Roar of Dragons

[Sig – 13 years]

I knew Xander was going to up the spook factor with some jack-o-lanterns, but I was not expecting things to be as spooky as they are. Even now, at just-before noon, the decorations outside the gate to his house really spook me. The only difference from Friday/Saturday are the jack-o-lanterns, too. The way they glow really seems to enhance everything.

He and his dad really made a lot of jack-o-lanterns, too. There are seven around the gate, three around the door by the gate, three at the guardhouse, and I can see even more at the front door to the house itself.

"I don't think any pixies are showing up here," Connor comments as he hops off of his bike.

He'd be in a Halloween costume right now, except it is cold. Too cold to wear one outside, even if we're going to a party. None of us are wearing costumes, though my shirt is black with a jack-o-lantern design on it for the spirit. That won't be visible until I take my hoodie off once we're inside. The others might be wearing something themed to Halloween, or they might have costumes in their backpacks.

I didn't ask as it's not really important. It's a Halloween party, but the invites didn't mention costumes as being required. Xander himself also definitely won't be dressed up due to his weirdness about being perceived as lying for things no one would think he's lying with.

Like playing pretend.

"Yeah," Jake snorts. "Xander really went all-out. If I'm reading the magics right, he didn't just put out the jack-o-lanterns and the pixie-catching webs, he put in an anti-pixie ward as well."

Dragons can read a lot of different magics, and that includes ones relating to pixies. It's probably the only reason he can tell the wards are for them and not just some sort of odd magic wards which are incomplete.

That's apparently something which happens when a magic or mana they can't sense is part of something they can sense.

"Of course he did," I snort. "Xander wants to make absolutely sure he's safe. Let's hand in the invitations."

The guard checks our cards before letting us in, and we walk our bikes over to the rec center. There's a path which wasn't here on Saturday and it leads directly to the rec center, which has new protrusion on the front of it, to the side of the emergency exit opposite the hallway leading in.

There wasn't a fitness session yesterday or today, so I don't know when that was added, but it's definitely new. There's a sign at the steps to the house itself telling us to go to the fitness center with an arrow pointing to it. When we reach the fitness center, there's a sign saying we can bring our bikes inside.

The protrusion is a room for storing bikes and hoverboards. There are even posts to secure bikes to, with holes for looping bike locks through.

"Oh, yeah!" Sam exclaims as we enter the bike room. "Warmth! Why did we decide to ride our bikes here?"

The dads offered us a ride, especially since they'll be picking us up to take us to our trick-or-treat locations tonight. We declined because we wanted to ride our bikes here.

"Because we're nuts!" I answer. "Come on! Let's go say hi to Xander!"

When we walk through the door leading into the gym, we find ourselves in the rec room instead.

"Whoa," I pause for a moment at the transition, causing Sam to bump into me. "Sorry!"

My friends get disoriented from that, too. There's nothing quite like expecting to enter a gym and finding yourself in a completely different room.

"Did Xander seriously put a gate on the door?"

Laughter draws my attention and I look over to find the Autumn Realm crew hanging out in the lounge section. They're all wolfkin at the moment, and Carter is dressed like a fictional mage. Black robe with green and silver accents and runes, black and green clothes underneath, and a black mage's hat. He's even wearing black boots with green-and-silver laces.

He's also the one laughing the hardest.

The rec room is decorated pretty well. Black and orange streamers stretch across the ceiling, hanging lightly. Black and orange tablecloths cover the tables, with jack-o-lanterns sitting on their centers. Surrounding the centerpieces are smaller decorations; mage's hats, painted pumpkins, straw bales, and toy bats.

Food is set up on the refreshments tables already. There's a build-your-own burger station, mac-and-cheese, build-your-own salad, pulled pork and roast beef for sliders, and more just for the lunch part. That doesn't include the snacks and dessert tables, nor the drinks.

Xander really stocked things up for it. Then again, there are supposed to be twelve additional boys here today, plus a few adults, all of whom have been practicing magic a lot lately, several of whom are powerful mages. More food for the party than the last is definitely a necessity. Chances are high he has an insane amount of stuff in storage.

No activities other than what looks like a crafting station are set up in here, so everything else is probably going to be set up as things go. No, that's not right, they must be in the gym. Xander wouldn't want everyone doing the same thing the same time, and he probably wants to give us freedom on what to do. The gym has a lot more space for activities and he probably wants in here to be for calmer stuff.

In addition to the food, decorations, and crafting station, there's already a decent amount of people in here. There are those five boys, Mr. Cox and Mr. Martins, plus another boy and girl I don't recognize. They're both about a year older than us, and the boy has platinum-blond hair and emerald-green eyes. The girl has brown hair and green eyes, and looks similar enough to Carter that she might be his cousin, Tessa. She's dressed similarly to Carter, though as a fictional witch rather than mage.

"You're all already here?" I ask.

"We got here a few hours ago," Carter tells me. "Offered to help Xander set up. He's got the activities in the gym, but I ain't sure if we can go in yet or not."

"He's not out here?" I ask.

"He's in the dorms," Carter jerks a thumb towards the door leading to them. "Taking a short nap before the party."

He gets up.

"I'll go with you so you can put your stuff away," he tells me. "The room assignments are all the same as last time.

"Did he really put a gate between here and the bike room?" I ask.

"He did!" Carter laughs. "That's a new door for it, by the way. It leads only into the bike room. Xander apparently got it put in yesterday and had it set up like that so that there'd be a place to put bikes and stuff that's sheltered but still have logistics for getting in and out without blocking a fire exit."

Xander can be such a dork. There were other places that could have been stuck, such as attaching it to the hallway.

We head to the dorms, and the others go to their rooms to put their things away. In ours, we find Xander in wolfkin form, snoozing peacefully. As usual, he's snuggling Mr. Leviathan, though Trenton's sleeping on the bed on the other side of him rather than between him and the larger plushie.

"Xander," Carter gently says. "You said to wake you when Sig arrives. He's here."

"I don't trust a chocolate-mint cheesecake."

I snort.

"You're dreaming," I tell him.

"…oh.

Xander eyes open and his tail flicks up under the blanket a little as his face lights up a little.

"Hi."

"Hi!" I say. "Good nap?"

"Yeah," he yawns, showing off how sharp his teeth are right now. "Lots of dream food got eaten."

"That's good!" I say as I put my things away. "Carter said you've got activities in the gym?"

"Yeah," Xander answers as he gets out of bed. "And more crafting, if people are interested. I got stuff for magic lamps, with ghost and bat and jack-o-lantern and mage hat and spiderweb designs."

"Cool!" I say.

"Oh," he adds. "And the drawers got restocked if anyone used up stuff and didn't replace from the storage. And little bottles of hand sanitizer were added this time, too."

I check that out as he finishes getting dressed. There's zero chance he'd go out in his current sleepwear if there are people he's not familiar and comfortable with there, and an even more zero chance of doing so if there are adults. Not unless he changed into pajamas instead, but I don't think he wants to do that for the party.

Once he's finished dressing, Xander's in dark blue jeans, black socks, and a dark green MountainStorm Gear long-sleeved shirt. Now dressed, Xander picks up Trenton and gives me a hug.

"Thanks for coming," he says.

"Of course I came!" I say. "Your parties are awesome!"

"Hm…"

What's that about? I want to ask but I feel like Xander himself might not know.

"Do we have to wait until everyone's here to do the activities?" I ask Xander as we exit the dorm. "Or can we start now?"

"There are-there are things first," Xander tells me. "But you can get something to eat from the refreshments tables."

"Alright!"

At the refreshments tables, I spot a new set of glasses. They're the same shape and size as the others he's decorated for the parties, though themed to today's event. Each one has a different person's name on it, the year, and jack-o-lanterns, spiders, ghosts, and skeletons decorating them.

Knowing that Xander hand-draws each cup's art really makes this impressive. Temporal acceleration only decreases the amount of time it takes, not the amount of effort. Magitech glasses might help as well but they won't do all the work. He doesn't use magic to do the drawing, it's all by hand.

I grab my glass and fill it with punch, then grab some food.

Xander gets something to eat as well and once we're sitting, I dig into my food. Over the next twenty minutes, the rest of the guests arrive, including all of the girls who'd been invited. Some of the parents from various guests remain as well to supervise the day's activities, and the girls won't be staying the night.

Which disappoints Xander because he feels like it's excluding them… and nothing anyone says changes his mind on that. I can't figure out how to cheer him up from that so here's hoping that that the activities distract him from it.

For our chaperones, there's Mr. Cox, Mr. Martins, Ethan's mom, Austin's dad, Thomas's mom, and Nash's parents. Blaze is here in his phoenix form, Mr. Roger is here, and Grandma Lily arrived (and is still in) her human form. In addition to them, there are three people I don't recognize.

There's a woman in her early twenties with long, snow-white hair, golden eyes, and a light tan. She's wearing a black dress with orange jack-o-lanterns dancing across it and Grandpa Blaze is sitting on her shoulder.

The last adult I don't recognize already is a man in his early twenties and has snow-white hair and golden eyes, just like the unknown woman. He's wearing black jeans, black sneakers with orange laces, and an orange long-sleeved shirt.

Accompanying that man is a boy who looks to be around three years old. The kid's dressed in a ghost costume and keeps going "Boo!" at people before giggling. His hair's black with white tips, and his eyes are a vibrant, fiery blue.

"Hey, Xander?" I ask.

"Yes, Sig?"

"Who are those three?" I indicate the three I don't recognize.

"I'm about to introduce them," he tells me. "Um… how do I get everyone's attention?"

"Children," Grandpa Blaze says, and we all look towards him. "Xander would like your attention, please. The festivities are to begin."

All eyes turn to Xander, who fidgets a little under the attention.

"Thanks, Grandpa Blaze," Xander says. "Okay. Before we begin, let me introduce the chaperones. That's Mr. Cox, that's Mr. Martins, that's my dad, um, Mr. Caldwell, and that's my mom, Ms. Katie. Over there is Mrs. Barker," he indicates Ethan's mom. "And that's Mr. Baker," Austin's dad. "Mrs. Peterson, and Mr. and Mrs. Redmont. More parents might show up later, including to help supervise the trick-or-treating. We might be teens so they do trust us a little, but they'll still want to make sure we're safe."

With so many people about, and costumes galore, there can be incidents. We don't really have Halloween crime in this area, but it can happen. So can accidents on the road.

"Then over there," Xander continues. "That's Uncle Roger, but you should call him Mr. Roger. He's my great-uncle and it's okay for me to say that."

It's okay for him to say that? Oh! He means because that would reveal that Mr. Roger is a sun dragon, wouldn't it? I guess Mr. Roger doesn't mind others knowing now, even though I know he didn't want it known when we spoke about it recently.

"This is my uncle, Uncle Aurum," Xander gestures to the young man I don't recognize. "It's his human form. And the little kid is my cousin, Solaris. Uncle Aurum put him into his own human form for this party, and he's roughly the equivalent of a three-year-old human even though he's only about two months old. Horses age differently from humans, and his particular breed ages even faster."

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

So that's Aurum and Solaris?

"Uncle Aurum said he'd prefer it if y'all called him Uncle Aurum," Xander tells us before gesturing to Grandma Lily. "And this is Grandma Lily. She's Grandpa Adrian's wife. Then that's Grandma Celeste and Uncle Aurum, who said it's okay for y'all to call them by those instead of being more formal. They're both unicorns. And that's my cousin, Solaris. He's a flaremane horse of a higher breed who's also half-unicorn, so he's a person. Uncle Aurum gave him a human form so he could participate in the party. And sitting on Grandma Celeste's shoulder is Grandpa Blaze. That's her husband."

Xander just casually glossing over the fact that he's invited several magic beast monarchs to chaperone a party of teens is completely like him. So is all of the other stuff he glossed over. It seems he's really nervous, as he repeated the introductions for Uncle Aurum and Solaris.

"Now that those introductions are done," Xander says. "It's time to discuss other stuff. I think y'all noticed, but there are Halloween-themed glasses for everyone, with their names on them. You can use those to drink, or you can use the plain cup with your name on it or whatever. There's a choice. If you want the plain one, they're in the cabinets.

"If you didn't get to decorate a glass," he continues. "You can do that as well, but we have another activity to start this off. Blah blah blah, and if I can direct your attention over to the crafting section, you'll see that there's stuff to make decorated trick-or-treat buckets."

"Xander," Grandma Celeste gently says. "You can't just gloss over details."

"My mind got all jumbled and I gave up and just went to the next part."

A few of us snicker. I did my best not to when he said "blah blah blah", but him being blunt about why he did it is just too funny not to. That's exactly the sort of thing I expect from him – to just give up and skip stuff sometimes when explaining things.

"Can you try again?" She suggests, and Xander lets out a big, reluctant sigh.

"Okay," he thinks for a few moments. "I know some or most or all of y'all probably brought your own bags or buckets, but I have stuff for you to decorate a bucket for trick-or-treating. This way, if you want a custom one of your own, you can do that. If I can direct your attention over to the crafting section, you'll see that there's stuff to make them there. The buckets come in a few colors and shapes, and there are stickers, paints, markers, and more for decorating. One bucket per person, please. And yes, there are large canvas bags there as well. Depending on how many houses we go to tonight, people might end up with more than what'll fit in the bucket. The adults can keep the bags in their cars and the buckets can get dumped into them as they get full. That was Dad's idea."

Having a bag in the car to dump the candy and goods into when the bucket or smaller bag gets full is normal practice. Even people who only do one neighborhood generally have a backup bag.

"There are also activities in the gym," Xander informs everyone. "Um… I looked at a few at the park on Sunday to see if I should make any adjustments. I hope y'all enjoy them, but lemme know if anything's wrong. I did have help so they should be fine, but maybe I messed them up. So just lemme know, okay?"

"They're all fine," Mr. Caldwell says.

"Maybe," Xander says. "Dinner's at 5, and we're gonna have pizza and stuff. After dinner, anyone who wants to craft a Halloween-themed magic lamp can do so. I'll try to have the stuff out for that by 6. We'll be leaving for trick-or-treating at around 7:30, maybe a little later. Um… since we're such a big group, we're splitting up into smaller groups for that and getting taken by adult supervisors to different neighborhoods. That way, we don't crowd any one neighborhood when combined with everyone else who'll be out.

"And then we'll meet up here after finishing," he continues. "Grandpa Blaze said that people who go trick-or-treating in groups sometimes share their haul with their friends, especially if it's stuff they don't like. Oh, but if you don't want to share, you don't have to. And if you don't want to meet up here, you don't have to. Or if you want to meet up earlier or later, you can."

Trick-or-treating continues until six in the morning, though not everyone stays up that long. Some people only do one neighborhood, or half the night. They might start later instead of earlier. It's up to the group, and that's probably how it'll be for us as well.

Knowing the real history of Halloween, I can't help but wonder if the reason it happens during the night, past most kids' bedtimes, is because of its origins. If I remember what we were told correctly, people in costumes wandering around helps to chase the pixies away. It's probably not needed for that to happen all through the night, there's probably some sort of weird magic which happens from the trick-or-treating which has led to it being an all-night activity.

"I think that's all for now," Xander says. "So y'all can go do, um… whatever you're gonna do."

"Gonna decorate a bucket!" I tell him. "Wanna join?"

"Yes," Xander says, then his tail wags. "Wanna be a snow leopardkin? All of the kids who know the spell have already shifted."

That includes Tessa and Ian. Both wolfkin, of course. The only people who know how to do variations are Xander and Carter, and the latter only knows one variation.

"Sure!"

Xander uses the spell on me and has become custom, I let my tail flick up to my mouth and catch it.

"Snow leopards are weird," Xander mutters, causing a few of us to chuckle.

We head to the crafting zone and grab supplies. The plan had originally been to just use a shopping bag with handles I'd drawn on, but an actual bucket works, too. In hindsight, I have enough money to buy a bucket of my own.

This will be more fun, though, since I can decorate it with Xander! I pick out a cauldron while he picks a pumpkin. There are paints and paint markers for us to use, stencils, glitter glue, stickers, and various other craft items.

"Doing a face?" I ask Xander as we work on ours.

That's what it looks like. He's used some sort of custom pencil to draw a face onto his pumpkin. Two triangles for eyes, a triangle for a nose, and a mouth with a few teeth. A classic jack-o-lantern design, just like the jack-o-lantern he made at the pumpkin party.

"Yeah," he says. "But I'm gonna use a silver glow paint pen so that it's not just black eyes."

"Glitter paint?"

"Glow."

"There's ones that are both."

"I know," Xander gives me a look like I just said something stupid. "I'm the one who bought them. I just want glowy eyes, not sparkly ones."

Yeah, that was dumb of me. Xander very likely only recently bought the supplies for the bucket decorating activity. Of course he'd know there are glittery glow markers.

Xander finishes his bucket a lot earlier than I finish mine. That's only natural, though, since his is a lot simpler than mine. I use small and medium pompoms, some pipe cleaners, and tissue paper to make a fire design at the bottom, and to make it look like the cauldron's bubbling over at the top. Once all of that is done, I sign my name in gold on the bottom, then add the year.

Parties at Xander's might not become a regular thing and they might not happen every year. If that's the case, I can still decorate buckets every year on my own, and I want to make sure each one is marked.

Once my bucket is done, I decorate a canvas bag. That one's not great for using the paint markers on, so I mostly use other supplies to add in some ghosts and cauldrons.

"There we go!" I say once I'm done.

I put the bucket and bag on the table for those to be stored on, then head into the gym. Upon entering it, I stop and stare at the stuff in here. It's even more decorated than the rec room was, and there are many stations set up.

Apples bob in a wide, shallow bucket full of water. Donuts hang from strings attached to a dowel rod fixed onto a frame to keep them suspended in the air. White bandage rolls sit on a table. Black plastic cauldrons are lined up on a table, their tops mostly covered with enough space for a hand to enter. Small mage hats sit fixed to a board on the ground, a series of colored rings sitting on a table in front of a tape line about ten feet away.

Thirteen jars of candy sit on another table with paper and pens in front of them. Seven black plastic cauldrons filled with toys and treats and other items sit on a table, wrapped in plastic. Each has a small box sitting in front of it, and green raffle tickets sit to the side of the cauldrons. They're split apart and then folded up into stacks, tied with a black ribbon.

That's not even everything. He's really got a lot of stuff in here, yet everything is still spaced out enough to give everyone plenty of room. Just how much space a gym really has only becomes evident when it's full of stuff for activities.

I walk over to the table with the gift cauldrons and look at the paper in front of the raffle ticket stacks. Xander did his best to write neatly for the directions here.

Each person gets one stack of tickets. Write your name on the backs of them, then put them into the box for the gift cauldron or cauldrons you want to enter into the raffle for. The drawing will take place before we leave for trick-or-treating, so that anyone who doesn't return after can have it before they go.

There are thirteen tickets in each stack and a silver pen beside those. I grab one of the stacks, untie it, then use the ribbon as a bracelet because it's more than long enough for that. After writing my name on the back of each one from my stack, I look at the cauldrons.

Each one has a different theme. Movies, candy, fitness, cookies, toys, crafts, and spa.

This is such a hard choice. Each one has gift cards in them, too. It feels wrong to enter into a raffle for free when each cauldron has a cost of $100 before even factoring in the stuff which isn't a gift card.

Mr. Caldwell probably had to talk Xander down from a higher amount for the gift cards, too… which only makes me feel a little bit better about this. The value isn't as high as it could have been.

I split my tickets evenly between movies, cookies, crafts, and spa, with only one ticket going into toys.

The next thing I do is try to guess how many candies are in each jar. Xander wouldn't have stood for hiding something inside to make there be less than it looks like. I do my best to calculate exactly how many would fit of each candy to fit into the jar if it's full of exactly what it looks like it contains.

I also try not to laugh at the fact that he has one that's just entirely green gummy bears, one which is entirely green gummy worms, and one which is full of only green jelly beans. Mr. Caldwell must have struggled to talk him out of that.

After putting in my guesses for the candy jars, I walk over to an area with several posts set up, fake webbing stretched between them and a table of fake spiders sitting on it. A pad of black paper with a pen lists the rules in orange. Throw spiders until I've got three stuck to the web, then write down my toss count on the pages underneath. Retrieve the spiders and return them to the table once done.

No reward listed for managing it the quickest, but several of the others already have multiple attempts written down.

There's also an asterisk at the bottom of the directions page telling us to be honest because the pad is enchanted to turn false claims red. All of them are in the orange ink of the pen, so everyone's been honest so far.

Which doesn't surprise me. Of the kids I know well here, we're all pretty honest when it comes to things like this.

I pick up a spider and toss it, the spider bouncing off of the web.

That looked like it would stick… this is going to be harder than it looks. No wonder there isn't a success under twenty-eight tosses listed in the pad.

[Luke – 13 years]

"I'm… not comfortable with this game," I tell my friends.

We're at the bucket for bobbing for apples, which is a game I've heard about others playing but have never seen, myself. Tyler, Seph, and Parker all want to play it and are asking me if I want to join. Upon finding out that I've never played it before, they explained all of the rules to me. This does not seem a very dignified game and doing it with a lot of people around seems like a bad idea.

The point of it also eludes me.

"Why not?" Seph asks.

"Isn't this a-"

Tyler sharply pinches my right ear to stop me from finishing the question. Parker just gives us a confused look while Seph seems to understand what I was going to ask. He's seen this happen enough to know.

"You don't have to join us," Tyler says. "It's just something for fun. Anyway! We're gonna do it now!"

The three of them get on their knees in front of the bucket. Mats were set up around it to make kneeling more comfortable than on a hard floor. With how dry they are, they probably have some sort of enchantment on them to deal with any water which comes out, too.

"Last chance," Tyler tells me. "Joining us, or are we beginning?"

I'd really rather not do this, but nobody else seems to have an issue with it. Then again, Cyrus and Bridget haven't played this so I don't know if they do or not. At least half of the kids here have played it at some point, though. It would probably make me stand out to not participate, as much as I'd rather not.

"Alright," I give in. "I'll… try."

I get on my knees beside the bucket, then Tyler calls for us to go. I dip my face into the water and try to grab an apple with my teeth, as they said I'm supposed to do. It's a lot more difficult than I expected it to be. Trying to grab one before my friends do is hard but quickly becomes fun as well. It's still uncomfortable, though.

When I pull my head out of the water, an apple in my mouth, Seph is chomping down on an apple while Tyler and Parker are still trying to get them.

"So?" Seph's got a massive smile on his face. "Did you have fun?"

I take a bite of my apple. There's no way I'm answering him on that.

Tyler finishes third, Parker last. Once we're all done, we move away from it and dry our faces off. Seph suggests we play the donut-on-a-string game, which is just trying to eat the donut without using our hands. Whoever finishes first wins.

Shoving my face into a friend's popcorn to get a big bite when it's just us or a small group of us is one thing. Doing stuff like this when a lot of people are around is something completely different. I've already done one thing in a crowd which isn't befitting the heir to the Gatewood Energy Company.

Which was a mistake. The others are probably wondering if someone who does that is really qualified to take over such a big and important company in the future, even if that day is decades away. Any picture of that which gets out will cause problems, too.

I really shouldn't have done that, no matter how fun it turned out to be.

Eating a donut off of a string without using my hands is probably even worse than that. If it were just the four of us, in private, then I'd have no issue doing it. The competition does look fun, but my image… argh.

What do I do?

Tyler, Seph, and Parker join the next round of it after Mr. Martins puts up the new dowel rod with hanging donuts. Xander's in the batch, too, and he holds his hands down beside his sides as he happily bites into the donut with orange icing before him. His tail is wagging really fast as he does, which is strange. This seems like something which would normally be an activity he'd avoid.

Then again, their hands aren't tied behind their backs, and the donuts are hung high enough that everyone has to stand for it. Mr. Martins has to adjust the string lengths for each boy so that it's at the right height for them.

Xander, the person who probably gets the most uncomfortable out of anyone here, is participating in the game. And he's enjoying it, if his wagging tail is any indication.

Only a fool would dare judge me for participating in party activities Xander King himself set up. The Kings stand above all others, and he stands above high society in its entirety. I think they would judge me if I didn't participate in the activities he set up, especially if he participates in them as well.

"Alright!" Mr. Martins says once everyone finishes their donuts, Xander the winner. "Do we have another five who want to compete? This round will be full donuts filled with raspberry jam."

That's a little messier than I'd like, especially since they're coated in powdered sugar rather than just icing. The last round were just regular ring-shaped donuts with icing.

If I'm doing this, though, then I should join in anyway.

"I'll join," I say.

"Seriously?" Parker asks.

"Yeah," I answer. "It looked fun."

[Xander – 13 years]

The call went out for everyone to start preparing to go trick-or-treating, so now I'm waiting for everyone to get ready and assemble here in the rec room.

Some of them are wearing costumes for trick-or-treating. Those with more money in their family have under clothes which provide warmth, allowing for wearing costumes while trick-or-treating without needing to wear a coat over it.

Those who can't afford such under clothes (or costumes with the enchantments) but were wearing costumes for the party are changing as well. For them, it's out of their costumes and into regular, warmer clothes so they won't be too cold while trick-or-treating.

If I'd thought about it, I would have given everyone a bracelet with a similar effect, so that everyone who wanted to wear a costume for that part could.

Already assembled in here are those who just needed to put on their coats/hoodies, as well as our chaperones. There are an additional ten of them from at the start of the party, though Uncle Roger left earlier so that he can set up his table.

I'm not wearing a costume, I'm just wearing the same outfit I wore for the party, but with a hoodie, beanie, and gloves.

"Okay, everyone," I say once everyone has assembled and those changing into costumes have done so. "Before we leave, it's time to announce the winners of the gift cauldron raffles and the candy guessing game."

I gesture and a big weaving of light forms behind me, announcing who won what.

"Xander," Dad sighs. "You were supposed to tell them."

"I did tell them," I say, and a bunch of the other kids snicker. "See?" I gesture to the light weaving. "A big list of who won what. This is faster and more efficient than saying each name individually. Everyone who won, you can take your prize to your room, your parents, or whatever. If you're not returning after trick-or-treating, make sure to take it with you. Also, if you're not returning after trick-or-treating, you can grab your glass and party bag. Um. If you want to leave your glass, whether the plain, the themed, or the you-decorated one, or any combination of those, you can. For if you come for future parties and stuff. Or you can take them. It's your choice. And then, after that, we're gonna head out to start trick-or-treating. I didn't do lanyards this time because Dad said not to, but try to stay with the group you picked out. That's just for safety. If you change groups, make sure to let your own group know."

I give everyone time to grab their things, then it's time for us to head out. My group consists of myself, Sig, Connor, Jake, Sam, and Isaac, with my parents as our chaperones. Dad has a van which can fit the six of us kids in the back seats, so we're able to all go together.

Hopefully, there will be a lot of houses which don't have chocolate. I can buy all the candy I want, but this is my first time properly trick-or-treating in years. Trick-or-treating is part of the tradition, and that means getting treats.

I would not be trick-or-treating very well if I can't get a lot of things from it.

So I really, really, really hope there are plenty of houses without chocolate.