"No, I know it wasn't." (On one level this is true and on another level it is not.) "But -- I can still want to tell you, right, the things you were sad and scared because you didn't get to know them, and I can still -- wish it hadn't been like that for your sake as well as my own, because I already wish it hadn't been like that for my own sake --" 

"Yeah. --You deserved better."

(On one level: yes, of course, everyone deserves better. On another: did I, though?)

"And we're going to give people better." 

Lev has this entire enormous ball of feelings in his chest that are partially about watching Mordred suffer every day for years and being totally powerless and unable to help him and then being torn away from him and never knowing what would happen to him, and partially about the discovery that he grew up okay and is smart and funny and curious and extremely pretty, and all of these are way too intense to dump on Mordred who has known him for less than a month.

"Yeah. We are."

Mordred doesn't actually interact that much with the kids; elves love children, he is mostly bewildered by them and scared of getting it wrong. After a few weeks some of them want to go back home, and are brought back home; most don't. 

He works with Lev on plans for vaccine programs and is very snarly about the CIA. It turns out that Lev can make him magically able to speak every existing language, which Mordred bounces about for almost half an hour after he finds out about and immediately puts "write in endangered languages" on his long-term to-do list. Deliberately cultivating a fondness for Esperanto goes quickly; deliberately making himself angry about every form of human rights abuse that exists goes slowly because he keeps stopping because it's upsetting. 

He loses track of what day it is thoroughly enough that when winter break ends he doesn't notice for a week, and then he looks at the date on his phone, goes 'oh shit' for approximately two seconds, and then shrugs and gets back to reading about vaccine rollouts. There'll be time enough for college in five years, in ten, if he still wants to go. (If nobody murders him first, but apparently the last Santa made it a hundred and fifty years while being the sort of person who takes suicide jokes as sincere advice, so Mordred's cautiously optimistic on that front.) 

He... continues to put off telling his family things. There's a lot to tell them and all of it is incredibly weird and he's not exactly in the habit. 

"I, uh. Think we've gotten to the point where you have to start doing politics."

Ugh. "You're probably not wrong as much as I hate it. 

So how do politics work around here." 

"Probably you should talk to Jack O'Lantern first? Try to get him on your side? And then once you have some allies you can work on trying to persuade the leprechauns and Mother Nature and other members of the Council who will be hard to persuade."

"Sure, I can do that. -- but like, am I trying to get votes, is there some particular person who gets the ultimate say who I have to convince, does everyone have to be unanimously in favor of ending the masquerade, what is my goal here." 

"Oh. Sorry. Majority wins."

Oh, good, that's better than most of the alternatives he can think of. 

The concept of a spirit of Halloween is still, honestly, pretty great. 

"Jack O'Lantern lives in Halloweentown, I can take you there anytime you want. --You'd like him, I think."

"You're probably right, I always did like Halloween. Give me -- five minutes to grab my notes and things?" 

Mordred is teleported to the outside of Halloweentown, which looks like someone gave twelve different horror movie designers a billion dollars each to make the spookiest setting possible but did not let any of them talk to each other. It does not have aesthetic coherence. It does have a decrepit haunted house right next to a gothic castle that would do Dracula proud, both shrouded in night even though it is 11am.

A song begins to play with no apparent source:

BOYS AND GIRLS OF EVERY AGE

WOULDN'T YOU LIKE TO HEAR SOMETHING STRANGE

COME WITH US AND YOU WILL SEE

THIS OUR TOWN OF HALLOWEEN!

Mordred may recognize that it is the Marilyn Manson cover.

Mordred hates The Nightmare Before Christmas on ideological grounds (why do goths and art kids universally love a movie whose central thesis is 'stay in your place and do as you're told, you have an assigned societal role and it will be a disaster if you try to do anything else') but he is, he thinks, very fond of the real-world Halloweentown. 

The iron gate creaks ominously when he opens it, because of course it does. It is like the Platonic ideal of a creaky iron gate in front of a creepy town. Mordred walks up to the building that looks like it might be the main one, ignores the enormous cast-iron door knocker in the shape of an eagle, and knocks on the door with his hand instead. 

The door opens and a handful of chocolate bars is pressed into Mordred's hands. "Hello, hello, hello! What are you dressed up as?"

Jack O'Lantern is tall and lean and has apparently taken advantage of the morphological freedom associated with his holiday to have hair a color not found in nature and solid black eyes and an inhuman tongue length. His fashion style is like he fell into a pile of pastel makeup. 

Oh man Mordred loves that. What a good. 

"Either 'extremely technically, Santa' or 'there is no such thing as a true self, it's masks all the way down,' whichever you prefer." 

"Oh, I like you. Real improvement on the last guy. --I'm new too, I've only been in charge of Halloween for a couple decades. The guy before me thought Halloween should be scary."

Bats fly out of the belfry of Jack's castle. 

"I like what you've done with the place! That feels like a very suburban-mom-ish thing to say but also it's true, Halloween's my favorite holiday. And I kind of feel like I'd have to actively try not to be an improvement on the last guy." 

"Not going to give extra presents to rich kids, are you? --I try my best for equality but, you know, it is difficult when all you can do is influence people to give children candy. Anyway! You should come in!"

Unlike its ominous outside, the inside of Jack's house is brightly colored. The walls are covered floor to ceiling with bookshelves, so he has taped his band and movie posters on the ceiling. Jack flops dramatically on a beanbag chair and gestures to Mordred to sit.

Mordred sits crosslegged on a beanbag chair. (He likes Jack. He likes Jack's house and he likes Jack's fashion sense and he likes Jack's opinions, or what he's heard of them so far.) 

"Not planning on extra presents for rich kids, am planning on a vaccine program in developing countries and giving anyone who asks for it a place to run away from their shitty parents." 

"Oh man. Cool. Great. Not my thing at all but I fully support you. --How are you going to do that with magic being a secret?"

"Thaaaaaaaaaat is a very good question. And what I am here to talk about, actually.

I think it is bullshit that we are hiding magic from people and double bullshit that this means" vague gesture "literally everything about the previous person who held my job, and I am hoping to convince people to Instead, Not." 

"Hm. If it were the last guy he'd be all, like, 'Halloween is about being SCARED, the unknown is terrifying' but personally I think Halloween should be about sluttiness and children eating too much candy and schlocky horror movies and I think knowing about magic doesn't affect that one way or the other."

Mordred is immensely fond of Jack.

"Oh good! I -- definitely should not expect it to be this easy every time but also thank you."