"Alex, No. I don't know what you think you're going to do with all this stuff, which is not a costume by the way, but you're definitely not going to do it to me."

"Yeah, you'd be surprised how often I hear that, " Alex muses, "...and how seldom it turns out to be true." She's already reaching for her wand. They're standing together in the student commons of Wiz-Tech, in front of the empty bounce-house, bounceless now that the children have gone.

Justin looks sulky. "It's not gonna work, Alex. I just told you, I didn't bring them."

"Oh," says his sister, nodding in complete understanding. "Geez, that's too bad."

Justin feels a sense of relief. "And," he says, smugly, "I know you're too lazy to go and get them."

She nods sadly. "Yeah. It's too bad I can't just, I don't know, bring them to me. You know, like magic?" She pretends to have a realization then, her eyes popping and her mouth open wide, "Oh... wait!" And with a dramatic flourish and a brief flash of blue light, the heavy cape and the sadly crumpled mask appear in Justin's hands.

(Sometimes, he really hates her.)

Alex smiles, sweetly. "C'mon, Professor. The kids are all costumed up. Let's see what we can do about you."

"No. Besides, where exactly do you suggest we do this, Alex? This isn't exactly a great place for-"

"Right here. Come on." Grasping his upper arm, she steers him toward the inflatable candy house. Justin yanks himself out of her grip.

"Alex, no," he says firmly (again). "That thing is unstable... and I don't exactly have fond memories of my little, uh, nap there... and there aren't even any curtains, not real ones, and just... Alex, just no."

She rolls her eyes, and renews her vice-like grip on his arm. "Don't worry, Justin- I won't force you to endure the children's playhouse," she reassures him with sarcastic emphasis, dragging him past it. "We're going in there."

But... what she's saying doesn't make sense. Parked just beyond the bouncy-house is the oversize cardboard box decorated to look like the ramshackle cage/box the witch kept Hansel in... apparently Alex lifted that from the costume shop as well. "You want me to go in that thing? Alex, there's no way that-"

But evidently Alex had seen this coming, because by now she's hauled him all the way to the creepy, half-open door of the thing. Just as he's telling her there's no possible way he's going in that thing, Alex nudges the door aside with her food, and shoves him in.

In the confines of the box, Justin has a moment of real fear. It's all out of proportion to the fact of Alex pushing him around, which he's more or less used to - no, inside the box his reality shifts and twists, and he's Hansel-in-the-cage, a little boy again and a helpless one at that, trapped by a woman as old as she is evil, who definitely means him no good. Like Hansel, he has no weapon against the darkness within the cage or without it... nothing to save himself with but the love and quick wits of a little sister, against the greed of the witch. Justin feels himself dwarfed, made small by the literal manifestation of the fairy tale... and he feels afraid.

Then there's a soft click as Alex turns on the lights, and the fantasy pops like a bubble and disappears, even from memory.

The space on the other side of the cage door is amazing. Just through the door (still ajar) that is at once solid and illusory, it opens up into a long, narrow room, with walls the color of the cardboard but patterned in a twisting vinelike motif in dark green that crawls up the walls, lending an organic feel to the room. At a closer look, there are words, even whole phrases, worked into what at first glance appears to be a chaotic design: Justin picks out "Once upon a time" and "Happily ever after," among others. Fairytale words.

There are fairy-lights hanging from the low ceiling, too, the kind you see at Christmas, draped in slightly uneven rows, crisscrossed. They give the room a quietly festive feel, and make the lighting soft. Dressing tables in various states of chaos, spread with makeup and slung with discarded costumes, line the walls, alternating with long mirrors in which the actor being prepared for the stage could ostensibly see himself all at once. Recessed into the wall are more lights, presumably for when mood lighting isn't enough, but they're still off.

Folding screens stand here and there in pairs, forming little boxes which would provide a little privacy (very little) for changing clothes. The sides of screens are draped in left-behind costumes and forgotten props, their facades painted with storybook characters in bright primary colors. Witches and beanstalks crouch in wait, while princesses in towers wait for rescue.

"Alex," Justin breathes. "How did you manage all this?"

"Huh?" She's behind him, shutting the door to the outside world, standing in the unstable space in which Justin can almost see, if he squints hard, the bare cardboard interior that a mortal would see, if they were to look into the enchanted room. Then she shuts the door, and it's gone. "Oh. Well, I don't know if you heard about this, Justin, but I'm actually the family Wizard." With a hand on his low back, she propels him forward. "C'mon. I've got something I want you to try on."

"Et Voila!" she crows a little later, affecting a terrible accent, obviously trying not to look too pleased with the way he's turned out.

It's taken a little while (and a little more bullying on Alex's part), but with some creative tucking and pinning, only minimal help from her wand, and a few quiet threats to her brother about what she'll do to him if he doesn't for the love of peace and justice hold STILL Alex makes Justin into a very passable hero.

He's inspecting her handiwork in the mirror, while Alex crowds him.

She's replaced his work clothes with linen and leather, dressed him almost entirely in black. The pants are a close but flattering fit, emphasizing the lean length of his legs without making him seem too skinny, and the linen shirt is billowy and soft in a way that Justin supposes is meant to be romantic. It laces from throat to mid-chest, like a pirate's, the long sleeves leading to ornamented gauntlets. She's gloved his hands. Even his feet are dressed up, the knee-length black leather boots Alex had insisted on shining in the fairylight. The cape he's been dragging around with him practically all day has been unrolled and put to; with a little help from her wand, Alex has edged it in gold, and added a little gold chain to clasp it shut. There's more gold in the form of an oversize, scrollwork 'Z' that graces his belt, and the matching one on his broad-brimmed hat.

And he's wearing the mask, of course; the one Alex had escaped the costume store with after they'd been caught. The one she'd tucked into his hand while he was asleep and helpless. It's a bit crumpled and sad-looking from so much hard travel, and Justin doesn't really understand why they can't use another... but Alex insists. After all, if they don't, the trip the costume shop will have been wasted. Which makes a certain sort of sense.

Alex hands him a long fencing sword that ends in an ornate curving handle, and Justin poses with it. He isn't sure how he feels about the hat, but he likes the sword quite a bit.

She beams. "You almost look like somebody cool!" She smiles at Justin in the mirror, and he gives her a dirty look. "Keep your mouth shut, and you might not ruin the illusion!"

Justin scowls at her, and tries not to look impressed. Really, she has a talent for this. But all the same, he feels like a child, all dressed up in clothes that aren't his. Like he should be asking strangers for candy. "I look ridiculous, Alex," he growls. He struggles to keep the whine out of his voice, but it's there. He reaches for the tied ends of the rag-mask, meaning to yank it off and toss it into a corner or something. Alex's hands fly up to cover his, preventing the unmasking.

"Justin, please?" You have to dress up or it'll look weird." She gives him a pleading look (patented) and Justin feels his resolve melt a little. Damn her and her puppydog eyes! His relaxes a little, and Alex takes the opportunity to pry his hands away from his face, dragging them down and between them. "And, I kind of told everybody you were all into it, and it was your idea...? So, if you don't even dress up, well, it'll look like I forced you to host the party. And I guess I could get in trouble or whatever?"

Justin thinks about pointing out that this is, actually, more or less the case- but he can't bring himself to do it. She's standing there looking at him with those damned eyes of hers, and he hears himself mutter, "Fine... if it'll get you off my back," in what must be the lamest attempt at face saving ever, and his little sister smiles at him.

Then there's a change in the air, and Justin realizes he's standing here holding hands with Alex while she looks up into his face and they're alone in here and nobody even knows where they are... his throat feels tight. He drops her hands like they're burning him, and more or less sprints backward about two feet.

It must look pretty funny, because Alex is looking at him pretty funny, and Justin in a rising panic says the first thing that comes to mind: "I... I'm thinking that I'm gonna ask Juliet to come to the Masq with me."

Alex's face clouds. "You're what?"

Alex's brain is working slow, that must be it. She can't have heard that right. Her face darkens as she tries to process what she's just heard fall out of her brother's mouth. "You're what?"

"Uh, yeah, I was thinking I'd bring her..." Justin's looking pretty sheepish, and Alex catches on quick: they're pretending that the toothy bitch he lives with never dumped him three nights ago. And Justin's really bad at pretending. He's probably really embarrassed. Right. So the situation calls for delicacy and tact.

Alex snatches the Zorro sword back, and snaps, "What are you talking about? Pollyanna's supposed to be halfway to Pennsylvania by then!

Oops.

Yeah, so the whole tact-and-subtlety thing has never really been Alex's strong point? But maybe it didn't sound as bad out loud as it had in her head? Yeah, no. One look at Justin's grim, grey face sort of kills that idea. It had sounded bad out loud too.

There's this weird moment. Then Justin says, kind of quiet, "So you heard, huh?" and then, after a beat in which Alex doesn't respond, he adds, "And it's Transylvania, Alex," sounding offended. He does peel off the eye-mask then, folding it neatly with typical annoying Justin-ness, before tucking it away into a pocket.

Alex throws her hands in the air, exasperated (and narrowly missing Justin with the business end of the safety pin, but he ducks in time). "Who cares where it is, Justin! The point is that your cheating vampire girlfriend is about to take pack up your heart and fly away with it like a bigass bird, probably on those creepy bat-wings of hers, and meanwhile you're acting like a junior high school kid who's trying to get a cheerleader to go on a second date! Grow a set! She's gone, dude!"

Justin reddens, embarrassed and angry and pink. "How did you even find out, Alex? I sure didn't confide in you, and it's not like Juliet would have- Alex, if you used some kind of truth spell on me while I was asleep...!"

"It wasn't anything like that," she hurries to tell him (although it's not a bad idea - she puts that away for the future) "...Mason told me."

It's Justin's turn to look suspicious. "So you and Mason are...?"

"No! We're not!" Gross! Alex takes a deep breath. "Look, Justin. Mason came by to see if I..." almost too late, she swallows the words on the tip of her sharp tongue. To see if I was interested in sloppy seconds or something in that general neighborhood had been her first impulse, and even Alex knows that probably wouldn't go over very well. (See, she can have a filter.) (When she needs one).

"...to see if I had a date for Halloween," she improvises quickly. "...and I told him I was busy. For like the next 30 years."

Justin nods grimly. "Good."

Alex feels a vague sense of satisfaction in his response, but she pushes it away. "Anyway, Justin, dog-boy isn't the point. The point is, why are you doing this? Are you getting back together?"

Now it's Justin who finds his shoes interesting. "We didn't decide that. But this will give us a little more time to talk, and-

"What, so she's gonna leave you after the party?"

Justin rounds on her. "Why do you have to be so cynical about everything!"

Alex feels her hands squeeze into tight fists at her sides, like they want to hit something. "Gosh, Justin, I don't know," she says, with false calm bordering on violence. "Why do you have to be such a sucker? Can't you see what she is?"

"She's my girlfriend, Alex! I love her!"

"Yeah, well she doesn't..." the words, 'doesn't love you' die in her throat, and Alex pretends to cough, choking on them. "...she doesn't deserve you, Justin," she says instead, startling herself, badly. "I mean, uh. She doesn't... seem to appreciate it, you, is what I mean. Yeah, that's what I meant."

Justin's unfastening the cape from his shoulders, fumbling with the chain, seeming not to hear, as he peels off the little bits of the costume that he can. "I should have known you wouldn't understand, Alex."

"Understand what? Being so stupid over somebody that you don't know what you're doing?" (No, the irony isn't lost on her.)

Justin tosses the cape over the table, where it lands with a flourish... then, being Justin, he follows it and folds it up. Angrily. She's never seen anybody fold in a way that expresses fury before, but Justin's doing it. "I shouldn't have expected you to know what it's like to be in love."

She stares at him. "You know what, Justin? You're, just... I don't know why I bother with helping you!"

"Good," he says, not quite yelling,"Maybe this would be a good time for you to stop. Seeing as how your "help" hasn't really worked out for me so far!"

"Whatever," says Alex, turning her back on him. Her eyes hurt. "I'll see you at the Masq. Wear your stupid costume, Stupid."

"Fine."

"Fine!"

There's a brief flash of golden light, and then the room feels empty, and she's alone. In the silence and the hurting, she notices that the woods are back, and she's lost in them again.