Hawthorne comes into view as they exit the portal.

The main castle is very much like a European citadel or château, and it's also very much like a mountain range – two mountain ranges, really, one in the negative space of the other. The moonlight is the warm yellow of "morning," with a thin blue glow from the other side of the "sky." The streets outside the castle are lined with crooked storefronts, all bright with flickering green motes of witchfire set into mirrored lanterns, and there's plenty of wide open spaces lit by only the moon. Witches are everywhere, chatting as they walk in and out of shops, picnicking with their homework out on the greens, and buzzing through the sky like dragonflies.

It straddles the line admirably between "Halloweentown" and "the home you didn't know you missed".

He's more impressed than he was by the moon, for some reason. Maybe it just feels realer. Maybe it's that – the witches aren't just bustling along like any city's denizens, they live here. They're living in the space, not just moving through.

John looks somewhat awed, himself.

"...it's bigger than I thought things were," he says slowly. "I haven't seen many things, or at least I don't remember seeing them. But it is... really big. Right?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I... think it's bigger than anything I've seen either. And I've seen some fairly big things."

Nod.

"Why are you a necromancer?" he asks, apropos of nothing.

"Because it's versatile, and powerful. And... it can make me safe."

"So you were scared."

What is this.

"I guess I was."

John smiles earnestly. "I'm glad. I'd rather be friends with someone who can admit when he's scared than someone who can't."

"Is that what we are, then? Friends?"

"I think so. I've never had one, you understand, but I think that's what they are."

Tom thinks it over. This boy, this John Doe, he wants to be friends. What is this, primary school?

(An ally wouldn't go amiss, though, if he can use that glaive...)

He's already insufferably nice and Tom has barely even met him yet.

(There's a mystery in him, too. And if nothing else, he'll be fun to break.)

He's never needed friends before.

(You lost because no one liked you enough to tell you he was coming.)

"Maybe we'll have to find out what friends are together."