No second-hand account Aster had heard, though each at the time seemed so unbelievably grand, could do justice to the scene of decadence which came before her as they entered the Savoy Ballroom. In every corner, wherever the eye could possibly trounce, were etchings of the most ornate gold leaf and marble, wrapping themselves like vines from Midas' garden across immaculate fixtures of rosewood. The people within as well, teeming out from under grand arches in preparation for the concert, reflected the room's utmost propensity for an aura of wealth.

“How on Earth could anyone think we're the right band for this?” Cecil muttered as they entered, looking on in horror at the opulence before them.

Sylvia crossed her arms, giving him a respectable pout. He rolled his eyes.

“No seriously, why not get an orchestra? Do you not think it's weird they booked us for this without even knowing us?”

“What the heck kinda lame attitude is that, Cecil?” she replied. “They obviously heard about the festival and knew we'd be great for it!”

Sylvia inflected her voice with a cheerful tone, but set her eyes upon Cecil in a stern, reprimanding look. She was less concerned about his negativity and more worried about how it would affect Aster, who had already been in such a shaky state leading up to this. For her, the protection of Aster's mood was the only thing that mattered that night, above anything else.

Cecil narrowed his eyes and turned away from her. “Sylvia, destroying your brother's birthday party is one thing, but this—”

Before he could finish however, a commotion near the entrance of the ballroom drew the attention of the three.

They turned to see what the source of it was, when the crowd of people split for a smart dressed man running for his life.

“Maury!” screamed Marion.

Aster then watched as Mareby-Roquefort, his inquisitive, twinkling eyes glazed over in fear, ran past the group and into the crowd of waiters below, and disappeared from sight.

Marion, red and breathing deeply in his furor, stopped as he approached his bandmates.

Aster glanced over at Cecil, who she noticed had gone startlingly pale.

“Marion, are you fucking kidding me?!” he hissed, all the while keeping notice of the concerned looks of the gathering crowd of onlookers outside his peripheral.

“Where is he?! I saw him run past you guys!”

“No, hold on, Marion you're not beating anyone's ass twenty minutes before a show,” Cecil admonished, holding him back.

“He disrespected me though, man!”

“You're disrespecting yourself! Come on, calm down and get ready to go on. Look, your guys almost have everything set up.” Cecil said, gesturing to the lower floor, whereupon Marion's eyes lit up.

“My boys!” he yelled, flushed with parental warmth, and ran to the marble balustrade.

Aster peered over the railing as he did, and saw his gang— that usually rough knit group of ne'er-do-wells— organized in neat divisions, working with remarkable speed and efficiency as they set up their equipment below. The guests who were now pouring in and the staff attending to them watched on with curiosity and with looks of disgust as they observed the roughshod, leather-clad men who scattered about their pristine, stone floors, hauling various pieces of dingy equipment.

Marion continued to marvel at the sight, doubled over in such pride that he did not take notice of a red-haired guest approaching behind.

“Welcome to the moment where the old you dies,” Sísí whispered beside his right ear.

Sylvia balked in horror while Sísí began to laugh at her theatrics. Marion uttered a small cry that sounded closer to a squeal, flashing red instantly as he turned to see it was only Sísí with a maniacal smile, brought forth from pleasure at seeing Marion's reaction atop Sylvia's.

“What gives, Sísí?!” he exclaimed, trying desperately to hide his embarrassment.

Though before she could answer with the obviously sly and esoteric answer her sharp eyes were formulating, a member of Marion's gang appeared beside her.

With great duty and formality, he informed Sísí that the setup of the amplifiers had been finished. Sísí smiled widely upon hearing they had been hidden smartly underneath the blackened silk sheet she had knit to cover the stage and all of the unsightly electronic components that laid atop it.

The man then turned to Marion, and was taken by a look of surprise at seeing him, as though he had only just realized his boss was standing before him. He apologized profusely in only just noticing him, but showed more due respect, or moreover fear, to Sísí in his body language as he did so. His face underwent another transformation of emotion as he noticed Sylvia beside Sísí, and saluted his 'second captain' as he called her, before once again apologizing to his boss in a significantly more casual tone, and making his leave. Sylvia radiated a glow of warm satisfaction as she closed her eyes and smiled at the man's reverence.

Marion, rendered dumbfounded by the interaction, was left at at a loss for words as he gazed stupidly at Sísí, on whose face remained plastered a smirk. He could not be sure if that smirk was one of dominance, or rather a default state of some chaotic impishness, but it left him with a great feeling of malaise and ill feeling all the same.

“What the fuck was that about?” he whispered to himself, turning 'round to watch the man as he disappeared down the grand staircase.

“They speak very fondly of you, your men,” Sísí began, attempting to soften the blow upon seeing Marion's confused jealousy. “However, they needed much discipline— we could've finished earlier if not for myself needing to intervene.”

Marion folded his brow in confusion. He wasn't sure if he was being insulted, or if Sísí was merely being brutally sincere, as she often was. His heart was warmed in seeing the improved state of his men, and it grew excited at the thought of just how much more industrious they could be, and how beneficial this could prove for his neighborhood, but the thought of another commanding them filled him with an uncomfortable jealousy. These feelings were only made worse when he reminded himself that Sísí was the woman who forced the beret upon him.

This minor indignation, coming so soon after Mareby-Roquefort's earlier disrespect, all the while the stinging embarrassment of his flushed red face still played hot upon his cheeks, moved Marion to feel he had to defend his honor.

To reprimand Sísí was something no one had ever done, nor dared to do. He himself trembled slightly inside as he composed his piece mentally, and then decided to say it straight.

However, as he turned to air these concerns, he found that she had gone.

“Wait, what the fuck? Where'd she go?!” he uttered, astonished.

“Come on Marion, we're on in ten,” Cecil interjected as Marion's eyes darted wildly around the ball in search of her.

Aster, who had been watching from beside Sylvia, went numb at Cecil's utterance.

“On in ten?!” Sylvia repeated, much to the chagrin of Aster's trembling heart. “We better get backstage!” she said smiling, taking Aster's hand.

Aster looked at her as if she had been told to head for the gallows. All at once the anxiety and fear which had been slowly usurping her heart, held back only barely behind a cracking and weak will, burst forth, enveloping her in utter terror.

She knew that if this show failed, it was all over. The band would disintegrate, and she would be left with nothing in Peppermint Plains. If she were left with nothing in Peppermint Plains, then she would be left with no will to fight Marienne's advances.

Sylvia saw the agitation in her friend's face, though was clueless to the depth of its severity, and started to rattle off a stream of lighthearted jokes and lame puns as they began to head backstage.

Aster pretended to listen as she followed her down to the ballroom floor, where a curious crowd turned to watch the two girls.

Every eye was set on the two of them as they crossed the floor, their bright white outfits and black berets setting them stark against the sea of youthful, colored linen dresses. Aster noticed their eyes, and felt as though they burned upon her skin. They seared her flesh and undid every layer of her with their looking, as if to reach the naked core of her and see the truth for what she felt it was— “you are not ready for this.”

Desperately attempting to control her hyperventilation, she thought back to Cecil's complaints. In witnessing their confused, amused, and partially sarcastic glances she found herself agreeing with the notion that even the crowd themselves had no idea why the Love You Forevers had been booked for this show.

At that moment, Sylvia said something indistinct, snapping Aster out of her fugue before leading her up the steps of the stage and behind a large, velvet curtain.

There, the bones of theatrical productions and other engagements laid in variations of disarray while the chatter of the audience murmured dully through the curtains.

Sylvia again began to chat away in an attempt to help Aster pass the tense moments before showtime, while Aster slipped into her thoughts.

Why is it like this? she wondered as she peered from beside the curtain towards the large ballroom floor, which seemed to leer back threateningly in its imposing size. She was thinking in particular of the fear she had in returning to her actuality— to 2066— and of the game of cat and mouse with Marienne that awaited.

Even if it were only a cat and mouse dynamic to Aster alone at the moment, she knew Marienne wanted to play, and so could only continue to live through this horrific, anxious hell as she waited for the situation to intensify.

Even worse, she thought, was the fact that the situation seemed to have no end in sight. There was no predetermined end to her 'treatment', though she had been assuaging her father more and more to find one in recent days. He himself wished to secure one, though was at a loss to tell her that it could only end when Marienne felt there was no need to pursue a log of Aster's person, the thought of which chilled her to the bone.

She had only ever witnessed the mechanics of her society and its liberal predilection towards punishment from the viewpoint of a spectator, and so the thought of being firmly in the cross-hairs of such a heinous system filled her with sickening fear.

It was the kind of fear that sank below the skin, past raising the hair on one's body, and sank deep into the bone, where it feasted upon all vitality and warmth, leaving the victim of its touch a ruined soul desperately pantomiming what it could recall of truly 'living'.

It was of such intensity that it had now invaded Aster's sole, small world of comfort in Peppermint Plains, much to her absolute horror. Her anxieties and fears were no longer simply directed towards the worries of social faux-pas or stage fright, but graduated to a level concerned with her very survival.

Sylvia's smiles, which came into sight every so often, served only to slightly numb her worries for that slight second she saw them, before she ebbed back into her horrific depression. She knew they often accompanied a joke or a lame pun, and had conditioned herself to give a weak laugh whenever she spied one, though she never knew if it was the appropriate time.

She only knew that something must be done, though was not at all sure what it should be— another factor which caused her great stress. She wondered truly if she had the resolve to see out Marienne's game and to successfully fool her. Was she truly that cunning, she wondered? She hoped she was, for the fear of execution terrified her beyond degrees she realized it was possible to be terrified.

At that moment, her anxiety attack was broken not by another of Sylvia's smiles, but by Cecil making his way to the stage with Marion in tow behind him. The familiar sound and smell of the amps coming to life signaled to Aster a moment that dropped her heart square into her chest— the Teen's Ball was finally at hand.