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He stared at the vintage drawing, bewildered and smoothing back the feather-like strands of his raven hair.
A message in stylized spiderwebs spelled out "spooky times" and "merry hallowe'en" complete with the old-timey apostrophe. A poem on the back declared that "Wicked fun would be in store for all who wished to darken the porch," that on "this day and this time" they would "play", but "mischief and laughter" would "surely come their way." A kitschy and possibly ironic ink stamp of a small eager black dog jumping up on a pumpkin sealed the request.
Trucy huddled in closer in her bunny costume, grabbing at some ribbons at his side in sparkling sapphire tulle to try to get her own look. If he pondered the mystery hard enough, maybe the fancy victorian skeleton on the front of the card wearing with a smiling pumpkin on his head could answer all of his many questions.
Phoenix glanced up at a slightly livelier gentleman, waiting in the open doorway of the mansion in front of him. Suddenly, his showgirl bluebird costume didn't seem up to the task. "Edgeworth, what is this?"
The other man stood, tense and uncomfortable like he'd accidentally left a metal hanger in his suit coat. His scowl seemed to suggest an internal struggle, one hand raised against the carved wooden portcullis like he was bracing himself. "That would be an invitation to the party I'm hosting to celebrate the holiday." He fell silent for a moment, then started again, as though he remembered he still had more to say. "I'm glad you made it after all."
Gumshoe waved at them from the patrol car he'd brought them here in. "You know, normally you tell people in advance about something like this, just in case they already have plans." He considered their predicament again. "You also don't have them abducted off the sidewalk while they're in the middle of trick or treating with their kid for the first time."
Edgeworth eyed him up and down, and pulled out a small book, falling apart and seemingly centuries old, labeled "A Chipper Guide to a Delightsome and Gay All Hallows Eve." He flipped to a section on costume idea sketches and designs composed of an incredible amount of crepe paper and puffy sleeves. "You were planning to be outside like this? On a road? In public?" he asked, comparing the page to reality.
Frustration put a hint of warning into his answering smile. He'd worked all month on this from scrap, with every bit of know-how from his old theater days. It wasn't like he had much time or energy nowadays, and he still had the legs to pull it off, so help him if he wanted to feel pretty just for one night. "I don't think that a good host calls their guest a street walker in front of their own child, Edgeworth."
Trucy tugged at some of the feathers on his costume for his attention. "Is that why Mr. Gumshoe picked us up? So our feet wouldn't start hurting?"
Phoenix beamed at her. "That would be thoughtful, wouldn't it?"
The awkwardness and something else was showing in Edgeworth's face at this point. "Do come in, you can help yourself to the refreshments," he insisted.
Phoenix was about to make an excuse so that they could get on with their own festivities for the night, but that won Trucy over. "Thank you, Mr. Edgeworth! I bet a house like this has king sized candy bars and so does the rest of the neighborhood!" He was never going to get her to sleep tonight after all that candy, let alone get her up tomorrow for school. Meanwhile Edgeworth, damn him, would never experience any of the consequences. Okay, he had no choice, for his own sanity he'd have to refuse.
"You're very welcome," Edgeworth was saying, with a little bow to her, and Trucy was entirely too charmed, and Phoenix opened his mouth to intervene. "I believe Maya is almost ready for the seance, so you're just in time."
The new information hijacked his almost objection. Trucy darted around them as they stood in limbo, and he could hear her meet up with Pearls and the squeals of happiness as the two small girls greeted each other.
The spirit medium popped out in extra elaborate purple robes and a veil from behind the increasingly nervous prosecutor before he could say anything else. "Nick, come on! I came all this way and Gumshoe put so much work into the decorations. You could at least stay for thirty minutes!"
Phoenix stared blankly, feeling suddenly ambushed by all the people he'd been trying to avoid. It felt like stepping over his own grave.
Maya dragged him in anyway, and Edgeworth quietly closed the door behind them. The foyer, as promised, was full of tissue streamers over the wood paneling and lit candles on every flat surface. "I need to build up energy before I call on the spirits," she announced, leading him into a sitting room where a buffet table waited for them. "Then I need to put together an offering -" She joined the kids who were gathered around a tray of caramel apples and started gathering a few different types of mini-sandwiches, chips, and dip.
Next to the table, a blond man with the lean look of a predator in a slutty werewolf costume eyed him like a meal. "Hey birdie," he greeted, with a sharp grin.
"Uh, hey," Phoenix said, and decided he was in some kind of danger. He went for the punch bowl of spiced apple cider as a distraction. There were actual goblets, because of course there were. "Edgeworth asked for a channeling? Even though he doesn't believe any of this stuff?"
"Said it was 'an appropriate activity for the occasion.'" Maya put on an affected voice with no particular accent beyond haughty, then shrugged. Somehow the food remained on her plate. "I think it's because it's in that book he's carrying around."
"Foolishness." For a moment Phoenix thought Maya was still talking in her rich jerk impression, the time before he understood his terrible reality and realized just how few people Edgeworth actually knew and could ask to attend a party. Of course his sister was there, even if she barely tolerated any of them.
He turned slowly. "Prosecutor von Karma," he squeaked, then cleared his throat. Her expression was incredibly unimpressed, and he quickly tried to figure out what he had done wrong or was doing wrong so he could get out of her way as soon as possible. "Need a drink?" he asked, stepping aside.
Her cold eyes flicked over him, then took the drink he'd already prepared from him. He let out a breath, he'd avoided her retaliation for now. "I had hoped for something proportionally much stronger for how insipid this American holiday is. Pumpkins and bumpkins and tricks and treats. Childish stories about your shared childhood memories and far too many details about samurai costumes."
Memories washed over him that Edgeworth rarely acknowledged. "He said all that?"
Her lip curled in irritation. "He agonized over whether to hand deliver your invitation and whether the extra effort might cause you to accept."
That had almost been what happened, and Phoenix wondered if it was Edgeworth's idea or Gumshoe's to basically arrest him in front of Trucy's school friends. "Why didn't he just mail it to me?"
A girl in pink with a high black ponytail materialized out of the shadows next to him. "Because you're that man!" she declared, like she had made an important deduction.
"Damn, really?" The wolfman appraised him again, and this time Phoenix worried more about his continued survival than his personal integrity.
"I'm more of a dancer than a superhero," Phoenix added, uneasily.
Franziska scoffed at them. "I've heard far too much about you and this party. I had to listen to him debate which activities to include, since most of the recommendations were about fortune telling and romance."
She had a rapt audience, as everyone at the buffet table paused and abandoned their food to process that information. That's when Larry jumped in, thematically orange and loud, and proved just how small Edgeworth's social circle really was. "Dude, she's right! I looked at Edgey's book and all the party games are about flirting with girls or finding out who you're gonna marry!"
Pearl gasped, thrilled. "I thought Halloween was supposed to be scary!"
Phoenix thought that it sounded like it still was. Edgeworth finally arrived to defend himself, stepping amid the group and the conversation to pour more juice for them. "Supposedly, holidays are a rare occasion for the youth of the country to have a chance to meet each other and make connections."
"Maybe if you're stuck in eighteenth century England," Phoenix retorted. "So what didn't make the cut?"
The prosecutor straightened and turned to him, his gaze oddly intense, as he attached one of the treats from the table to a streamer hanging between them. "Two players keep their hands behind their backs and try to take a bite out of the apple at the same time." Edgeworth explained. The problem instantly came to mind. Any misses, accidental or intentional, would result in his lips and mouth meeting the other person's face. "Any other questions?" he asked, lowly.
"Plenty!" The shadow-girl swept back in, almost a blur as she moved, and while Edgeworth quickly tried to pull the book out of reach, he was too slow. The thief proudly displayed the hastily obtained literature as all the girls all gathered around.
"Let me look too!" Maya joined in, and Phoenix could hear the warning bells. "Oh! 'By two mirror sheen and a candle's gleam, find true love behind you on halloween.' Nick you gotta try this! Grab a candle and go get your destiny!"
He was taken aback when she almost shoved a burning wick into his hand. "What? Why me?"
His eight year old made a show of thinking about it. "It would be nice to have someone help with your taxes this year. Last spring was a mess."
Pearl shyly peered out, hiding her blush behind her hands. "Maybe even true love, Mr. Nick! You might see Mystic Maya!" She grabbed his wrist, trying to tug him along. "I saw a room with one over this way!"
It shouldn't have been a surprise when she locked him into a bathroom, or when he heard the familiar sound of chains and a magical padlock securing the door. "H-hey wait! We still need to see the seance and finish trick-or-treating!"
"I'm sorry Mr. Nick. It's for your own good. Please don't come out until you see your bride!"
With that he was plunged into darkness with a candle flame and his own thoughts. Maybe if he wasn't such a screw-up he wouldn't be in this situation. Of course he knew his friends were just worried about him, but it felt wrong to accept their help when it was all his fault in the first place. He was trying, really, to make up for everything, especially by helping Trucy, but he couldn't help but feel like he was always letting her down.
Finally, after some time, someone knocked at the door. "Wright? Are you in there?"
Phoenix sighed, shooting himself another bitter look. "In case you didn't notice, I'm kind of locked in."
He could just imagine the fussy prosecutor shuffling around outside. "Er, yes. I'm aware. One moment."
Something outside the door rattled, then fell with a loud clatter, and Phoenix frowned into the view he had behind him before it swung open to reveal his rescuer. He whirled around. "Wait, how did you -?"
"Kay had a skeleton key that she let me borrow," Edgeworth explained, holding up what Phoenix had originally taken as an enormous hair pin. He eyed the elaborate chains on the floor warily. "I think we're lucky that it worked with all this spiritual nonsense going on around us." Phoenix tried to turn away again to compose himself, but unfortunately Edgeworth caught his expression. "Whatever is the matter?"
He tried to hold back his reaction, and buried his face in his hands. "I'm missing everything. I just wanted to give Trucy one good night after this entire lousy year, and I couldn't even do that."
There was another long pause, and he looked up again to see Edgeworth's discomfort, ideas flickering through his thoughts before he discarded them. "I've been meaning to ask about your costumes -"
Phoenix groaned in annoyance. This night was one bad decision after another. "Oh, don't start again -"
Edgeworth pushed on despite the interruption. "Did you make them yourself?"
He scowled. "Yeah, Edgeworth. I had a limited budget, and couldn't buy much fabric, and I'm sorry if they don't meet your lofty standards, but it was the best I could do."
Edgeworth blinked at him. "They're quite well done. I must say Trucy makes a darling rabbit."
The fight went out of him. "Oh."
The next sentences came out as a rush. "If I may, I think you're an excellent father. Yes, you've been having a hard time of late, but it's clear that you care about her, and that counts for more than you know." There was a weight behind his words, and Edgeworth had to gather himself again, clearing his throat before he was lost in his own childhood recollections. "This party has really gotten away from me. If you'd like to get Trucy and leave, I wouldn't be opposed to joining you for your evening out."
Phoenix let out a snort of disbelief. "You'd really abandon your hosting duties?"
Edgeworth looked haunted. "Maya summoned Ms. Fey, and once everyone explained the situation to her, she couldn't stop laughing."
He grinned. Yeah, that sounded like Mia. "You know, I think I'll take you up on that, but why don't we check in one more time? I'd like to say hi to Chief again and maybe some of the others will want to go with us too."
"Hmph. Only if Ms. Fey agrees to stop throwing candied almonds at me."
"Well, you did ask for it," Phoenix pointed out, and off they went.