Finally, Ace was in an atmosphere that she could understand. The past few days of Alfea had been full of missions, classes, and pressing ethical questions. The gala was just what she needed to feel at home again. Wearing a pretty dress never hurts.

"Apparently, the witches got the memo."

Ace turned to her left to see a smiling blonde in a pink mermaid dress which was fastened around the shoulders, waist, and knees with a string of pink flowers.

"Uh…"

The pale girl lifted her mask to reveal Rose. She giggled and said, "It's me. You look lovely, by the way."

Ace lifted her own mask, even though she'd been warned by her dorm mates not to.

"Oh, hey! You look amazing too!" Ace said before slipping her mask back on and turning to the crowd. "Yeah, I'm kind of disappointed that our prank didn't work."

All around them, masked witches, heroes, and fairies mingled and danced to the music playing over the speakers. The teachers looked frazzled about this masquerade surprise, Faragonda most of all. Ace watched as she whispered something in Griselda's ear before Griselda marched out of the dance hall.

"She does not look happy," Rose commented, lightly tutting under her breath. "I hope everything is alright."

"They're probably just upset because-"

"May I have this dance?"

Both girls looked up at the voice that had interrupted them. A fairy with brown hair and blue eyes sparkling beneath her mask had extended her hand towards Rose. Her dress was beautiful with striking bold colors like a black top and a teal skirt. The puffy sleeves of her dress made her look like a pirate princess coming to whisk Rose away for an adventure. Ace was confused about who it was until Rose laughed and said, "Robin!"

"You don't mind, do you, Ace?" Robin asked, gesturing over to where London and Astra were waiting for them.

"No, go ahead," Ace said, shooing them away.

"Thanks," Robin and Rose chimed together before Robin spun Rose away to go dance with their friends. Ace set off in search of her own friends.

Just then the sound of a low bass filled the room, followed by steady percussion. Everyone turned towards the stage where four boys were playing the last song of their set. She elbowed her way closer to the stage to get a better look at the live band. She had heard from her potionology partner that the band was from Magix and they were barely older than the girls themselves.

The band looked like mock-schoolboys with ripped blazers and a satiric amount of plaid. The three instrumentalists wore their ties in increasingly strange places, while the lead singer had his tie fixed to his microphone. Even with his plaid mask, she could tell he was handsome. Actually, he looked a lot like a boy version of…

"Coda?"

The lead singer turned her way but looked right over her head. Turning around, Ace saw Piper staring at the boy in awe while Jane tried to get her attention. Turning back, the lead singer - Coda - just stared back with hard eyes, but when he looked away, his black eyes softened when they landed on Ace. It seemed like he was singing the beginning lines to her.

"She ain't either pink or pale,

She'll never be all mine;

She stepped out of a fairytale,

Her mouth's a valentine."

A hand on her shoulder turned her around. It was Jane, with her face obscured by her gold mask.

"We need to talk."

"Can it wait? I kind of wanted to-"

Just then, a fairy in purple dress encrusted with gems from head to toe popped up with a crystalline mask and two other masked fairies behind her.

"Wow, Jane, your dress is gorgeous," said the bejeweled fairy. "You too, Ace. I love your style."

"Oh, thank you… sorry, I don't recognize you."

Jane and the other girls burst into laughter.

"Ace, it's Krysta with the Chirix Club," Jane explained between her laughter. Turning to the Chirix Club, Piper asked, "Where's Lesley?"

"She's not really big on galas," said a blonde in a metallic copper dress that caught the light every time she made the slightest move. By the process of elimination, Ace decided this blonde was Nicole. She couldn't tell through her metallic mask, but the other blonde in the Chirix Club - Lesley - was apparently not there. So it had to be Nicole.

"Oh, I wanted to say thanks again for saving us the other day," Jane said, awkwardly rubbing her arm. "We definitely weren't ready to go up against a sophomore witch."

"Maybe you shouldn't have pranked them then," the blue-haired third fairy said good-naturedly. Ace deduced that this girl must be Soley.

Jane and Ace exchanged a grimace at Soley's comment before Nicole chimed in, "Well, it gave us a great opportunity to fight together for the first time. We haven't been sent on a mission yet."

"Oh… yeah. Neither have we," Jane lied. "Piper was just saying actually… where is Piper?"

Looking around, Ace spotted her over by the stage.

"She's by the music, of course," Ace said.

As she made her way over to the stage, she heard Krysta ask, "So, Jane, where did you get that amazing dress?"

Piper disappeared into the crowd just as Ace reached her, but when she turned to follow, the chorus of the song stopped her in the track. Slowly, she looked up and saw that the lead singer was leaning down to sing to her. There was no mistaking it this time.

"She loves me all that she can,

And her heart's got me resigned;

But she wasn't made for any man,

And she'll never be all mine."

She couldn't help but stare wide-eyed as he winked at her from behind the mask. She could hear Jane calling her from nearby, but she didn't listen. She didn't want to listen. She only wanted to hear this boy sing.

The song ended with some pumped up vocalizations as the music faded away. The crowd cheered as the frontman drank some water before announcing into the mic, "Thank you, everyone! We're the Codebreakers, the opening act for the always amazing DJ Lizzie the Saint! Enjoy the rest of your gala!"

He nodded at Ace towards the steps that lead off the stage. As the Codebreakers started packing up their equipment in preparation for the DJ as she levitated her turntables to center stage and started playing one of the top pop songs of the year. Ace walked over to the steps where Coda was waiting in the shadow of the stage curtains.

"Hi," she said, biting her lip and clasping her hands nervously behind her back. "I'm not sure you remember me, but-"

"I definitely remember you, Acacia," Coda said with a wry laugh. "You would destroy my toy sets every time you guys came over. You've grown up some since then."

He looked her up and down, making her anxiously clasp her hands in the front now. Even in his ridiculous stage costume, he was beyond handsome and she was amazed he was the same boy she had been forced to visit as a child.

"Yeah, you have too," she smiled. "Didn't you start Red Fountain last year?"

His face dropped as he replied, "I don't want to talk about school. Wanna get out of here?"

With a nervous titter, Ace nodded and, the next thing she knew, she was sneaking out of the dance hall with a boy she hadn't seen since she was eleven years old. An hour later, they were sneaking back in flushed from the night air and the conversations she'd been having. Unfortunately, she was swept away by her dorm mates the second she stepped foot in the dance hall again.

"He's bad news."

"Marissa, what are you talking about?" Ace said, wrenching her arm out of hers.

"Piper told me," Marissa said. "It doesn't matter though, because we have an emergency."

"Emergency? What kind of emergency?"

The girls reached their dorm mates who were huddled in a corner by the glass wall of the dance hall. In the dark lighting of the gala, Ace couldn't see their faces well, but she got the tense tone from the atmosphere. She groaned internally and prepared herself for another serious conversation. The girls all turned to face them when they joined the group.

"Good. You found her," Jane said. "Ace, we have a problem."

"And that concerns me how?"

Piper huffed and said, "Because Griselda found out that we aren't in our dorm."

With a stomp of her foot, Ace whined, "Why does she have to ruin everything?"

"Faragonda is totally behind this," Delta said, crossing her arms and looking outside past the glass wall.

"She's the headmistress and we're breaking the rules," Marissa argued. "We can't exactly be mad at her."

"We can if she's the reason we got in trouble in the first place," Delta countered. "It doesn't matter now. We need a plan."

Just then, a tall boy in a beaded indigo suit (that looked absolutely ridiculous) with a similarly beaded mask slid over to the group of girls, unintentionally (or intentionally) crowding Delta against the wall.

"Is everything alright?" asked the suntanned newcomer. "You girls look tense."

"A little space, please, Arlo," Sylvie said, shooing him away from Delta. He took a step away (barely) and kept his arm on the wall behind her head.

"Remember how we got detention for going on that mission?" Jane began.

A witch passing by gave them a strange look, so Orlando quickly hushed her and said, "Quiet down. No one knows we were there too."

"Lucky you," Delta remarked, and when Orlando looked at her, he looked for a little too long.

"Where have you guys been all night anyway?" Sylvie asked her brother.

Orlando looked out over at the crowd, seeking out his friends.

"Well, Will was immediately swept away by some fairies who recognized him I guess. Lee is just standing in the dark over there like a creep."

Ace looked over her shoulder and saw that Lee was indeed brooding in a dark corner, looking over the partygoers with heavy eyes. She giggled a bit at the image he cast as some sort of Sentinel of the Gala. If she had her camera, she could definitely turn his pose into art.

"And Mica is… I don't know, probably drooling over the DJ," Orlando said just as Mica bounced over to the group.

"What's up, guys? I've been looking for you guys all night," the ruby-eyed prince said. He scratched behind his ear and said, "I can't really understand anything in these big crowds, so it's been a bit of a hassle."

"Sorry, man," Orlando said, slinging an arm around his shoulder.

"Oh, hi, Piper," Mica said nervously. His skin burned as red as his hearing aids. He struggled to keep his eyes on her face. Piper let out a good-natured laugh.

"It's alright, man. It's an awesome dress. You can look," she said, spinning around to give the group a 360 view of the dress. Ace thought she looked like the goddess of death, but in a hot way.

"Guys, we need to focus," Marissa said nervously. "If Griselda finds us, our night is ruined."

"Uhh, guys? I think we have bigger problems."

Ace turned around to follow Jane's sightline. Through a gap in the crowd, she saw four girls in gorgeous dresses with black masks. They looked on high alert.

"What?"

"It's the Sisterhood."

"Oh. Oh no."

"Girls, we'll be fine as long as we act natural," Orlando assured, easily slipping into the big brother role. "We just have to enjoy ourselves until the dance is over. I think we'll be handing out the gifts soon, so that should be fun."

He grabbed Delta by the hand and gave her a twirl, which made a ridiculously awesome silhouette in her tight velvet dress. Which made her ombre dress fan out amazingly. She threw her head back and genuinely laughed, making Orlando smile triumphantly. Ace saw it as another picture-worthy moment, but then disaster struck. Her mask slipped loose.

"You!"

And then a blast.

Ace was knocked out upon impact. When she woke up, she was laying on a cot in the nurse's office. The first thing she heard was the sound of her dorm mates.

"Those witches really came out of nowhere."

Her memory started to come back to her: the Sisterhood of the Lamplight has attacked them.

"The witches came out of nowhere? Are you serious? What about that stampede? Now, that really came out of nowhere."

Now that is something Ace did not remember.

"What stampede?" Marissa asked.

"Ugh, I do not want to talk about it," replied Sylvie.

"I think we did a great job of fending them off, seeing as there were only three of us standing."

"I don't want to talk about it!" Sylvie reiterated, cutting off Jane from putting a positive spin on it.

The door opened followed by the sound of heels clicking on the tile floor. Ace knew it was the headmistress by her gait and the way the room's atmosphere grew heavy and tense.

"You were meant to stay in your dorm!" she chided harshly, sounding really mad for the first time since Ace had met her.

"Are you seriously blaming the victim right now?"

"Miss Delta!"

"No, she's right."

Ace was shocked to hear that, especially from Sylvie. She sat up and saw that the girls were all there, still in their dresses and a little worse for wear. Faragonda was listening unimpressed as Sylvie made her case.

"You can't just send us on these missions and then get mad at us for going on those missions," Sylvie said. "This is the second consecutive day that Ace has landed in a hospital bed. We didn't sign up for this. You can't fault us for defending ourselves."

Faragonda didn't look like she was listening, just like she was waiting for her turn to speak. When Sylvie finished, she jumped in immediately, "It is necessary to keep up the façade. Headmistress Griffin is furious."

"Then you shouldn't have made us attack her students!"

"That is enough!"

The girls all fell silent at the headmistress's uncharacteristic outburst.

With a deep breath, she composed herself and said, "This is what it means to be Alfea fairy. If you don't like it, then, by all means, go join Beta Academy and see where that gets you. But just know… that isn't what your mothers wanted for you."

Looking down at her lap, Ace mumbled, "I don't think my mom would want this for me either."

They were quiet. Faragonda collected herself before saying, "I'm sending you on a mission on Wednesday to take a relic from a coven in Melody. Hopefully, it will prepare you to earn your Charmix at the end of the week. Until then, I want you to work harder in your Witch Studies class. I do not want another repeat of this incident."

She left the room just as Griselda walked in to give the girls their detention slips, sited for "violence," "destroying school property," and "causing a stampede." They accepted them without protest. The midnight walk back to their dorm was somber.