"Welcome back," I tell Lucas when he reappears.

"Everything's in the apartment now," he informs me. "Anything happen while I was gone?"

"You were gone for maybe thirty seconds," which impresses me, to be honest, considering all the bags he took with him.

How long will it take for me to be able to take that much with me when I shadow-walk? I can't even take a piece of chopped walnut right now.

Lucas gives a pointed look in the direction of Zane, Danny, and Todd, who are all huddled around something, muttering to themselves.

"Oh, that," I say. "Guys! Lucas is back!"

"Look!" Zane exclaims as they all turn to face Lucas. "A puppy!"

Sitting in the center of all three of them is a dog with longish, golden-yellow fur. It's sitting in the center of the trio, wagging its tail excitedly. There's a dark blue collar around its neck with a grey leash attached to it, but no person.

"That's not a puppy," Lucas says. "That's a full-grown dog. Heel!"

The dog trots over to Lucas's side and sits, and he reaches down and scratches its head.

"What are you doing by yourself?" He asks, and the dog woofs. "Yeah, still can't understand animals."

Lucas actually seems disappointed as he mutters that, and all four of us are staring at him. I know I'm definitely confused, the dog responded to his command and he spoke to it as if he knew the dog.

"Uh, Lucas?" Zane asks. "How do you know the dog?"

"Hm?" Lucas asks as he picks up the leash.

"The dog," Zane says, then points at it. "That thing right there? That you're holding the leash of? And spoke to as if you knew it? How do you know it?"

"Him," Lucas says. "He's a golden retriever, and his name is Lumi, isn't that right, Lumi?"

Lumi woofs in response, wagging his tail excitedly.

"Is it yours?" Zane asks. "Isn't keeping a dog as a pet expensive? And it's so clean, too."

"Lumi is a 'he', not an 'it'," Lucas says. "And yes, it's expensive to keep a pet. Most people don't have pets because of needing a license, then paying for their food, any medical issues they have, and so on."

"I didn't know there were actually dogs on Sivalshi," I admit.

"Same here," Danny says. "I knew they existed, of course, but I've never even seen a stray on the street."

"There aren't very many dogs," Lucas says. "I think there's maybe a hundred? Most have died out or live as luxury things in the upper districts."

"So is he yours?" Zane asks. "I want to play with him more."

"He's my little brother's," Lucas says as he reaches into the pocket of Zane's hoodie and pulls out a phone.

"Wait," I say. "You're keeping your phone in Zane's hoodie?"

"Zane agreed to carry it for me," Lucas states as he makes a call. "Hi, Grandpa. I'm going to assume the wailing is Cyrus? Yeah, I figured. Yeah, I do. I was putting my and my friends' stuff in my apartment, and when I returned, they were petting him. Where are you? No, we're just a little outside of it right now."

Lucas vanishes, Lumi disappearing with him.

"Todd?" I look at Lucas's coworker, who was a bit silent during all of that. "You knew about Lumi?"

"Yeah," he nods. "I didn't realize that was him, but I've heard the Lusvarises mention him before. Lucas bought him and got all the necessary paperwork done for Cyrus's birthday earlier this year."

He really loves and cares for his little brother, so much that he'd go the extra steps to get his brother a dog. Isn't he concerned about someone trying to steal Lumi, though? I can't imagine that's not a valid concern, so there must be something in place to normally protect against that. What if Lumi actually was gone for good this time? What would Lucas do, then?

Several minutes pass as we chat and wait for Lucas to return, and when he does, we all look at him, none of the others wanting to broach the subject but wanting to know the answer to that.

"Lucas," I'm brave enough to ask. "What would happen if Lumi was stolen? Or if he'd been lost for good?"

"I can find him," Lucas tells me. "He's chipped, and I have the program to track it on my phone and my laptop at home. Even if I didn't have access to those, I can summon one of my beasts and track him down. Most of the time, Lumi only goes out when Grandpa is with Cy, so it's not a problem. Grandpa and Mom also have access to the tracking program, and Grandpa was actually trying to follow it when I called him."

"That's good," I say. "What if someone killed Lumi when you tried to get him back, though?"

"Then they'd be quite the idiot," Lucas answers. "Come on, let's go enjoy the festival."

"Are we going to get to meet your little bro?" Zane asks.

"No," Lucas answers. "They were getting ready to head home since it's getting late, and Grandpa's going to light-walk them back, especially with Cyrus needing to calm down after that scare. Sorry for taking a few minutes, he was pretty clingy for a little bit."

"It's cool," I say. "We understand. I was kind of clingy to my brothers, back when, um…"

Back when they were still alive. They were my best friends, after all. I wish they were still around, I miss them a lot. I've also been thinking about them a lot lately, and it's starting to depress me more.

"Yeah," Lucas puts a hand on my shoulder, his gaze telling me to not be so down about it. "I wish I could have met them, I'm sure they were as good as you remember."

"Probably," I grin, deciding not to tell him about the time they stole some food for me.

Lucas would probably disprove of that, though I'm sure Zane would say it made my brothers even more awesome than I'd already said.

The five of us enter the festival, looking around at all the people in costume. It's pretty crowded, and Zane and Lucas both move closer to me, probably because of my dislike of massive crowds. Not a word needed to be said, and for that, I'm thankful. I don't know if Todd or Danny really know about it, and I've only really mentioned it to Zane and Lucas, anyway. This is the first real crowd I've been in in years.

As we walk, I glance up at the strings of paper lanterns stretching across the booths and over the walkways, flickering lights within. Because electricity is expensive, these lanterns don't have electricity hooked up to them. Rather, they're just paper lanterns with slow-burning candles sitting inside.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I'm not sure why, but we always seem to have an abundance of wax in the couple of months leading up to Halloween, enough that all of the festivals can be lit through just candles and whatever lights might shine out from apartments and businesses around it.

The lanterns themselves are all orange, and some of them are showing signs of age, with slight tears or stains here and there. Like most things in Sivalshi City, they're recycled from year to year and event to event until they're no longer usable, only then being recycled properly and replaced.

"Guys, let's do this one!" Zane excitedly exclaims, leading us over to a nearby booth.

Sitting behind the booth is a wooden table upon which a series of glass bottles are resting, forming five half-rings with a single bottle at the very back. Sort of like a rainbow's arch, actually.

The bottles in the outer two rings have bronze paint around the rims, the ones in the next two rings have silver paint around their rims, and the center bottle and the ring around it have gold paint around the rims.

Resting on shelves on the back wall of the booth are a series of stuffed animals, toys, and treats arranged on four levels of shelves, and standing in front of the booth is a small group of kids and adults.

One of the kids is playing right now, trying to get a red ring to land on the bottles. He has five of the rings to throw, and we watch as he manages to get two rings on bronze, one on silver, and one that barely missing getting a gold, instead landing between two of them. The kids and adults with him clap and pat his back, congratulating him on his effort.

"Good job," the booth's attendant says. "You scored four points, so you can pick anything from the lower shelf, buddy."

"Can I get the box of candies?" The kid asks, pointing at one of the boxes of treats on the shelf.

"Sure!" The attendant hands him the box, collects the rings and sets them in a basket at the front of the booth, then the next kid hands over a dollar and begins his attempts.

After a couple of minutes of watching the kids, we figure out that the bronze bottles are worth one point, the silver worth two, and the gold worth three. So they can earn anywhere from zero to fifteen points.

There are four shelves with prizes on them, and how many points they earned determines which shelf they can pick a prize from. For under five points, they can pick from the bottom shelf. For five through nine points, they can pick from the two bottom shelves. For ten through fourteen, they can pick from any shelf except the top shelf. If they manage to score fifteen points, they can pick from any of the four shelves.

Most of the rewards are candies or sweets that were probably made just for this event, but on the upper shelves are also toys and stuffed animals of varying quality. On the highest shelf are five large teddy bears, each one clean and immaculate, and I can tell that Zane wants one of them.

As for the rings being thrown, they're barely large enough to fit over the heads of the bottles, small enough to rest around the neck of it rather than sliding all the way down. That probably makes things easier, too, since the bottles are sitting beside each other.

Why they're worth more points the more inside they are rather than the further back, I don't know. But Zane really seems interested in playing this, so we watch as the kids and adults in the group take their turns, then Zane steps up and slaps down a ten.

"We want to do two turns each!" He exclaims.

"I'm not interested," I say as the booth attendant takes the ten and lets him know he can go.

"Come on, it'll be fun!"

"I'll be horrible at it," I say.

"You've got to try it at least once!"

"Just take your turn."

Todd snorts and Lucas rolls his eyes, then Zane begins tossing the rings. He manages to score a bronze, two silver, and one gold, a total of eight points. Disappointed, he picks a coffee cake that was set up on the second-lowest shelf, then Todd steps up to the booth as the attendant gathers the rings.

After they've all taken their turns at it, Zane pushes me to the counter. More than reluctant, I pick up the first ring. It's metal and cool against my fingers. Looking at the bottles, I aim for the gold ones in the back, then toss it.

The ring flies past the bottles and strikes the shelf.

"Whoops."

"Good try," Zane puts a hand on my shoulder. "But maybe aim a little closer next time."

I pick up the next ring and toss it, trying not to use as much force. This one lands in front of the bottles, and my third lands to the side. My fourth ring manages to loop onto a bronze bottle, while my fifth one lands between two bottles, standing up on its edge.

"So, uh, one point," I say. "I'm not playing again, Zane."

"One point," the attendant is trying not to laugh at my comment to Zane. "You can pick anything off the bottom shelf."

"Let Zane pick," I say.

"Ooh! I want the box of candies there!"

After Zane receives the box of candies from the attendant and a thump from Lucas for being rude, everyone takes their turns again, with Zane taking my second turn. With the prizes obtained, we move on, looking at a few of the stalls before coming across a candy apple stand.

There was enough allotment for candy apples for a festival? Or did the ghoul selling them spend a hell of a lot extra just to do this? She's selling them for seven dollars each, and I don't know the normal pricing for them but it does seem cheap to me. At the stall, we pick the coating and the toppings ourselves and then the ghoul makes them.

"Anybody want a candy apple?" Zane asks as we get into line, probably because he definitely wants one.

"You paying?" Lucas asks.

"Do I look made of money?" Zane asks.

"Fairies don't carry money on them," I pipe up, and all four of my friends look at me, realizing that with my outfit, the only place I could have stuck a wallet would be in the loincloth.

I could have slipped cash into the boots of the outfit, actually, but my wallet was in my pants in my bag while I was having this outfit put on. There wasn't a chance for me to grab it, and I didn't get to carry my bag here, either. So my wallet is at Lucas's apartment right now, along with the cash I had in it.

There was intent to buy some stuff, I'd budgeted in a hundred dollars for this since I've had so many jobs lately and the big one from Spelcor a couple of days ago. But the wallet slipped my mind because of the costume.

"I think I heard Zane volunteer to pay for your things," Lucas says. "After all, he's the one who stuck you in that and took your bag."

"Hey!" Zane protests. "You helped!"

The two begin bickering, but Lucas doesn't look as annoyed as he normally does while they do this time. Todd and Danny both seem amused, and Danny steps beside me as Lucas tries to convince Zane it's his fault I don't have any money on me, while Zane points out that Lucas is the one who took my wallet to his apartment.

"You didn't say you wanted a candy apple," Danny says.

"I'd prefer something more substantial first," I tell him. "Especially after today's training session."

"Right!" Zane exclaims, turning to face me. "We do need our protein first! And good food!"

"There's a place selling kebabs over there," Lucas says. "Let's get some stuff from them first, eat it as we walk around. We can come back to the candy apples later."

"If they have them," Zane says. "I'll stay here."

"Cupid," the ghoul running the booth says. "We have plenty of apples and supplies, don't worry. You can come back in a couple of hours, and we'll probably still have some."

"Oh, cool!" Zane exclaims. "Alright, let's go get kebabs!"

"I'll pay for the kebabs if you pay for the apples," Lucas tells Zane.

"Deal!"

"Two kebabs each max."

"Darn!"

We walk over to the kebabs booth and Lucas orders two for each of us, the kebabs alternating between meat and veggies, and we begin eating them as we walk around. I don't participate in most of the booths, but Zane and Lucas turn it into a competition, most of their bickering being over who pays for what, resulting in Todd, Danny, and me not having to worry about paying a penny. Apparently, both of them have been saving up for awhile just for this festival, and Zane didn't consider using any of the budget he put aside for it for anything else, like training.

The night wears on, and I find myself having more than a little bit of fun just walking around with the four of them. Zane and Lucas bickering over who pays for what or what order we should do things in is amusing, too, especially because Lucas doesn't have the extreme aggravation over Zane he normally does.

Did me snapping at him over his view of Zane really change things?

I do have to wonder what people think of Cupid and a vigilante arguing about whether dark chocolate or milk chocolate is better, though. That's come up six times throughout the night, so I know people have overheard it.

Outside of that, we play a fair amount of games, Lucas and Zane covering pretty much everything, though Todd pitches in a few times, and Danny is basically told he's not allowed to. Like I told them earlier, I don't even have money on me, though I did find out that Lucas is keeping his wallet in Zane's hoodie.

Now that I think about it, he's actually trusting Zane with that stuff. Or is he trying to see if Zane really can be trusted? Either way, it's kind of nice that he's making the effort, especially because Zane is a good guy.

Festivities for Halloween continue until dawn, but around three in the morning, we leave and begin to make our way to Lucas's apartment. I'm exhausted enough that I'm starting to nod off, and Zane offers to carry me on his back.

"No, thanks," I stifle another yawn. "I'm sure I can make it to the apartment."