, they started talking — sharing stuff about their past, their dreams, their plans. It worked, sort of. Sofia's Trust did increase, but only by two percent after almost an hour of talking.
By the end of it, Magnus shook his head.
"It's working, but barely." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I think sharing secrets has diminishing returns when it comes to Trust raising."
"We'll need to find something else to do then," Sofia said. "How did you raise Alex's Trust?"
Magnus thought about it.
"I'm not sure, to be honest," he admitted. "I managed to get her from thirty-five to seventy percent just from talking." He turned to Alex. "Remember our first date at the café? The Saturday before our first time?"
Alex actually looked sheepish for a moment. "Most of that Trust was probably me falling for you in real time, actually."
He blinked, at a loss for words.
Sofia loudly cleared her throat. "God, you two are disgusting."
"Also, that doesn't help us," she continued after a moment. "I don't think I could fall in love with you. And even if I could, I don't think any of us would actually want that to happen."
"No, of course not!"
"Absolutely not!"
Magnus and Alex said simultaneously.
"Hey, that still hurts a little!" Sofia pointed accusingly at them. "You two could have at least pretend to think about it for a moment."
Before they could discuss the matter any further, Tony came back.
The raccoon jumped on Magnus's shoulder. "Good! You're ready for training. We'll need a blindfold."
"Why?" Magnus asked warily.
"We're training your sense of hearing and smell today," the raccoon intoned. "On the account there are no good places for observation training around here. I've already checked."
Magnus rubbed a hand down his face and told the girls he needed a blindfold, already regretting it as he said it out loud. Alex ran back to her room and emerged to give him her blindfold — the very same one they'd used sometimes during sex.
He stared at her.
"What? I thought we might need it." She smiled unapologetically. "Though I definitely didn't imagine this was how we'd need it."
He glared at her for three full seconds before deciding he was probably at the bottom of the food chain in this beach house, even below Tony, and that resisting was a waste of time. Resigned to his fate, Magnus tied the blindfold over his eyes.
The next hour was dedicated to Magnus feeling stupid trying to identify things through smells and sounds while Tony criticizing everything he did and the girls giggling from somewhere behind them. Looking back, Magnus probably should have recognized that blindfolding himself while allowing a raccoon to lead him around an unfamiliar beach house was the kind of decision that eventually ended with emergency room visits. It didn't — but a decorative lamp and a potted plant almost died in the process.
At some point during the blindfold training, a gust of wind banged the front door open and he could smell salt in the air. The ground beneath his feet shifted in the familiar nauseating sensation that always came with a premonition.
But this time, he couldn't see anything. He wasn't sure if it was because he was blindfolded right now or if he was also blindfolded in the future for some reason. Then, voices echoed in his head:
"Alex, how could you?" Sofia said.
"I didn't do anything!" Alex snapped.
"Oh no, Reyes! You cheated!" Jordan said. "You definitely cheated!"
"I'm sorry, okay!"
A fourth voice he didn't recognize responded. "Oh, you should say that to your boyfriend, not us!"
Then Magnus was fully back in the present. He yanked the blindfold off.
"What are you doing?" Tony complained. "We're not finished!"
"I need a minute!" Magnus snapped.
Hearing the edge in his voice, the raccoon narrowed his eyes.
Then Tony nodded sagely. "I suppose we can continue your training another time."
Alex also moved to him. "Hey, what's wrong?"
When he looked at her, he must have been angry for a moment before rationality finally caught up — because she flinched for half a second before reaching for him again.
Magnus closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. It was a fragmented and contextless future; his premonitions had never been what he'd thought them to be. Yet knowing that intellectually didn't make the weight in his chest or the sudden anger in his stomach disappear. And he hated how the last two premonitions he had were stacking together to make a part of him see Alex in a way he'd never expected to. Hated how they had made a part of him start to doubt her and what they had together.
After a while, he finally opened his eyes. Alex was staring at him, concern plain in her gaze. Magnus took her hands and sat both of them down on the couch.
"I just had another premonition."
She tensed. "How bad is it?"
"It was unclear. I didn't actually see anything. Only heard voices. There were other people there, Sofia, Jordan, someone else I didn't recognize. They were accusing you of cheating. You apologized, then they told you to apologize to me, not them."
She paled at the implication. "I'd never!"
"I know," he said. "After thinking about it rationally, I think it could be a misunderstanding. Or some situation we don't fully understand yet. Like you said, these premonitions have always been misleading."
"But," he hesitated, "I want to be honest with you here: knowing that won't stop an irrational part of me from occasionally linking that vision with the one where you could potentially be dumping me together. And I need you to know that."
***
Around noon, the guests began arriving in waves.
The first car that pulled into the driveway was a white BMW.
Climbing out from the driver's seat was a permanently tanned, dark-haired girl who immediately waved the moment she spotted Sofia. "Sof!"
Sofia grinned. "Camila!"
The two nearly collided in an enthusiastic hug.
Camila Ortega possessed exactly the sort of energy that made Magnus instinctively take a half-step backward despite never having met her before.
From the passenger seat emerged Ethan Zhang, her boyfriend, engineering major. Camila introduced him to them while arguing with him. Ethan was carrying three bags at once and already looked exhausted.
"I told you," Camila was saying as she opened the trunk, "we should've left earlier."
"We left two hours early."
"Exactly."
"And it was you who almost repacked your suitcase for the third time."
"Details."
Ethan turned to Magnus, and his voice immediately shifted from normal to a fake broken English accent:
"Ah, fellow Asian! Latinas, amirite?"
Camila smacked his shoulder. "Your jokes are not funny!"
"Yu say that," he was still using the fake accent. "But yu love it."
Camila turned back to Sofia. "Just ignore him. He thinks he owns broken English comedy because he's half-Asian."
Alex jabbed her thumb at Magnus traitorously. "He once made a joke about a Chinese buffet being owned by the Triads and claimed it wasn't racist if an Asian said it."
Ethan's eyes lit up.
"My man." He held up his fist.
Magnus hesitated for half a second before fist-bumping him as both Alex and Camila glared at them.
Then, from the back seat, another dark-haired girl stepped out.
Valeria Castillo.
Unlike Camila, she seemed organized enough to compensate for several other people's chaos simultaneously. Within thirty seconds of arriving, she was already helping direct luggage traffic.
"Suitcases first," she said. "Coolers second. Would somebody please keep Camila away from anything important?"
"Rude!" Camila protested.
"Historically accurate."
"I second the motion!" Ethan chimed in.
Camila clutched at her chest while looking at her best friend and boyfriend like she was tragically betrayed.
Then a Blue Honda CR-V arrived shortly after.
Nicole Park got out from the back. She took one look at the beach house.
"Every time I come back here, Ramirez, your parents seem to have renovated the beach house into something bigger. Makes my apartment look inadequate."
Besides her, Victoria "Tori" Whitaker snorted. "Says the girl who owns a mansion herself."
"My grandmother insisted on leaving that to me in her will," Nicole said in the same dry tone. "I've technically never spent a day there."
Magnus soon learned Nicole said everything, even jokes, with the exact same tone and straight face, and only people close to her could tell the difference. She was the sole daughter of some high-end corporate lawyer, whose firm Tori was interning at.
Then Rachel Kim — pre-med student, according to Alex — climbed out of the driver's seat. She greeted Alex and Sofia with a nod, then immediately turned toward Nicole and Tori:
"If you two have time for jokes, help with the luggage!"
A blonde guy emerged from the passenger seat. Rachel gestured at him:
"This is my boyfriend, Aaron."
Aaron Chase adjusted his glasses, nodded politely at the group, then immediately turned towards the luggage. According to Rachel, her boyfriend was studying to be a nurse. Unlike most of the others, Aaron spent his first few minutes silently taking stock of everyone present. His gaze lingered just long enough on each person to feel like an evaluation rather than simple curiosity. Magnus had known him for approximately four seconds and already felt like he'd somehow failed an exam.
Priya Desai arrived by Uber a few minutes later. Technically, she came alone, but with the amount of attention she was giving her phone, Magnus wasn't sure if she was even there with them.
"Girl, you gotta stop texting your ex," Tori told her.
Priya reluctantly put her phone away but made no promises.
The final scheduled group arrived shortly before one in a Toyota Tacoma.
Carmen Vega hopped out first from the passenger seat.
Magnus's first impression of her was that she was simply normal. After spending the last few months surrounded by Alex, Jordan, Sofia, other conquest targets, and even Tony, normal felt almost exotic.
Her boyfriend, Miguel Hernández stepped out of the driver's seat. He immediately grabbed most of the luggage. Then checked whether Carmen needed help with hers too. And then he checked again just to be sure. Protective was apparently an understatement. But Carmen and Miguel had the particular ease of two people who had been together long enough that they'd stopped performing being a couple and simply were one.
Behind them came Jasmine Walker with her athletic build, warm brown skin, and confident smile. Recently single, according to Sofia. Judging by her expression, she seemed perfectly happy keeping it that way.
Finally came Katie O'Brien. She was probably the quietest of everyone present. She looked around like she was taking mental notes, but "nice view" was all she said.
***
The beach house steadily filled with voices, luggage, greetings, and the familiar chaos of people settling into a shared vacation space. Alex handled greetings and introductions. Sofia handled room assignments. Magnus helped with luggage.
By afternoon, everyone had arrived and settled in. Or so they thought.
Once people were unpacking and exploring the beach house, Alex quietly pulled Sofia aside.
"Three of them brought boyfriends."
"Yeah," Sofia replied. "But I mean, you also brought your boyfriend, so I can't exactly tell them not to."
"That's different."
Sofia rolled her eyes. "Not to them."
"I know," Alex groaned into her hands. "But if his System picked one of them—"
"Then we deal with it." Sofia cut her off.
"You make it sound so simple."
"Because it is simple. We've hand-picked all of them specifically, remember? We can talk to them, work something out. Even telling them the truth is an option if it comes to that."
"We picked the girls, not their boyfriends. This is already a bit outside our original planning."
Sofia sighed. "Right, to you, they're unknown variables."
"Exactly!"
"Alex," Sofia said. "Try to relax. Trust their taste a little. If they're serious enough to bring their boyfriends here, I'm sure those guys are fine." She paused. "Besides, nothing's actually gone wrong yet. Magnus hasn't said his System pinged any of the ones in relationships, right?"
Alex was quiet for a moment.
"That's what's worrying me," she admitted. "He's met everyone already. But his System hasn't picked any of them."
"Oh!"
Now Sofia frowned too, because Alex had a point. The System normally would have picked a target by now. Yet nothing had happened. Which somehow felt worse.
Then they heard another vehicle pulling into the driveway.
Both women turned.
"Did you invite anyone else?" Sofia asked.
"No. You?"
"No. Magnus?"
"He doesn't invite people."
"Fair. Then who—?"
They rushed to the door just in time to see a 2009 Subaru Outback covered in enough stickers to qualify as a personality trait pull into the driveway. Alex immediately understood exactly what fresh problem had just arrived.
The driver's door opened. A voice rang out before its owner even emerged. "Hey losers!"
Maya Torres stepped out wearing sunglasses and entirely too much confidence. "Heard y'all were having a party."
Alex closed her eyes.
"My invitation must've gotten lost in the mail." Maya grinned. "No need to worry. I took initiative."
Then she opened the passenger door. "And I brought my girlfriend."
A younger woman stepped out beside her. She offered an awkward wave.
"Hi. Sorry! Maya invited herself," Chloe Walsh said apologetically. "I tried to stop her."
"You absolutely did not!"
"I suggested calling to make sure you're actually invited."
"Which counts as encouragement. I mean, I've known some of them since kindergarten, why wouldn't I be invited?"
Meanwhile, the commotion had attracted attention from inside. Doors opened. People began wandering downstairs.
Magnus also emerged just in time to see Maya and Chloe unloading luggage, so he started walking over automatically to help. Then the familiar notification sounded inside his head.
[Conquest Quest Initiated: Seduce and Sleep with Target — Maya Torres. Time Limit: Complete by Sunday at Midnight.]
Magnus stopped walking. For one terrible moment, all he could do was stare. Because standing next to Maya was a girl who was very obviously her girlfriend.
And somehow that wasn't even the most alarming part. The most alarming part was the expression that appeared on Alex's face the instant she noticed he'd frozen.
Maya, meanwhile, was already moving to greet the other guests — both old friends and new faces alike — and dragging Chloe along to proudly introduced her to everyone.