A whistling part in the song started up. They really were doing a lot of canon moves in the dance, starting with one girl and repeating it a few seconds after the girl before them so it traveled down the line of people with varying speeds, depending on what exactly it was that they were doing. Windmills and jazz pirouettes made up the majority of the motion during the canon sections of the dance.

When Luke had first started ballet, he'd ended up in a class filled with tiny toddlers in pink tutus and miniature pigtails that bounced when they tried to do the same things as the graceful ballerinas on their favorite TV shows. Being the only boy had been the first part of what he eventually realized was his biggest mistake. He kind of wished that he'd left ballet sooner, stopping the flood of insecurities that were already beginning to appear at a young age.

None of the girls on stage would ever have to deal with stuff like that. This was a temporary thing for them, just to show the nation what they had learned during the rehearsals and to demonstrate how the selection could be used as a force for doing good.

At last, the dance ended. Luke turned to look over at Sam, seeing the youngest triplet make a hilarious face in the direction of the stage as the dancers excited, and suddenly realized that he was making a big deal out of absolutely nothing. He just needed to focus on the performance. What if the girls asked him questions and he wasn't able to answer them because he'd been drifting off into his mind palace? That would be pretty terrible.

Luke noticed that the next dance was supposed to be the Intermediate Jazz dance. He was actually excited about seeing this one. With girls learning the moves after having a small amount of experience alongside girls that danced for a living, the dance had already been performed well enough to be perfect yesterday.

Fingers began to tap against his right arm rest when the music began, stopping only once Fitz shot a potent and condescending death glare in his general direction. Sam, on his other side, gave Luke an amused grin. That wasn't surprising. Sam seemed to love it when Fitz or their parents acted unhappy with someone other than the youngest triplet himself, and this was a classic example of one of those situations.

From dress rehearsals, Luke knew that it would start with the girls leaping onto the stage from the wings for their entrances and beginning the main section of the dance when the first verse started. Although they hadn't thought the simple arm movements shown to them at first were hard, they were proven wrong in time.

It went fast enough to make following the girls hard. That was one of the best parts of the dance, the well-executed and rapidly done positions combined into something that was pretty amazing. He'd tried to do it, secretly, from the safe space of his room during the early hours of the morning, but had given up when he'd kind of twisted himself and fallen over into his basically useless laundry basket. He never used it, anyways, so it didn't matter that it broke under his weight.

Kira performed a leap across the stage and the girls all ran into a line facing the back, lunging back a second later before turning around and jumping up. Half ran to the left side, and the other half ran to the right side, forming columns for the next part of the dance.

Ending in a mostly exciting part where the girls darted off the stage, the music faded away into nothingness. Had it really gone by that quickly? Probably not. Luke felt like he'd just been thinking a little too much to pay attention to the entirety of the three minute dance. Once, his parents had thought about testing him for attention deficit disorder and anxiety, but true to form, they'd forgotten all about it.

A quick check of his program told him that the tap routine would be next on the stage. Luke had to squint to make out the words on the paper, though his eyes were adjusting to the darkness of the theater between things happening up on the black flatness of the stage.

"Hey, Luke," whispered a voice from his right side, already recognizable as Sam because of the pretty obvious fact that his brother had been sitting there the entire time. At least Fitz didn't seem to have noticed them. He could have just been ignoring them out of contempt for the both of them, but he might have actually missed Sam's surprisingly quiet whisper.

The youngest triplet leaned over to whisper to Luke again. "I think I heard something out in the hallway. Want to come see what it was?" asked Sam, grinning while hiding his face from the three older members of the family.

"What? Why?" he inquired, but already knew that he was going to go just to make sure Sam didn't get himself in too much trouble. He did have to go to the bathroom, too, and this would be a good excuse. Sam didn't even wait for Luke to confirm that he was going on their little adventure before moving to get up from his seat. Luke did the same, catching Fitz's eye as he did so and quickly making a hand gesture that meant he really had to pee.

Fitz nodded. Luke did feel a little guilty about missing the tap part of the show, but he'd seen part of it in rehearsal, and that would be enough for the girls to think he'd seen it. Still, he never liked to lie to people who'd actually acknowledged his existence. He'd just have to get over that when he got there.

The brothers walked out into the hallway together, Sam taking the lead. Sam waved his hand towards the end of the hallway and looked pointedly at Luke. Thankfully, the bathrooms were in that direction, but Luke began to wonder how his brother had heard anything out here from inside the royal box. The chances of Sam having above-average hearing were quite slim with Queen Kriss shouting at him so often.

Luke hurried to catch up with Sam and tapped him on the shoulder. "I'm going to take a quick bathroom break, okay?" he said, already moving towards the glowing sign that showed him where the men's toilets were located. Sam shrugged and continued down the hallway.

Once inside the bathroom, Luke quickly did his business with as much stealth and the least amount of noise possible. He could hear faint noises and footsteps from outside of the room. It seemed like he was alone in the bathroom, though, and everyone else was probably watching the show. Making sure to wash his hands thoroughly, Luke frowned at his reflection in the mirror before drying his hands and leaving the bathroom to find Sam.

His hands left tiny droplets of water in a trail behind him as he walked out. Knowing that he needed to work on drying his hands and not just immediately running to do whatever he had to do next, Luke just sighed and continued on his merry way in search of his illusive brother.

Of course, he ended up being knocked to the ground when Sam came running back from down the hallway with a shocked look plastered across his face. The white marble floor came rushing up to meet his face and connected with his nose, accompanied by a sickening thud and a throbbing pain. He heard Sam slowing down and coming back towards him, then attempted to turn his head to see his brother, wincing in pain and Sam bent down to see how much damage his frenzied run had ended up doing.

Luke gently pushed himself up into a sitting position and felt his nose. A trickle of blood soon coated his hand, causing his brother to walk over to a wall and bang his head into it before returning to Luke's side. Sam appeared to be absolutely miserable in that moment.

"Dude, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to do that. Crap. Your nose is bleeding!" said Sam. Luke nodded and the blood began to flow with more intensity. It didn't really bother him, actually, blood never seemed to do that after an unfortunate incident a few years ago, but Sam looked at him like his face had just been ripped off. "It's fine, seriously, let's just get back to watching the show. I can just grab a paper towel and wipe off all the blood so no one looks at me weirdly when we go back," he replied.

Nodding, Sam darted into the bathroom and returned shortly after with a few paper towels clenched tightly in one of his hands. Luke gratefully took them. He wiped down his nose, making sure that the flow of blood had decreased enough to not leak out of it, then moved to stand up. The bloody paper towels were balled up and thrown into a nearby trash can.

With Sam in the lead again, the brothers made it back to the royal box in time to see the girls of the ballet group routine preparing to start their dance. They were joined by Sasha Aleksandranzi, a ballerina who danced with the Angeles Ballet Theatre and had graciously agreed to participate in this routine so the girls could do the cygnets from the ballet Swan Lake. She was quite famous in the Angeles ballet community. In fact, their mother had once brought them to one of her performances a couple of years ago.

Luke's rear sank back into the comfortable chair and found it still warm. They hadn't been gone that long, apparently. "Sam. What did you see down the hallway?" asked Luke. He'd completely forgotten to ask his brother about it in the hurry to get back to the box.

"I'll tell you later," whispered back Sam, shaking his head and craning his neck to see if any of their family members were glaring at them yet. A strange curiosity rose up inside of Illea's middle prince. It had to have been something serious to cause Sam to run back into the hallway like that, something shocking and definitely unexpected, out of the ordinary in all ways. His brother was rarely ever surprised about anything.

Brown eyes were soon turned back to the wide expanse of the stage, tracking the movements of the four girls meant to imitate the movements of graceful young swans. Pointe shoes bent and flexed as their heads arched in perfect unison. The pale arms of the dancers locked together, dusted lightly with easily removable powder to make them even whiter than they already were.

It was pretty obvious that the audience was enjoying this particular dance. They seemed to revel in the far-reaching aura of the perfectly coordinated ballerina's, flowers enraptured and caught in the gaze of the lovely sun that gazed down upon them with contempt and a fair amount of distance from anything mortal. Luke had many more ways of describing this, all of them making him feel like he should run away and become some sort of poet. He'd never do that, though, his parents would actually worry about him if he was gone that long.

Honestly, the dance was a little too long, once Luke had shaken the annoying and kind of stupidly poetic thoughts out of his already full mind. Perfection was never fun to watch when you knew that it was something you'd previously failed to reach. Especially with ballet, in Luke's case.

He'd never actually danced in a production of Swan Lake before. Now, he was sure that he'd been lucky when he escaped it. A usual Pas de deux took an eternity, everyone clapping and acting all amazed when they did some really difficult lift or spin in slow motion, and Swan Lake was bound to have at least one. The ones that he'd watched in other ballets had taught him one useful thing, however. Luke was an expert in telling when a ballet dance was almost over. He could even here this one winding down as he thought about it.

Four girls rushed to the front of the stage, performed elegant curtsies, then rushed off the stage to make room for the next group. Isa's tutu bounced gently as she followed her three companions off the stage. She was pretty and completely at ease in her outfit, causing a slight blush to rise in Luke's cheeks. Realizing what was next made it disappear instantly.

Katelin had been mostly out of his mind for the performances so far. This routine was almost made for her, lightning fast and violent with plenty of acrobatics that hurt your eyes to watch. She'd always had trouble deciding between being a gymnast or a wrestler, and he was certain that the second career path would eventually take the place of the first. She was getting too tall to be a gymnast anyways. The only problem with her going into the arena was that she'd be able to beat him up with more speed than before.

She wasn't visible on the stage yet, the blackout casting a curtain of inky darkness over the whole area. Staying away from that particular rehearsal gave Luke the disadvantage of having no earthly idea about what happened in this part of the performance.

When the blackout faded away, it revealed Mazie hanging onto one of her aerial silks, striking a fierce pose up in the air. Dramatic makeup swirled all over her face and turned her into a fearsome creature of the night. Her silks were a gleaming silver under the lights, starting to twist and turn as she used her strength and skills at the very second the music started. It wasn't long before Katelin, Aurelia, Maisynn, and Pandora were backflipping onto the stage as well. All five wore the same intimidating makeup on their unsmiling faces.

Mazie performed stunts from above as the girls on the ground did flips and tumbled across the stage. Even Pandora, who basically had no acrobatic background except apparently climbing tall things for her social media account, moved like a born gymnast. Sam had told him a few things about her, actually. Like how she'd been the only girl that he had feelings for, years later.

Focusing on Pandora and the others made it easier to not think about Katelin, whose presence made the irrational fear and worry inside of Luke bubble like a cauldron in the potions classroom of Severus Snape himself. Or maybe like the reaction between Potassium and water. It didn't just bubble, it kind of exploded into a gazillion little pieces of anxiety that pierced the inside of his stomach like shrapnel from a bomb set off at very, very close quarters.

She might hurt someone. She might hurt him. She could work with the rebels, giving them secrets from inside the palace and causing the deaths of hundreds. She could blow up the palace. She could shoot his parents in the back of the head with a handgun. She could doom the whole country if she really wanted to. Worst of all, she could kill whoever he ended up falling in love with.

Many of those worries were unfounded, but all lead to insane scenarios that had a possibility of becoming real one day. He hated to watch her twist and turn as he thought about her angrily storming out of the palace, only to return days later with the entire forces of the rebels who beheaded people and wrote messages in their blood, all of them under her command and ready to burn the palace to ashes. Irrational fear made Luke miss most of the dance. Rational fear made him wonder how Katelin could even start to be violent enough to inspire all of this worry.

Their quick exit from the stage didn't make his heart stop pounding. Kira, emerging onstage in her pointe shoes and a pink tutu, just made him want to gather up the rest of the selected and put them somewhere safe. Her shining eyes and slight smile made him want to protect anyone who seemed to have as much innocence and cause to live as she did.

"Luke, are you feeling alright? You seem like you'll keel over at any second," said an almost inaudible voice from his right. Fitz was staring at him with a concerned look on his regal features. Luke shrugged, able to calm himself down just because someone was spending too much time worrying about him and wanting to become invisible again. Fitz didn't seem to believe him, but turned his full attention back to Kira's dance. Sam caught Luke's eye, though he didn't say anything, and soon was watching Kira again.

A few of the visible kids in the audience looked sad when she whisked herself off the stage. They must have been disappointed that the magical fairy princess was gone, making Luke want to smile. Happy ballet was always a good act to watch when you had younger children with you.

Adalacia was next, though her solo felt much shorter and less magical than Kira's. She was doing a contemporary ballet piece. Those were usually sad and filled with emotion, the best ones stirring the souls and the hearts of anyone watching, though he wasn't sure about this one achieving that level of greatness. She was still a ballerina, however, and made it through the entire thing with remarkable amounts of elegance and grace in her fluid movements around the stage that Luke looked down upon.

In order for Adalacia to be able to get to the orchestra in time, she had to go at least second in the order of ballet solos, but a problem had come up. Mazie was supposed to be doing her irish dancing solo right before the Orchestra went on. However, she was actually in the orchestra, and Jadie's determination to have the dancing be in the same segment moved her up a spot.

The flaming red hair of the girl with the spirit of a fireball was concealed underneath a curly wig in a similar, but slightly off, shade when she appeared for her solo. Mazie smiled brightly at the audience as she skipped onto the stage to the beat of the obviously Irish music playing from the speakers. If anyone thought irish dance was simple, they would soon be proven wrong when she really began to get into the faster and more complicated portions of the dance.

Smile plastered on her face, though probably an actual representation of how much she enjoyed doing this, Mazie skipped and jumped to the exact counts of the rapidly flowing music. It was almost impossible to look away from her and the fiery curls of hair that spun around into the hair like a whirlwind.

This was an even better spot for Mazie than after Isa. If she'd danced after all of the three ballet solos had been performed in a row without anything that really counted as a decently timed break from the overloading power of pointe shoes and the feeling of being inferior to the graceful humans on stage,, everyone wouldn't have been excited to see anyone dance and would have just wanted to get on with the show, but now they were just happy to take a break from all of that tedious ballet. Since time always flies when you're having fun, her solo went by very quickly.

The audience clapped enthusiastically when she bent over in a fast bow, continuing to do so even after she'd disappeared from their sight range. He could see the color of her wig in a bright blur in the wings, rushing off to get changed into the extremely different orchestra uniform. She'd probably grab her instrument while she was back there.

Isa, doing the dance of the sugar plum fairy for her solo, was next in the order of things. She would be doing the very last ballet piece of the entire show. At least, Luke thought she'd been doing it. He didn't think any of the choreography groups would actually have six or seven of their members agree to do a ballet routine in tutus and tiaras and pointe shoes that required years of training to even wear without a very angry dance teacher swooping down upon you like an avenging demon.

Children in the audience seemed delighted to see Isa's routine. She already had a kind of motherly disposition, and she smiled down upon them like a fairy godmother. Isa had a quality to her movements that made it look like she really was a magical creature coming to perform for them. It almost appeared like she tried to make eye contact with each and every one of them.

Despite the excitement over the last two routines, everyone still seemed to be relieved when Isa darted off the stage and unconsciously let them know that it was time for all of the ballet to be over for the day. The program showed Luke that Elia, Cosette, and Sterling would be doing solos of their very own with their stringed instruments next. One harp and two violins. If they added in a viola, a cello, and a bass, they'd have a representative of all of the main stringed instruments with them on stage. Did a piano count or not? He wasn't really sure.

Sterling ended up being the first one out. He checked the program to see what song she was playing, but apparently it wasn't listed. Maybe she was improvising or something. She could have just been undecided when the program was printed, though Luke doubted that Jadie would ever let something like that happen under her authority.

Sitting down, she drew her bow and began to play a solemn and almost morbid melody on her instrument. It was easy to see why she had show up to rehearsal in something gray so often during the past few weeks. Sterling wasn't as happy as Aurelia, or as spirited as Mazie, but she still radiated an aura of emotion like they did. He could see why Fitz had been drawn to her before. Most of her personality was hidden in her music, and could be figured out if one listened to it closely.

It seemed like mere seconds before she was standing up to leave the stage, long black skirt sweeping against the floor as she walked off. Her eyes searched through the audience from the wings before she turned and disappeared from Luke's line of sight completely.

He checked the program once more and found that Elia would be going next, playing her solo on the beautiful harp that he'd only seen once during rehearsals. Luke felt like he hadn't stayed around long enough to really see the majority of the orchestra, band, and chorus rehearsals, but at least he was getting to see everything now. He had seen it during the three days of dress rehearsals, too, if that even made any progress in his quest to see most of the girls doing things over the long, two and a half weeks they'd rehearsed for this.

Elia's song was titled something like "Appalachian Spring Mountains,", or maybe some version of that. It was getting harder and harder to see his program because he kept forgetting to check them until the blackouts. He probably didn't need to explain why that would be difficult, though.

A blue headband crowned her head in addition to the standard uniform she wore like all of the Orchestra girls had to do during this part of the performance. Seeing her attempt to keep her individuality, though it almost definitely wasn't purposely done for that, was nice. The song she performed on her harp was also quite beautiful. When someone knew how to play an instrument that well, they were able to make it sound even prettier than it naturally did when even a complete beginner tried to play it.

Luke was honestly surprised when they brought a piano out onto the stage next. The two men that snuck on stage in the extremely short blackout managed to set it down with a barely audible thud, a real miracle when he considered how heavy that thing would actually be. He doubted that he'd even be able to get it off the ground, much less carry it onto a stage so quickly.

The best conclusion that he was able to come to was that Cosette was playing the piano, the other instrument she was spectacularly good at, instead of the violin. She still walked out onto the stage in the orchestra uniform. That kind of made sense, given that Luke had been debating whether a piano really counted as a true and honest strings instrument belonging in an actual professional just-strings orchestra for some time now. At least for the last two pieces, it seemed.

Cosette smiled sweetly when she walked out onto the stage and sat down at the piano bench. She smoothed out her long black skirt, then set her fingers on the black and white polished keys of the instrument in front of her so she could begin playing the song she'd chosen to do for her solo at this moment in the performance.

He was surprised that he recognized the melody she began to play. It was a haunting, beautiful version of the song "Once Upon a December" from the movie Anastasia. Luke had watched that movie when he was a kid and then spent way too many nights thinking that Rasputin was going to crawl out of his closet with his head detached and try to eat him while he was sleeping. This beauty of this song made up for the nightmares, though he blamed Sam for convincing him to watch the movie when the triplets were only five and a half years old.

Cosette finished her piece with a quick curtsy before rushing off the stage so the backstage crew could remove the piano in enough time to get the chairs for the orchestra out onto the stage before the girls actually started to go out. Needless to say, this blackout was a bit longer than the last few periods of pitch black darkness had been.

When the orchestra girls paraded on, Cosette accompanying them, they all took their seats from memory and prepared to play their first song. The backstage crew had also set up music stands for them, complete with the sheet music in what seemed to be in the right order of the songs that they would be playing. He wouldn't have been surprised if Jadie had yelled at them multiple times to make sure they did everything perfectly and went above and beyond as well.

As they started the first song, an arrangement of a few Beethoven pieces combined into one, Luke took a closer look at the orchestra uniform that the soloists and the girls that didn't end up with solos were all wearing as they played.

The dress that he had thought to be black at his first few glances was navy blue when he squinted to get a better look at it. It had long sleeves, and a plain skirt that went all the way to the floor, devoid of all decoration to keep the attention on the music instead of on the girls themselves. Long sleeves seemed to be a little too warm for August, even if everyone kept saying that Angeles had decent temperatures because they were from a province where the usual temperature was enough to burn his skin from his bones.

Almost all of the orchestra girls wore their hair in an elegant chignon that was positioned right above where there hair met their neck in the back of their head. Aside from Elia's headband, and the necklace that he was positive Cosette had hidden somewhere on her person, Luke didn't think that any of the other girls had accessorized in any way.

The Orchestra ended up playing three songs while they were on stage. The first was the Beethoven arrangement, classical and keeping to a traditional style of playing. The second was a cover of a popular pop song sung by Cathy Tanners, a teenage singer from Carolina who had appeared on various talk shows after the release of her latest album. The third song, which was surprising to Luke, ended up being the theme and opening song of the Star Wars movies from somewhere during the 1970s.

When they were finished with the three songs, they all stood up and bowed before exiting the stage. Another blackout consumed the area and he could see the faint outlines of the backstage crew working to remove the extra chairs and music stands from the stage, along with replacing the orchestra sheet music with the pages the band would be using.

He was a bit sad when the four person band came out on stage. Luke had watched them play before, he just thought it was unfortunate that they'd ended up with only four people playing it it. His sadness was slightly an effort to not focus on the fact that Katelin was playing Percussion for them. It was a shame, though, that he couldn't watch her have to attempt to emulate an octopus and try to play multiple instruments at once without feeling worried and way too anxious for his liking.

They only played one and a half songs because of their small size. They were both upbeat and interesting, which was definitely a characteristic of most bands he'd heard in his life. The orchestra might have gotten to play pop songs and Star Wars, but the band always got to be interesting and almost never caused the audience to be bored out of their minds from listening for too long.

Next up was the chorus, minus Scarlet because of her musical theater solo and the accompanying green makeup that would be impossible to put on in the span of one three-minute long segment of the performance. He thought that she'd be singing from backstage, but he wasn't sure if that had been confirmed at the dress rehearsal or if the plans had changed in the time span of the day or two that had elapsed since he'd had to turn her into the wicked witch of the west and the most fearsome being in all of Oz.

Unlike the other two groups, the Chorus got to stand on three rows of risers that had been conveniently wheeled onto the stage by the backstage crew after they'd removed the chairs, music stands, sheet music, and various percussion instruments from the stage.

It wasn't long before the seven girls started to sing. "Very superstitious, writing's on the wall. Very superstitious, ladders bout' to fall," their voices washed over the entire theater with the sounds of Stevie Wonder's Superstition, a song from 1972 and one that had been decently popular for a time. Given that it was still in existence during the days of Illea, Luke could confirm that it had truly stood through the test of the long period of time that it had made it through to get to this day.

They were only able to sing about half of it, or maybe they just were able to make it shorter when they didn't have any background music accompanying their voices. He could remember getting to vote on what songs they would get to do. Luke had personally voted for a song by the Eagles, but it hadn't gone through.

Aretha Franklin's Respect was the second song they sang. He thought it was a bit weird to have two songs sung by girls that didn't have the voice type or cultural background of the original singers, but he supposed that it was a common occurrence in the modern world. The girls were still able to sing it and make it sound good. Looking at the girls, he noticed that Adalacia had a surly look on her face. That was probably because their instructor had told her to sing quieter after her very french voice had been extremely audible in rehearsals.

Thankfully, the next song, and the one that was bound to be the most popular out of all three, let her sing as loud as she wanted to. Having a song included that was from a Disney movie set in provincial France would definitely do that for her.

"Little town, it's a quiet village. Every day, like the one before. Little town, full of little people. Waking up to say..." started Cila, the spotlight on her for the time it took her to sing the opening lines of the song. "Bonjour!" repeated Kira, Adalacia, Illonie, Albany, Jillian, and Averian. Scarlet's voice could faintly be heard from the direction of the backstage wing that Luke couldn't see from his position in the royal box, which let him only see the backstage part of the opposite wing.

It was an interesting song, as the girls all took turns singing the part of Belle and would sing various other parts of villagers in the song during the rest of the time. They ended up cutting out the Gaston and LeFou song in rehearsals because all of the girls were very stubborn about not singing those parts.

The chorus girls had to rush off stage quickly so Cila could get in her Angelica Schuyler costume for her upcoming solo. Scarlet would be coming out on stage during the blackout, and he saw her moving out onto the stage soon enough. The green of the paint and the black of her outfit made her almost invisible in the blackout as she made sure that she'd be in the correct position for the entire song. Another figure came out with her, probably Aurelia after she'd been conned into playing Glinda by Cila.

During the musical theater solos, many of the girls who didn't have things to do until the choreography groups would be making appearances as the background characters that also had to sing or do something important in the song. Most of them hadn't been happy about it, but had been forced to smile and do a good job by the intimidating demeanor of Jadie Flores.

Scarlet and Aurelia began to sing the opening part of the song, Aurelia having to sing almost as much as Scarlet and having to not have a disgruntled look on her face while she did it. He'd heard that she was upset that she didn't get to at least wear Glinda's puffy ball gown during this scene, as she was supposedly looking forwards to it. Though, honestly, the idea of having the extremely happy Aurelia running all over the place in a huge and very sparkly gown was a bit terrifying to Luke at that very moment in time.

They quickly went though the song. It might have just seemed quick to Luke, though. He even noticed Cila and a few other people congregating at the backstage wing that was in his line of sight. With a start, Luke realized that he was supposed to have been down there five minutes ago. He'd forgotten about his surprise part in the excitement of the show!

Luke stood up and edged his way out of the row, causing Fitz and Sam to each realize that he was going to be late. Sam facepalmed and shook his head, while Fitz just gestured for Luke to run down there as fast as he possibly could. Luke did exactly that, carefully getting out of the royal box without his parents even noticing and sprinting down the corridor in what he hoped would be the quickest way to get him the costume room in time to get in it before the next part started.

He turned down a hallway and nearly ran into Katelin and Willow, who were both sneaking around like they were doing something suspicious. Surprisingly, they both jumped, but Katelin just motioned for him to carry on and pointed in the direction they'd been coming from. He ran by so fast he didn't notice Willow's messed up lipstick or Katelin's strangely tangled hair.

At last, he reached the room where he had been supposed to be to put on his Hamilton costume about ten minutes ago and ducked inside the door. Jadie wasn't inside, which was a relief, but Elizabeth was scowling and looking like she wanted to beat him with something. "You were supposed to be here awhile ago! I'm supposed to do your makeup, and I can't do that if you have to go on stage in three minutes!" she said, then comically sneezed blood into a tissue. They both had to keep themselves from laughing as Luke dashed behind the curtained part of the room.

Dressing quickly, he put on the coat and everything else that Alexander Hamilton wore in this part of the musical. The wig was a bit harder to put on and felt odd on his head, but it was necessary because no one wanted to put hair extensions in his hair in this amount of time.

"Here!" yelped Elizabeth, attacking him with her palette of stage makeup as soon as he'd stepped out from behind the curtain. It wasn't very long before his face was able to be seem from a mile away and he was ready to sprint backstage to get ready for the part of the show that he had to be in. This had been something kept secret for quite awhile, but it never seemed to be something that he'd think about very often.

Thanking Elizabeth, he made his way out of the room and ran backstage like he'd just sat on a full-grown porcupine. Scarlet was just singing the last note of the song when he made it next to Cila and everyone else getting ready for the next song backstage. Next to Cila, a few others who were dressed for the next song stood waiting.

Cila looked at him with a little grumpiness, but she chose to not chastise him for this yet because they would be going on very soon. Scarlet was already being taken down from her flying perch by the backstage crew and they were having to get into position for the next dance. Luke walked out onto the stage and sat down in the chair he had to sit in before they did the rewinding part of the song and he actually had to talk and sing and perform and do stuff like that in front of a very large crowd of people who would be judging him without restraint.

Starting the song, Cila channeled the emotions of Angelica Schuyler as soon as Albany had started them off with the opening remarks by John Laurens, another character in the musical that she'd been able to stand in for because she'd had time to change into the outfit.

His time on stage passed in a quick blur, getting ready to go stand up and start his part after what only seemed to be the blink of an eye. Luke stood up and tried to act like Hamilton, comfortably pretending to be someone he wasn't and hoping that the members of the audience wouldn't realize it was him. Maybe he'd getting lucky and they'd just think it was some male guard or something that had been tapped into doing the performance because they needed someone else, but he doubted that would actually end up happening.

Scarlet dashed on the stage as Eliza only a few seconds after he'd finished exchanging the partially spoken lines with Cila, darting in a spot where no one would notice her until she had to step forwards for her singing part a few moments later.

After singing the word helpless a few times, Scarlet stepped back and Cila and him had to talk again. She sang for a few moments, then Luke had to do another piece of spoken dialog. He hoped that no one realized that his hands were still sweating. Eventually, he and Scarlet stepped back and had to pretend to be talking as Cila continued with her lines of singing and rapping. A few of the chorus girls had dressed up as ensemble members from the musical and provided those parts in accompaniment to Cila.

It wasn't long before they finished the three points and had to move on to the next part of the song. Thankfully, Luke was able to continue with the parts he had to do and felt himself warming up a little as he sang part of the falling action of the song. If that even applied to songs like it did to stories, that is.

As soon as it was over, Luke left the stage and saw Sam dressed up as Aaron Burr, ready to go onstage and start the Schuyler sisters. The two brothers shared a quick grin before Luke found himself backstage again, not going to be in the next piece but deciding to change back into his fancy outfit just so he could watch from backstage and away from his parents. It also helped that the audience wouldn't be glancing up at them like they had when he'd been in the royal box, too.

Watching the next song begin, Luke smiled to himself. This really had been a successful performance, hadn't it? He could tell that the audience had enjoyed their song by all of the clapping that had come after it. For once, Luke felt like he'd done something worth mentioning to the world. He finally hadn't been invisible, if only for just a few minutes of a performance.


I finally finished this! I'll release another chapter with a longer note tomorrow, but I had to go somewhere now and I have to make this short. I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter! Please, please leave a review if you liked it and if you're actually still reading the story!