It is past midnight in Rephidim's time zone, but in Babel, eight hours to the west, it is coming up within the hour. Elise dreams that she is in a ballroom in the "Realm of Inala", and decked out in an extravagant dress that puts the other dancers to shame. She is approached by the ever-flattering and handsome Lios, whom she had met earlier in the Carnival, and dances with him. She sees the Mystic, who evidently has a held spell, and when the dance ends, she politely requests to dance with the Mystic instead, though Lios is reluctant to let Elise go.

The Mystic, it turns out, has held a spell to allow him to telepathically communicate in private with Elise, within the context of the dream. They confer about their current predicament, and Elise tells the Mystic something of Morpheus and the fop fox and the puzzles she has been solving and the rescuing of dream mages. Elise wishes to find out more about the Mystic, but he is reluctant to reveal his name, fearing that even now somehow others might still be listening in, and he refuses to take the chance.

Although Elise "pretends" to be enamored with the Mystic, under the pretense of a ruse that the Mystic has cast a spell to make her infatuated in him (if anyone should be curious just what sort of spell the Mystic cast earlier), it soon becomes evident that Elise is attracted to the bat, and that the attraction is mutual. Shortly before the midnight hour, the dance ends, and Lios wishes to cut in. Elise refuses, but Lios is persistent. At last, Lios decks the Mystic, accusing him of casting a spell on Elise.

The Mystic claims (with a certain element of truth) that his intent was to use magic to help Elise learn the dances of the Babelites, and to do so without the humiliation of making it quite so obvious … and that Lios has now shamed her by bringing it to everyone's attention. Elise feigns bawling in shame and covering her face, when in fact she's giggling at the Mystic's clever cover for what was really going on.

As the bells ring in the new year, Elise and the Mystic engage in a New Year's kiss … and then the dream falls apart, quickly turning into a nightmare, as the dream ballroom breaks apart, revealing an empty void beyond, and the dancers begin to break apart, like distorted fun house mirror images.

Elise wakes up to find herself at home and being consoled by her sister, Katherine, that "it was just a dream".

However, two days later, the news comes in: a rogue Rephidimite captain dropped the Boomer on Babel, killing tens of thousands in the huge and overpopulated city.