Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

As far as dæmons go, hers wasn’t so bad. In was an artic hare, white as snow. White was one of the few colors Wednesday could tolerate, in moderation. Problem was, the girl had dyed his fur. One of the hare’s ears was pink, while the other was blue. The end result was… shocking, to say the least.

The girl herself, the one that was supposed to be her roommate, was similarly colorful. Her hair was blonde, dyed, and just like her dæmon’s, she had blue and pink colored streaks.

Her clothes and, indeed her whole side of the room, were an assault on the senses. Pastels everywhere, warm colors. Yellow and orange and every existing shade of pink. The whole spectrum. Full rainbow.

"Howdy, roommate!", the girl exclaimed.

"This is Enid Sinclair", said principal Weems, gesturing to the bubbly, pulsating ray of sunshine wrapped in a pink sweater that was beaming in her direction. "She’ll be your roommate for the rest of the semester".

"And I’m Velunio", said the hare-dæmon at her side.

Wednesday blinked twice. She was a little taken aback, dazed by such display of color and open enthusiasm all of a sudden.

But never be said that and Addams wasn’t polite.

"Nice to meet you both", she answered. "I’m Wednesday. And this is Lethe".

"How do you do", said Lethe.

"Oh, cool names", said the girl Enid, wringing her hands. She was trying very hard to be friendly, but she was also quite nervous. Curious. "Well, I hope we can be friends".

And then two different things happened at once: Enid tried to hug Wednesday, and Velunio tried to touch noses with Lethe.

Wednesday should have seen it coming, but she didn’t. She was rattled. She had been all day enclosed in the Cadillac watching her parents sing and caress and look at each other lovingly. She was tired. And bedazzled. So she didn’t see it coming.

Enid gave a step forward and went for the hug.

Velunio closed distance with Lethe with a little jump forward and tried to put his nose on Lethe’s beak.

So Wednesday felt the violation of her personal space twice at the exact same time, and raised her hands instinctively to stop Enid. She had to physically stop her in place and even push back a little.

But it was only for the fraction of a second. Enid opened her eyes wide, surprised in turn, and immediately gave a step back, arms raised as in surrender.

Wednesday looked down then, feeling her dæmon’s discomfort. The white hare was indeed trying to touch noses with Lethe. It was the usual dæmon greeting yes, but, just like Wednesday herself, Lethe wasn’t one for physical contact. To his credit, he didn’t snap his beak. He just jumped and flied to Wednesday’s shoulder and stayed there, trying to look dignified as a gargoyle in a cathedral or a raven in a bust of Pallas. He was good at that.

"Not a hugger", said Enid, with a nervous smile. "Got it".

"Sorry", added Velunio.

Wednesday scowled and said nothing. Lethe pruned his feathers.

If either Enid or Velunio were offended by the gesture of rejection, they said nothing.

If Wednesday and Lethe felt a little flustered afterwards, they also said nothing.

It was night. The air on the balcony was cold, damp. Autumn weather. The combined effects of the forest and the lake filled the air with humidity and a strong aroma of resin and pine. Way better than being inside, in Wednesday’s opinion, with the plushies and the K-pop posters, and the faint but permeating aroma of sweet perfume. Cold and damp were way better, perfect for Wednesday and Lethe. And they were no strangers to the woods either. The Addams grounds were densely forested. They didn’t have a lake, true, but they had a swamp, which was better, in their opinion.

"Can we come out?", asked a voice behind them.

Wednesday half-turned to see Enid sticking her head out of the window.

"Do as you wish".

"We’ll take that as a yes".

Velunio jumped out first. He seemed to be more resolute than his human. More agile too, inevitably, being a hare and all. Enid followed close, always close.

In the few hours that they had been together, Wednesday had already realized than Enid was one of those people who just couldn’t stand being apart of her dæmon. They were always touching, and when they walked, Velunio was either in Enid’s arms or close by her feet, always bumping into her ankles.

Wednesday and Lethe, on the other hand, had become very good as separating a few meters, and more than a few sometimes. For science. And for fun. It hurt, yes, but some hurting was good. Wednesday liked the sting of pain that came with the experience, and Lethe did too. But they never did it for long.

They had made countless experiments, going so far as to stand in different rooms, or even in different floors of the manor. Over the years, they had tested their limits, growing in confidence and bravery. They had been thorough too, always taking notes, comparing results with the classics… But ultimately all of their experiments had ended the same way: Lethe flying desperately to Wednesday, directly into her open hands, and into a close, pained embrace.

Yes, pain was good. And torture was better, indeed. But being apart from your dæmon… it was not torture. It was something else. Worse. A splitting of the self. Madness.

Nothing wrong with a little madness per se, but, still. There were limits that even Wednesday Addams was afraid to cross. For they were a point of no return.

Enid interrupted Wednesday train of thought by leaning on the balcony railing besides Wednesday.

A bit too close, maybe. But not much. She was learning fast.

She picked up Velunio, and held it to her chest, as if hugging a pillow. This was, apparently, their default position.

Lethe, in contrast, was quite content standing by himself on the railing, thank you very much.

"So how do you guys like the room?", asked Velunio from Enid’s arms.

"Much better, now that it’s fairly divided", answered Wednesday.

"Yes, well, I guess", said Enid, rubbing her neck. "We tend to go a bit overboard. You see, our mother won’t let us decorate our room as we’d want too. So we put all that energy here at Nevermore".

"I see".

"Our last roommates didn’t like it either", said Velunio, with a sad note in his voice.

"What happened to them?".

"Transferred". Enid shrugged. "What about you?"

"We tried to kill an idiot. Well, a bunch of them".

Enid grimaced and Velunio glued his ears to his body, but they said nothing. They weren’t quite sure if Wednesday was joking or not.

For a minute, they stayed there in silence, looking at the forest, feeling the breeze.

But apparently, neither Enid nor Velunio could stand silence for too long.

"You’re very cool. I would love to be able to fly", said Velunio suddenly, timidly.

Enid flushed red as a tomato hearing her dæmon saying this.

"Is nice", said Lethe, averting his eyes, "I guess".

He also thought he was cool, of course. Very cool, in fact. But he would never admit it.

Wednesday knew Lethe was a little vain, and he had more than a little flair for the dramatic. She could see how she was puffing his plumage now to look more majestic. She suppressed a grin. Oh, how he liked flattery.

"So, did you suspect anything? You know, when you were a child?", Enid asked, desperately trying to make conversation, and when Wednesday lifted a questioning brow and tilted her head a bit, she realized she hadn’t been clear at all. A common occurrence. Enid sighted internally and tried to reorganize her thoughts. "That Lethe would be a raven, I mean".

Wednesday simply shook her head and said nothing.

"Not at all", Lethe answered for her. He seemed to be chattier than his human. "It was shocking, actually".

"I wouldn’t say shocking", Wednesday protested, gazing at Lethe.

She turned to look at Enid.

"But he was always alternating between a cat and a tarantula when we were younger", she explained. "Rarely a bird. Birds are noisy".

As in response, Lethe cawed loudly, and Wednesday frowned.

Enid giggled.

"I always thought I would settle as some kind of spider, to be honest", Lethe said. "Like Aceldama".

"Our mother’s dæmon", Wednesday clarified, and then turning back to her own dæmon, she said: "You are not patient enough to be a spider".

"You mean we are not patient enough".

Enid giggled again. It was fun watching them bicker like that. It was obvious they had a good relationship.

"What about you?", Lethe asked Velunio then. "Did you expect to settle as a rabbit?"

"Artic hare", corrected Velunio. "And I guess? I always tried to make myself look a little bit more impressive when we were kids, though. Large dogs and such".

"Golden retriever was a personal favorite", added Enid.

"Yes, but it was pretend. Or necessity. In private I was always something soft and fluffy. Like a red panda or an angora". He gave the lagomorph version of a shrug. "I guess it was inevitable".

"My mother was livid", Enid said. "So mad".

"I can still hear her: 'What kind of werewolf has a rabbit as a dæmon?” Over and over again".

"Made me shudder".

"Made us both shudder, to be honest".

"She complained for weeks".

"Months really".

"It was torture".

"I felt inadequate".

"Useless".

Wednesday blinked, taken aback but the sudden deluge of emotions being confessed without warning.

'They are so honest’, Lethe thought.

‘So in sync’, Wednesday thought in turn. ‘They finish each other sentences’.

That was only natural, of course, as a human –or werewolf– and their dæmon were technically the same person. But it wasn’t always the case. Some people had horrible relationships with their dæmons. Tortured people, people in turmoil or unsure or themselves, those who felt guilty of real or imagined sins… Enid didn’t seem to be one of those. At first glance. 

"Aren’t artic hares prey for wolves?", Lethe asked, tilting his feathered head, "In nature?".

"They are", confirmed Wednesday.

"They are, yes", said Enid, "and that only made it worse".

"I guess my form reflects…", started Velunio, but he didn’t know how to express it.

"We felt like prey at home", helped Enid. "We still do".

A heavy silence lingered between the four of them.

Lethe jumped from one foot to the other, uncomfortable. He wasn’t good with emotions, but he liked to think he was a little better than his human.

Eventually he gave Wednesday a peck in the hand.

A reminder to be empathic.

Yes, Wednesday though. They had rehearsed this kind of situation at home. Lethe was merely reminding her it was time to reciprocate.

She tried to think of something.

"I like... your name", said Wednesday, improvising.

She really didn’t know what to say.

Lethe rolled his eyes.

"Oh, thanks", Enid said, blushing red.

"Yours is cooler, though", said Velunio.

"Thanks. It comes from a line of my mother’s favorite poem: 'Wednesday’s child is full of woe'”.

"Oh, uh– I meant Lethe".

Wednesday shrugged.

"Same thing really", said Lethe. "From a line in one of Aceldama’s favorite poems. “And even Archais' woes he did forget In the sweet Lethe, that his lips had set to their ripe brim that he had drained…”.

"Is from Alastair Crowley", Wednesday explained.

Enid flinched.

"The evil warlock? The dark beast?"

"He was not evil. Merely misunderstood".

Suddenly, a chorus of howls pierced the night, and filled the night with music. They were not wolves. The difference was subtle, but noticeable. 

Werewolves, in the woods, right here in the school grounds.

Wednesday looked up instinctively, looking for the moon. And there it was, completely full.

And yet, Enid remained Enid.

"Why aren’t you wolfing out?", she asked to the blonde, who was looking down at her own shoes, kind of puffy-eyed and apparently –if Wednesday was reading her right, and she was not sure, she never was– very upset.

"Because I can’t", Enid said with a small, shaking voice.

"We haven’t wolfed out yet", explained Velunio, drooping ears down under his head. "We are late-bloomers".

Velunio was also in distress. The howls were affecting them both. Probably the moon too, in some capacity. Not enough to change, but enough to make them shake and ache all over.

"We’ve been to the best lycanologists but…"

"…there is chance that we never… you know", said Enid.

Wednesday gazed at them intensely. She was curious about this whole werewolf affair.

"What happens then?", she asked.

"If we don’t wolf out ever?"

"Our social life would be officially over".

"No pack, no mate".

"We’d always be alone…".

Wednesday was about to say something, but Lethe interrupted her.

"And what happens if you do?", he asked, looking at Velunio.

Velunio tilted his head.

"What happens to us, you mean, or to me specifically?", he asked.

"To you", said Lethe.

"We have read about werewolf transformation, naturally, and we know the human part turns into a giant wolf", said Wednesday. "But the literature is not clear about the other half of the deal".

"Oh! Do you transform too?", asked Lethe, suddenly very curious. Turning into a giant wolf or some kind of monstrous rabbit-thing would be almost as cool as flying... But not as cool, of course.

"Well, no", said Velunio, twitching his ear. "I’d just go… feral, a bit. I think. In theory".

"You’d lose your rationality?"

"Something like that", shrugged Enid. "But we won’t know for sure until we turn, if we ever do".

"If we ever do", echoed Velunio.

Enid looked painfully uncomfortable. Either the moon or the conversation were getting to her.

"And that’s one of the reasons is better if your dæmon settles as a wolf or a dog", she said. "You can run through the woods as a pack, werewolves and dæmons together… That’s what my mother says anyway".

Velunio sighed.

"As a hare I would be mostly a problem", he said.

Wednesday was listening to all of this with great interest, but as per usual, she didn’t feel the need to say anything in return. Until she felt a peck in her hand. Lethe was warning her again: say something.

So she said the first thing that came into her mind:

"Have you ever heard of the hare that lives on the moon?"

Enid and Velunio looked at her, dumbstruck, speechless.

Even Lethe was surprised for a second, and turned her pitch-black head to look at his human.

"It’s Chinese folklore", Wednesday explained, oblivious to the shocked looks. "The legend says that the goddess Chang’e lives on the moon, and her dæmon, a hare, helps her pound the elixir of immortality in a mortar".

Lethe remembered then.

"Yes", he added, "They say you can see the hare with the goddess on the surface of the moon, when is full".

Enid opened her giant blue eyes wide at that. Velunio pricked up his ears.

"Oh, I- I didn’t knew. About that", said Enid, and she twisted her head to look up at the moon.

"A goddess in the moon…?", muttered Velunio, looking up too.

Lethe looked at his human, and tilted his head.

"Yes", Wednesday said. "So, you know. A hare suits you".

Enid blushed deep red from head to toe and froze in place. Velunio perked his ears as in alert.

Lethe looked to the horizon, suddenly uncomfortable. He wondered if Wednesday realized what she just had said… and the implications of it.

Probably not. They’d have to discuss it later.

That would be a fun chat…

Or maybe he’ll shut his beak. He wasn’t sure if Wednesday would be thrilled to know that on her first day in their new school, she had called her roommate a goddess.

Oh, this was going to be an interesting semester.

Chapter Text

“Remind me why we’re doing this again”, whispered Wednesday.

“We’re taking a stab at being social”, answered Lethe, shifting his weight from one clawed foot to the other, the slightest possible dash of sarcasm in his creaky voice.

He was perching in his usual place, Wednesday’s left shoulder – “Covering our blind spot”, as he used to say–, as they walked down the stairs at Nevermore academy, latest in a long line of teenage prisons where their parents had decided to abandon them. They were going down from the dorms to the misguidedly named “quad”, the pentagonal common area at the center of the school where they were supposed to meet with Enid and Velunio for early breakfast and some ill-defined amount of “socializing”.

It was the vagueness that made Wednesday feel anxious.

“That’s not a reason”, she grumbled. “Not a valid one anyway.”

“We owe them. And we need inspiration for the novel. We’re definitely not putting enough dialogue in it.”

“Dialogue is superfluous. Viper and Lemosyne’s inner monologue is more than enough. Authors only add dialogue to increase the number of pages in their books. What we need is more classical references, and we can find those in the library.”

“Say that to the next editor that rejects our novel.”

“I will.”

They were whispering to each other as they walked, as people usually did with their dæmons, but they were also talking in their own private, secret language, a sort of personal patois that Wednesday and Lethe had developed during their childhood. Many kids used private languages for communicating with their dæmons, of course. It was fairly common, especially if they grew up sheltered or spent most of their time playing alone at home. But most people kicked the habit when they joined society at large, during the process of secondary socialization, at school, and rapidly forgot all about it. Wednesday and Lethe never did. They had continued using and, in fact, perfecting their private language. They knew it was rude to use it in public, but they didn’t care that much about being rude with strangers. Their privacy was more important. After all, dialogue with your dæmon was synonymous with your train of thought. When Wednesday and Lethe talked with each other, that was literally their personal stream of consciousness. Why would they make it publicly available? This was an age of easily concealed listening devices and omnipresent vigilance. You never knew who could be listening. Or even worse, recording. Wednesday and Lethe were jealous of their privacy. They were old-fashioned that way.

People could call them childish, or paranoid. They didn’t care. And if those people lost the use of their vocal cords for a while afterwards, well, that was only poetic justice.

Enid and Velunio were waiting for them at the quad. They were impossible to miss: two explosions of color, sitting at the edge of the central pond, under the branches of the half-dead tree. Enid, sporting a pink jacket over her uniform, with some white splattered here and there, and some kind of sparkly hair accessory clipped behind her right ear. Velunio, fur all white with one ear dyed pink and the other blue. Both of them shiny and glittery, in sharp contrast to the monochrome autumnal background.

“Howdy, roomies!”, exclaimed Enid, waving at them.

Wednesday had to make a conscious effort not to roll her eyes.

“Behave”, whispered Lethe in her ear.

“Good morning!”, said Velunio, from Enid’s lap, nose sniffling excitedly.

“Good morning to you both”, said Lethe.

Wednesday nodded absent-mindedly.

“Should we go to the cafeteria?”, asked Enid, looking at both of them in turn, politely, “Grab something to eat?”

“Breakfast is good here. No need to go down to Jericho, really”, said Velunio.

“Unless you want lemon cake. Lemon cake is better at the Weathervane.”

“Yes, yes, true, true.”

They were vibrating with energy and enthusiasm, chatty, even at this early hour. It was truly revolting.

“We wouldn’t be opposed to a cup of coffee”, Wednesday said, looking at nowhere in particular.

Socializing and morning were two concepts that shouldn’t ever be considered together, but maybe coffee could make things easier. Not for the first time Lethe wished he could drink coffee. But Wednesday’s echoes would have to do. They were enough, usually. He always felt “full” after Wednesday ate. And it was the same with coffee and other such beverages. He felt the energy and the heat, if not the liquid itself.

“Lead the way”, he said.

Enid hugged Velunio and got up.

“Cool!”, she said, with her usual gigantic smile already plastering her face, brightening the cloudy morning. “I want you guys to meet a friend. They should be there already.”

The place was not as full as Wednesday and Lethe had dreaded, and there was more than enough space for everybody. There was some talking and laughing going on here and there, but it was a bearable amount and at a reasonable volume. Nobody felt like yelling at this hour of the morning, apparently, not even the fuzzy werewolves that Wednesday and Lethe had thought were Enid’s friends, at first. They had soon learnt that Enid was a bit of a lone wolf. Not by choice, sure, but still a likeable quality of hers.

Enid’s actual friend was indeed there, completely alone at a corner table. The human part was plain enough. She had long, black, straight hair, and a pale complexion. She was wearing the school uniform and round sunglasses that hid most of her face. She was sitting with her head thrown back, leaning against the back of the chair, her body uncomfortably arched, her arms crossed, mouth fully open to the ceiling showing two pointy fangs that identified her unambiguously as a vampire. She was clearly asleep. She was snoring, softly, but audibly.

Her dæmon was sitting at the table. He was a common raccoon. He was also wearing sunglasses, and he was also sleeping, head thrown back and mouth open, snoring way louder than his human counterpart.

“So cute”, whispered Velunio.

“Wakey-wakey sleepyheads!”, said Enid, kicking the table.

The raccoon at the table sat up with a jerk. At the exact same time the vampire straightened up with a gasp.

“We’re not asleep!”, she said. “We are sunbathing!”

“We are sunbathing!”, echoed the raccoon. “We are not– Wait, who are you?”

The last question was directed to Wednesday.

Enid gave a little jump in place, grinning widely. She loved introducing people to each other.

“These are Wednesday and Lethe”, she said, pointing at them. “They’re our new roommates.”

“And these are Yoko Tanaka and Bonachi”, said Velunio, jumping from Enid’s arms to the table.

Both Yoko and Bonachi yawned at the same time, weirdly harmonized, proudly displaying their respective sets of sharp, elongated canines. Wednesday leaned down a little to get a better look at them. From this close, they were rather impressive. Scientific illustrations really didn’t make them justice.

“Aaah, ok. Nice to mmh-meet you”, half-yawned, half-said the vampire, rubbing her eyes behind her pitch-black sunglasses.

“Yeah, cool, hi”, said Bonachi.

Enid sat at the table, opposite Yoko. Wednesday followed suit, sitting next to Enid, albeit at a reasonable distance.

Yoko was blinking behind her glasses, fighting to wake up properly. Bonachi was stretching.

“Boy, we were asleep.”

“For real. What’s up, Velunio. My man.”

Velunio got close to Bonachi and lightly touched his rubbery nose with his own. Just the slightest touch. The standard salute between dæmons. They both briefly glanced at Lethe, who gave no sign of seeing them and remained perched on Wednesday’s shoulder. He was not going to rub noses and he was definitely not going to stand like a fool in a public cafeteria’s table. Tables were sticky. He was perfectly at ease on Wednesday’s shoulder, keeping an eye on her back, her blind spot.

Wednesday, meanwhile, had been looking at Yoko intensely. It wasn’t only her teeth that were interesting.

“Why are you wearing sunglasses?”, she asked. “It’s cloudy. It’s acceptable weather even for me.”

“Oh my god, Wednesday!”, Enid exclaimed. “You can't just ask vampires why they wear sunglasses!"

Yoko chuckled.

“Chill! Please. Enid, girl, chill. I don’t care.” She turned her head to look straight at Wednesday. “My glasses are the only thing protecting my retinas from being vaporized. Look.” She lifted the glasses to show her eyes. They were wet, pinkish in color, rheumy. “We vampires are all photophobic, and the two of us more than most. I know it's cloudy for you, but, for me, this luminosity is like looking directly into a lighthouse lamp or something.”

“Don’t exaggerate”, said Enid, with a little smile.

Yoko shrugged lazily and grinned.

Wednesday frowned. She was still confused.

“Well, then why are you wearing sunglasses?”, she asked, looking at Bonachi now.

Bonachi gasped, scandalized.

“Because they’re cool!?”, he said, grabbing his little glasses with his little raccoon hands like someone was trying to steal them. “Like, what the hell? I literally just woke up, what are you saying. Shut up, hater!”

“Boo hater!”, echoed Yoko, chuckling, still half asleep.

“Shut up already, hater!”

“You shut up!”, said Lethe, outraged, from Wednesday’s shoulder. “You’re just– You’re just a little guy.”

“You’re one to talk! Little small for a raven, aren’t ya?”

“Say that again? Raccoon fur makes a great floor mat, you know. I’m–”

Enid facepalmed.

“Please…”

“Get your ass down here, birdie, I’ll show you–.”

“Could you please–“

“You are an idiot, Bonachi, I swear…”, said Velunio, shaking his head.

They were all talking at the same time. It was an awful ruckus. Yoko was just laughing like a madwoman, fully awake at last.

“Oh my god!”, Enid was saying, her expression rapidly shifting between hilarity and worry. “Bonachi. Yoko. Could you please stop being idiots for a minute? They don’t know you. They don’t know you’re joking.”

Wednesday scoffed.

“I knew they were joking”, she said, her frown deepening. “I just don’t care.”

“You guys are incredible.”

“I wasn’t joking though”, said Bonachi. “He tiny.” He pointed at Lethe. “Tiny boy.”

Lethe started flapping his wings wildly.

“Bonachi, my dude”, said Yoko, extending her arms and grabbing Bonachi to restrain him. “Come here. You’re tired. I’m tired. Is too late for this. Or too early”, she slurred. “Whatever. Chill.”

She started scratching her dæmon’s head, and he visibly calmed down. They both did.

“Anyway”, said Yoko. “Good morning and nice to meet you. Sorry. We really were joking. And we’ve been up all night so this is like, too late, too early and too much right now, all at the same time. We need blood and coffee.”

“Coffee first, please”, muttered Bonachi, melting under the scratches.

“We really need coffee.”

“Then go for coffee, you moron”, said Enid.

“Don’t wanna get up.”

“And why have you been up all night anyway?”, asked Velunio.

“Can’t help it. You know how it is. The night time is the right time.”

“You were probably just watching stream all night.”

“Maybe?”

“We’re totally nocturnal”, Bonachi said, looking at Wednesday. He was relaxing in his human’s arms, moving his head to redirect the scratches, enjoying the caressing touch of his human.

“Why don’t you take night classes, then?”, asked Wednesday. “I know for a fact there are evening courses. I tried to enroll, but there were no empty spots.”

“Most vampires here do”, nodded Yoko. “Which is why there are no empty spots. I only take morning classes because Divina.”

“What’s a Divina?”

“Good question. She’s my everything. She’s also a weirdo.”

“Who’s a weirdo?”, asked a girl who was just arriving, skillfully carrying a tray with two full breakfasts and drinks in it.

“You are”, said Yoko, smiling wide.

“Proud of it too”, said the girl, sticking her tongue out. She had the most striking blue eyes. “Hi, Enid and Velunio. Hi, I don’t know who you are.”

“New roommates of the puppy.”

“Oh, cool.”

“Wednesday and Lethe.”

“Cool names. Nice to meet you. We– This shit’s heavy could you please– Yoko, please, hey. Thank you. I’m Divina. And this thing that’s killing my freaking shoulder right now is Amphinomus. Get down, you bitch.”

“Hi, nice to meet you”, said Amphinomus, who was a rather large iguana. “Put me down then, jeez.”

“Gimme gimme. Need caffeine. Need blood.”

“You’re a junky.”

“I need to get our breakfast too…”, muttered Enid.

“Grab a cookie! There are giant cookies today for some reason. This big. But only like, six.”

“What!?”

“Uh, grab me another coffee.”

“You have a double espresso here, Yoko.”

“And another cookie.”

“This is too many people for us already”, said Wednesday, suddenly. “We’re leaving.”

Three people plus three dæmons, all talking at the same time, in such close range...

Sensory overload.

Lethe felt it just like Wednesday did, and with the same intensity, maybe more. He tilted his head one way and the other, uncomfortable, and flapped. He wanted out.

Wednesday got up, ready to leave.

But then they felt a little tug at Wednesday’s sleeve. It was just a millisecond. Enid had let go way before they had even registered the touch. They had no time to protest.

“No, please”, she said. “Stay.”

“This is everyone already, swear” said Velunio. “No one else is coming.”

“We are a small group aren’t we”, said Divina, gently fondling Yoko’s face.

“I wonder why”, said Yoko, blowing on her coffee.

“We just need to relax and actually eat breakfast”, said Enid. “Which was the whole purpose.”

“Preach.”

Enid got up and went looking for her food. Velunio followed closely.

Wednesday did the same half a second later. She didn’t know these people well enough to be comfortable with them without Enid and Velunio acting as buffers.

And also, they needed coffee, and badly, if they were to survive all of this socializing.

Socializing was chaotic.

“We’re doing quite well, I’ll say”, said Lethe from her shoulder, when they were waiting in line for their order.

“You were ready to fly just a minute ago.”

“Yes, well, I got antsy. I’m better now. Let’s go back. Maybe I’ll go down on the table and everything. Mingle.”

“Perish the thought.”

“Well, why not?”

Wednesday shrugged.

“As you wish. But we’d be better writing.”

“This is writing. Research. We hear them talk, you write it down later. Dialogue.”

Wednesday grunted. She took the coffee from the barista and went back to the table.

Enid wasn’t there. She was still at the counter, grabbing a full English breakfast for the looks of it. At the table it was just Yoko and Divina. They were eating and chatting between bites. They looked like they were very good friends. Very close.

Their dæmons, though, told a different story. They were touching each other. Not briefly, not slightly, not by mistake, but full-on intentional touching and cuddling. Bonachi was gently caressing Amphinomus, petting and stroking the other dæmon’s scales. The iguana seemed to be enjoying the attention very much.

Not friends then, Wednesday though. A couple.

She repressed a sigh.

They knew this was normal among couples. Their parents’ dæmons were always on top of each other. It was not obscene, per se. People talking while their dæmons touched each other, or vice versa. It was common, in fact, nowadays. But Wednesday found such open displays of physical affection nauseating all the same. She was old-fashioned that way too.

Lethe on the other hand was a little bit more comfortable with that sort of thing. Enough to inquire politely.

“Been together long?”, he asked.

“Forever”, answered Yoko, not looking up from her food, which consisted of a variety of bloody concoctions of undetermined nature. Soup, sausages. All red or black. All steaming hot. All blood.

“Hard to say, really”, said Divina, shrugging. “We were kids.”

“Became women together.”

“Literally.”

“Shut up.”

Enid came back to the table just then, carrying Velunio somewhat precariously under her arm –floor was sticky– and also a tray full of sausages, eggs, pudding, grilled tomatoes, orange juice, a giant cookie and enough bacon to feed a small army.

“Oooh”, she said when she realized what they were talking about. “It’s the cutest story ever!”

“It really is”, said Velunio.

“It is really not”, said Divina, curtly.

Wednesday was curious despite herself. Lethe more so, and he knew Wednesday would never ask for herself, so he did:

“Do tell”, he said.

Yoko nudged Divina gently, prodding her to speak.

“Mouff full”, she said, or tried to say.

Divina sighted and wiped her mouth.

“Short version”, she said. “We were both here at Nevermore. Boarding. Roommates. Very very best friends who really wanted to be together all the time for some reason. We were messing around one day in my bed. That’s it.”

Wednesday grimaced.

“Nothing weird, though!”, hastened to clarify Amphinomus. “We were kids. It was all innocent. Kisses and stuff.”

“Little kissies.”

“Shut up, they don’t need details”, said Divina.

Enid chuckled.

“And that’s it really”, said Bonachi. “It was a rather intense evening. All of the feelings. We swore eternal love to each other…”

Yoko chocked on her food.                                                                    

Enid was blushing, hiding her face behind her hands.

“Shut uuup you too”, said Divina.

“We did though.”

“You know how it is when you’re thirteen. Everything is forever.”

“Is it not??”

“Yes, babe, it is. Eat up.”

“Yes, and like. Maybe it wasn’t so innocent after all, I guess?”, said Amphinomus. “Somehow? Because turns out we couldn’t change form anymore afterwards.”

“We tried and tried, remember?”

“Yep. But we were settled. I was an iguana forever and Bonachi was a raccoon and we were big boys and they were both big girls and that’s it. We were like, adults.”

“Ta-da.”

“And we’ve been adulting ever since.”

“Bonachi, please.”

“I think that’s enough, now”, Wednesday said.

Yoko shrugged.

“It happened to you too”, she said, pointing at them with a fork, “You know how it is.”

“We do not”, said Wednesday. “We woke up one day and we were settled.”

“A dream or something”, said Enid, nodding. “Happens a lot.”

It was a lie, of course, but none of this people needed to know anything about how, where and when they had become officially “adults.” None of their business. Lethe wasn’t particularly anxious to explain the circumstances of his settling either, so he remained silent. It had been a while since they had thought about that at all…

Wednesday had tuned out for a bit, reminiscing. It didn’t matter. She could feel Lethe had been listening to the conversation. He’ll inform her later.

They were talking about classes anyway.

“Algebra now.”

“Biology first, and then we see you guys in History, yes?”

“Yes, and I hate it because that classroom is always dry as a bone”, said Divina.

“I’ll moisturize you.”

“Still.”

“Wouldn’t it make more sense for sirens to take their classes in the lake?”, asked Wednesday.

“Or at least lakeside?”, finished Lethe.

“We are lakeside”, said Divina. “We are in a watershed. The school was built here precisely for that reason.”

“That and the woods for us furs”, said Enid.

“And the cloudy weather”, said Bonachi. “For our convenience.”

“I do like a good foggy swamp”, said Wednesday, appreciatively.

“It gets swampy, sure. Wait until it rains and you’ll see.”

“It’s too sunny today though.”

“Agreed.”

“You need vitamin D just like us, Yoko.”

“I take the pills.”

“You can actually take some classes in the lake”, said Amphinomus. “Like, literally in. But very few. Some after-school clubs mostly. Rest of the stuff is here on land. Nevermore promotes ‘inclusion in multicultural environments’, and that means mingling.”

“Which is good, because now I have a girlfriend and we go to classes together”, said Yoko.

“Underwater classes are mostly for sirens with aquatic dæmons that can’t move around that much, basically”, explained Divina.

“But I thought sirens could be further away from their dæmons than most people?”, asked Wednesday.

“In theory? We can be further for longer, yeah”, said Divina. “One hundred meters or so, maybe more if you really need to.”

“So, technically, I could stay in the water and Divina could come to class on dry land”, Amphinomus said, “or the other way around.”

“In theory.”

Velunio shook his body violently.

“I get goosebumps every time you say that.”

“Well, it’s true”, said Divina. “But you need lots of practice, and it still hurts like hell if you force it. We don’t do that. None of us do.”

“Except for Bianca Barclay, because she’s a show-off.”

“She’s not, really. She’s just built different. You haven’t seen her underwater.”

“Should we be jealous?”

“Don’t be silly.”

“Because we’ll be open to–”

“I told you to not be silly.”

“You never thought about separating?”, asked Wednesday, interrupting the others. “Permanently? We know some sirens do. We’ve read about it.”

Velunio gasped. Divina opened her eyes wide. Yoko took out his glasses.

There was a second of appalled silence.

"Girl, you got some guts", said Bonachi.

Lethe tilted his head, confused.

“Wednesday”, Enid said, softly. She was looking at her with a mortified look on her face. “You really shouldn’t talk about… separating. In public. You shouldn’t say that word out loud like that.”

“’I’m cool, but some people aren’t”, said Yoko, looking around.

“Well, I’m not cool”, said Enid.

“So not cool”, said Velunio “Is spooky”.

“It’s different for us sirens, though”, said Divina. “We talk about it a lot.”

“But don’t you just… die?”

“Sometimes.”

“You need to do a whole ritual so you don’t die in the process, go into the open ocean, there’s a place in the Atlantic–“

“The Bermuda Triangle”, nodded Wednesday.

“Not you too, Amphinomus.”

“No gory details, please?”, begged Velunio.

“Well, anyway, we don’t need to… do that”, said Divina. “We were lucky. Amphinomus can move around freely, no problem.”

“I’m all-terrain baby!”

“You can’t fly though”, said Lethe, puffing himself a little.

“No, I can’t”, conceded Amphinomus. “But I can swim pretty well, and as deep as any other dæmon.”

“And you don’t drown, naturally”, said Wednesday.

“If Div can breathe then I can breathe”, said Amphinomus, and he actually made something like a shrug. Who knew iguanas could shrug, “And we have the same buoyancy and stuff. It’s the mobility that’s the issue, see. Our mother’s dæmon settled as a Russian sturgeon, and he’s rather large. So they can’t move around as easily.”

“They have to stay in the water. My brother was lucky too. We came together, to study. We’re twins.”

“They are nothing alike”, said Yoko.

“We are not. He’s a saint.”

“Saint Kent-beneath-the-waters.”

“Which is where he is now, in the lake. Morning swim. Six thousand yards”

“So much exercise.”

“Bless him. Couldn’t be me though.”

Conversation went on for a little while and then breakfast was over. A bell rang to signal first-period starting and suddenly everybody was in a hurry, tidying up and packing to go to their first class of the day.

Divina put Amphinomus in her backpack.

“Well, guys, nice to meet you both”, she said. “See you around. Bye, puppies”

“See ya”, said Amphinomus from inside the backpack.

Bonachi and Velunio touched noses.

“Bye, pal.”

“Catch you later, Enid, Velunio.”, said Yoko.

“Sure, don’t forget!”

“And nice to meet you, weirdos!”

Wednesday and Enid went out to the quad. As soon as they were out of the cafeteria, Wednesday said:

“It is wrong. They shouldn’t be together.”

“They really shouldn’t”, added Lethe.

That actually took Enid by surprise. It came completely out of left field. She felt Velunio’s shock too, echoing her own. She stopped dead in her tracks and stood in place, stunned.

“Wow”, she said.

“We didn’t peg you as bigots”, said Velunio, frowning. “We thought you guys were cool.”

Wednesday frowned and Lethe cocked his head.

“What? I wasn’t talking about their gender.”

“We don’t even know their gender.”

“We don’t care about that.”

Enid shook her head.

“Then what’s the problem?”, she asked.

“Yoko is a vampire”, Lethe said. “They live for an average of two hundred and sixty years.”

“Yes, I guess, so what.”

“They will be alone for most of that”, Wednesday explained, in a calm tone, as if Enid and Velunio were five years old. “Divina can’t live that much.”

Enid’s jaw dropped.

Out of left field again and faster than before.

“Wednesday...”, she said. “That’s… well, that’s actually very sweet and thoughtful. You’re assuming they’ll be together forever and that’s…”

“Why love if it’s not forever?”, asked Wednesday.

“How could it be any other way?”, said Lethe.

Enid blushed and hugged Velunio, who was in her arms, a little too tight. He gulped.

“Enid, air.”

“Oh, sorry. That’s… also very sweet guys, very romantic, but, you know, all that talk about Divina dying and stuff… Is not nice.”

“Not the kind of thing one thinks when you are our age, I guess”, Velunio finished, twitching his nose. “Or ever, to be honest. I mean, it’s kinda depressing. Grim.”

“Nobody thinks of things like that.”

Wednesday and Lethe scowled at the same time, which would have been adorable in some other context.

“Well, they ought to”, said Wednesday. “Because they have an unsolvable problem in their hands. Either Yoko and Bonachi selfishly carry on after Divina’s death or they commit–.”

“Wednesday stop!”

“Stop already, please, that’s enough.”

Wednesday was about to say something, but she felt a pang of pain in her left ear. Lethe was pecking her. It surprised her so much she closed her mouth.

“What is wrong with you guys?”, Velunio said.

Now it was Wednesday’s turn to be stunned.

“What?”, she asked.

“You guys think too much and way too seriously”, said Velunio.

“Is that a bad thing?”

Enid seemed genuinely perplexed. Wednesday was equally, genuinely confused. She frowned and looked at Enid like she was an idiot, which didn’t help.

Velunio gave a small kick to make Enid look down. He looked up at her human, and made some kind of silent gesture-motion-thing with his ears, signaling some mysterious message.

Lethe, meanwhile, was pecking Wednesday’s shoulder like crazy for some reason, and it was starting to hurt. And not in a good way.

Enid sighed, a deep sigh from the very bottom of her lungs, and shook her head. So it was Velunio who answered:

“It’s not bad to think too much”, he said, “Sorry for saying that. But sometimes you have to, like, loosen up a little and maybe don’t talk about our best friends dying and stuff?”

“Can you understand why that would upset us?”, Enid asked.

Lethe opened his beak to answer but he was busy pecking Wednesday, so his stupid human was faster and beat him to it:

“I really don’t”, she said, plainly. “Everybody dies, Enid.”

Enid shook her head, defeated. She was bright red now, but not from embarrassment this time. Rage was bubbling up inside her and twisting her gut. And it showed. Velunio was hiding his face on Enid’s sweater.

“You know, you really suck at this”, Enid said. “We’re going to class.”

“We’re also going–”

“Not with us you don’t.”

Wednesday and Lethe stayed back. They wandered to the center of the quad.

Wednesday was frowning hard, deep in thought.

“I really don’t know what we’ve done wrong.”

“We made Velunio cry, Wednesday, and Enid was shaking. I tried to stop you, several times”, said Lethe.

“A bit late.”

“Yes, but I tried.”

“When you peck me in the hand it means I have to talk, to engage. We agreed.”

“Well maybe if I peck so much that I draw blood it means tone it down a little.”

“That’s confusing and you know it. And also, we were right.”

“Yes, we were”, Lethe sighed. “Makes no sense to me either. Took me a while to realize we were doing something wrong. I saw Velunio’s eyes watering...”

“It would have been a perfectly normal discussion at home. Death. Biology. Suicide pacts.”

“Sure, but I guess we are not at home anymore.”

“No”, Wednesday sighed. “I guess we’re not.”

“An Enid and Velunio are not… like us.”

“No, they are not. You’re shaking too.”

“No, I’m not”, said Lethe, straightening his back and flapping a little.

“Yes, you are.”

“Well, maybe I’m shaking a little”, admitted the raven. “So what? I don’t feel well. I don’t know why.”

They had inadvertently sat on the edge of the central puddle. And they were completely alone. Everyone had gone to class. They’d have to hurry now. They were supposed to be in Biology. With Miss Thornhill. And Enid.

They got up and went up the stairs. The classroom was somewhere on the second floor.

“They’ll be mad. With us.”

“Probably”, said Lethe from Wednesday shoulder. “We missed a social queue and made a mess.”

“Nothing new.”

“Yes, so what do we care?”, asked Lethe. “Because we care.”

“Yes, we care.”, Wednesday confirmed.

“An unsolvable mystery. I don’t like those.”

“We’ll figure it out.”

“Yes, well. Sorry for all the jabbing and poking. You’re bleeding a bit”.

“Again, nothing new.”

“We probably should clean that up before we go into class.”

“Or not.”

“Or not. But we should.”

“I don’t–“

“Wednesday, bathroom.”

“Alright, alright.”

Chapter Text

“From a certain point there is no longer any return. This point must be reached”

Franz Kafka, NS II 34

It all happened in a matter of seconds.

The raven, sensing danger, plunged down towards the lynx, and the crouching lynx leaped up towards the raven. The raven knew he stood no chance of winning against the other dæmon, larger and heavier as she was, but fought bravely anyway, using his sharp talons and his pointed beak to try to poke an eye at least, before being inevitably overpowered by the strong paws of the feline.

And just like that, it was over. It was checkmate.

When the lynx pinned Lethe to the ground, standing over him with all her might, putting her full weight on him, Wednesday felt the air leaving her lungs and fell on her knees, powerless.

“Lethe!”, Wednesday yelled with a strained voice.

Lethe didn’t answer. He had a heavy claw resting on his neck. He was struggling to free himself, he really was, he was an Addams, dammit all to hell, he would feast on those who would try to subdue him, he would never yield and never stop, ever; but he was unable to do more than twist and squirm, no more.

The lynx was heavy, and she was whispering in his ear now: “Be quiet, little bird”.

And to think that Lethe had pitied her, when her human was being humiliated by that girl Bianca, not six hours ago, at the fencing piste. He had though her beautiful then, but weak, unable to breathe right, to stand properly, always struggling behind his human, a sad excuse of a dæmon, as he was a sad excuse of a man. Two pathetic looking little things, in the infirmary, talking openly about their lack of strength, how they were outcasts in a school for outcasts... A farce. A ruse. The inhaler had fooled him, and Wednesday too.

The inhaler was nowhere in sight now.

Now Lethe was the one fighting to breathe, and Wednesday was the one knocked out without breath.

“The lowest of all low blows”, said Wednesday, fighting for air, trying to reach Lethe even if they were too far apart. “Very classy, Rowan.”

“And you haven’t seen anything yet.”

Saying this, he raised his right hand, slowly, as if with effort, and as he did, Wednesday felt an invisible force grabbing her by the neck, pulling her off the ground and ramming her against something hard. A tree. Just behind her. And then up, up until she was at least five feet above the ground, maybe more.

She could feel the relentless, merciless force, imprisoning her ribs, pulverizing her diaphragm, pressing on her windpipe, shutting off blood flow to the brain. She was choking.

And she didn’t care.

She would have love it, actually, in another context, and no doubt. This was pain that an aficionado could endure, this was pain Wednesday and Lethe could enjoy, under the right–

But suddenly a sting, a puncture. Not a burn, not a blow, not a bite now. Something else entirely. Something way more primal. Something at their core.

Something was wrong. Deeply wrong. This pain–

A pain so great it was, so much like death, and yet its complete opposite. It was unbearable. This was not a pain that could be tamed, studied, enjoyed, not even named. This was excruciating pain, not the good kind nor the sweet kind, but the one that takes your breath away forever. Worse, much worse than that. This was the pain that killed the brain and wrecked the soul, that left the body an empty husk, the mind a void, ready to be studied by the coroner, and even this pain was nothing at first, nothing at all compared with the deluge that came right after, when it was multiplied a hundred times and then a thousand more, as Wednesday felt Lethe's pain, echoing her own, returning it in force, increased, like ripples in a pond, like waves pushing each other to the shore, likes strings resonating together, higher, higher.

“I have to kill you”, Rowan said.

Wednesday couldn’t help but cry. A single tear trickled down, tracing her cheek until it lodged in her dimple, and then kept going down, to the corner of her mouth, to her chin, salty, and finally fell. She felt it fall. It was her first tear in many years, gifted to the roots of the silent tree.

Wednesday cried.

And yelled. From her insides came somehow a howl such as she’d never thought could live in her.

Not because Rowan’s telekinetic claw was choking her, not because the sudden blow had stunned her, and not even because the tree bark was tearing at her back, leaving deep cuts, slowly but surely making a mess of her skin that would remain forever marked, but because she was far, too far, dangerously far from Lethe. Wednesday shrieked, and groaned, feeling the pull tearing her –her, Lethe, the being that they were together– apart.

“The girl in the picture, it’s you…”, Rowan was saying.

But Wednesday wasn’t listening. She couldn’t have. She was hearing a sound inside her head now, one she knew well: the piercing, strident screech of a cello string being stretched to its fullest, the unmistakable scream of the metal cord just before it broke, its final mournful swan song. And she knew, somehow, that Lethe was hearing it too, inside him, resonating in his own heartstrings, shaking his beautiful feathers, breaking his delicate insides with insurmountable pressure.

“My mother said it was my destiny to stop this girl if she ever came to Nevermore, because–”

Almost to the limit now. Lethe flapped his wings in vain. Rowan's wretched lynx wouldn't let him escape. They were being pulled apart, dragged in different directions: Wednesday up by the psychic impulse, and Lethe down by the demon's claws. Two halves of a single being. They were shredding them.

“I have to, Wednesday, there is no other way, my mother said.”

They were reaching the boundary now, the unpassable edge. Beyond laid only madness, coma, shock and death if you were lucky, the desert of the unreal, the void, nothing else, no one, not a soul, no soul.

Lethe felt himself faint. He was about to collapse, to lose his conscience once and for ever more. But it couldn't be. This is not our death, he thought, loud and clear, so loud and so clear that in Wednesday’s mind it sounded almost as a thought and not a feeling, almost words. This is a death unworthy of an Addams. And Wednesday thought in turn, delirious, lost in the agony: It is not death, for death is sweet, and holds your hand with a silken glove, remember? They were words that once their mother had spoken, maybe. Some other time, a long time ago, when they were young, and they were about to fall asleep. Maybe a lullaby, or a bedtime story. The words came to them now, soft, in this hour of need, of madness, of final things.

And then, as suddenly at it had started, the pain was over.

Something had come, crashing through the trees, a huge form, a hulking mass of hair and muscle, and had trampled Rowan, crushed his bones audibly.

But Lethe didn’t care. The only thing important was that the lynx was not there anymore, she had evaporated in a cloud of fine dust, and he was free to fly, free to soar, to launch himself straight ahead and with all the strength of his wings, fast as a rocket, fast as he could, to Wednesday, who had fallen to the ground and laid still against the tree, among the roots, filling her lungs again with hungry, desperate gasps.

“Never again, never again”, said Lethe, over and over again, a litany, a prayer, while he rubbed his whole body against Wednesday’s hands, arms, breast, neck. And Wednesday couldn’t find the words, but she cried with relief, and her tears wet Lethe’s feathers, and that was enough. She hugged him, with all her strength. They were together. They were one. That was all that mattered now.

And so they couldn’t get a good look at the thing that had killed Rowan. They were too lost in their relief, still delirious. Touching each other like this, after so much pain, it was like morphine in their veins. It felt like rain in the desert, like waking up after sedation, like hearing your heart beating again after a cardiac arrest, like the satisfying after-burn of electroshock therapy. They didn’t care about anything else. The monster could have killed them then, and they couldn’t have cared less.

But it didn’t.

Which is exactly what they said to sheriff Galpin and her stupid, improbably stereotypical bloodhound dæmon when they finally came to the scene. They hadn’t seen what had killed Rowan. Not really.

“But I can tell you it was definitely not a bear”, said Lethe, wincing. The paramedics were patching up Wednesday and, naturally, he could feel every stitch. “It was a person.”

“Oh, yes? And how can you be so sure?”, drawled the sheriff.

Lethe looked at Wednesday, and she nodded, and Lethe said:

“Because that thing had a dæmon.”

Chapter Text

There are three thoughts running through Bianca Barclay’s mind at any given time:

First: They can’t know you’re weak if you don’t show any weakness.

Second: You won’t need to be scared of them if they are already scared of you.

Third: Fly high, swim fast and never, ever look back.

This was her personal mantra, that she’d crafted for herself years ago, in the all-enveloping darkness of the deep waters of her homeland, where no one could ever find her, not even her mother, if she remained quiet enough. It had a rhythm and a melody of sorts, at least for her, and it was always at the tip of her tongue, even if she’d never say it out loud to anyone, except for her dæmon, of course, and then only late at night, or underwater, where it was safe. They had both memorized it, and they knew it by heart. Bianca repeated it inside her head whenever she felt afraid, insecure or lost.

Which was way more often than anyone would ever know.

She was repeating that very mantra inside her head right now too, while she was swimming at the lake, just because she needed the strength it gave her, and also because it was always on her mind anyway and came to her uncalled whenever she tried to empty her head of thoughts. She was right under the surface now, scales fully covering her skin, making her perfect and complete from head to caudal fin. Three more laps, she thought, and then back to school and classes all day, and fencing practice and chorus, then Nightshades, more swimming at sunset, and later studying until she dropped dead of sheer exhaustion, just like every other day since she had come to Nevermore.

This was her life now.

And she loved it.

But it was stressful anyway.

She had to be perfect. She no longer felt she was performing, not for anyone. This was not a role, not a job, not a parody. She was herself, and perfectly at ease. But she made a point of attending every club, activity and event, social or of any other kind, that she could possibly squeeze into her already jam-packed schedule. Her agenda was always, forever full. She had to be everywhere. She had to be seen everywhere, all the time. And at all times she had to be, first and foremost, wherever she was, no matter the company, perfect. Perfect posture. Perfect voice. Perfect movement in both land and water. Always at the ready with a witty comment, never to be outshone, outwitted. Never to be outsmarted in the classroom either. Never beaten in the field or the fencing court, of course. Restrained. Discreet. Graceful. Feminine. Tough. Put together. Infallible.

She had to be always there. She had to be always best.

Anything else, and she’ll come crashing down. Anything else, and they’ll see the cracks in the whole structure and she will be damned. She will be forever lost. Ridiculed. Laughing-stock. A plaything, again, as she had been back at home. A single moment of weakness, and she will be undone. They will be undone.

Drop a single drop of blood in the water, and the sharks will come. From miles away, they’ll come. And they won’t stop coming.

Bianca felt a little tug at her heart. A silent warning.

She shook her whole body violently. She hit the water with her tail, with all her strength, and breached, her whole body out of the water and in the air for a second. Sun in her scales, a million colors. Then she fell with a splash.

And she plunged in again, deep, as deep as the lake allowed, cold water tempering her thoughts.

One more lap.

While Bianca was swimming vigorously at the lake, fighting her usual battle with pressure, both metaphorical and physical, his dæmon, the great blue heron Chevalier, was hovering over the still grey waters, drifting with the gentle breeze, thinking about a different kind of perfection.

He too was, in a way, doing laps around the lake. But unlike his human down there in the water, he had no need to waste energy doing it.

He certainly could swim alongside Bianca. He was a good enough swimmer; he had webbed feet, a slim body, strong legs. But he couldn’t keep up with Bianca in the water for long. In the end, he would only slow her down, and waste energy. And there was no need for a dæmon to exercise, after all. There was nothing to gain from that. His legs or wings would grow no stronger for the effort.

He did feel invigorated by flying like this, over the lake at dawn while Bianca swam her daily laps, but he was nonetheless actively trying to move his wings as little as possible. For the key to proper flying, as any experienced flying dæmon knew, was not power, but balance. Proper balance between flapping and gliding.

And it was easy, here above the lake, to fly without moving his wings at all. Chevalier just had to ride the updrafts, exploit the warm, rising air currents, and let himself be carried. He corrected course, of course, when needed. He flapped his large, heavy wings, when needed. But as little as possible. He needed to be perfect, but he could do perfect. He had to. Expending energy during flight was a serious matter for a dæmon. Managing his energy wisely was one the first thing Chevalier had learned to do.

After all, it has not his energy he was using, it was their energy. Mainly Bianca’s. She was the one that ate, for both of them. Chevalier didn’t like to waste her calories when there was no need. She could put them to better use, make something useful of them.

People often talked, when they though he wasn’t listening, about Chevalier’s lack of movement. How he walked slowly, how he often stayed motionless as a statue, straight as a column, quiet and solemn, avoiding unnecessary movements. One insolent kid had dared to compare him with a garden flamingo once. Once. Idiots. They didn’t understand.

People thought Chevalier either too proud or too preoccupied by his looks. But it was not because of pride nor vanity that he moved as little as possible. It was because he knew: all the energy he saved, it was for his Bianca to use.

Also, nonsensical flapping around would take him nowhere. It was not dignified. It was for children and fools.

Balance, restrain, moderation, prudence. Words to live for. A different kind of perfection indeed.

So he glided, slowly, perfectly, trying to remain roughly above Bianca, following closely, even at this distance. He didn’t need to look down to know where she was either. Chevalier had excellent sight, but he hardly needed his eyes to locate his human. He was always aware of her presence. His mind, his whole body worked as a compass, always pointing in her direction. She pulled at him like a magnet, and vice versa. Bianca was his other half, as he was hers. You don’t need to look to know where is your leg. You just know.

At a certain point, when he felt Bianca’s mind wandering dangerously close to dark memories or their infancy that were better left alone, he purposely took some altitude, fast, to give a gentle “tug” to their invisible connection, the immaterial rope that tied them together. He was an expert on this.

He felt the limit, played with it. Nothing more. He knew Bianca was feeling it, and Chevalier was feeling her feeling it. A little more now, some ten, twenty meters more. There it was. The boundary. Chevalier was treading that invisible barrier now, “surfing the edge” as some people called it now. Gently navigating it, without pulling, not really; just brushing it. It could be slightly painful, sure, irritating, but they had practice. Lots of it.

And they were sirens. There was no harm, no real danger. Sirens could stay apart from their dæmons for longer, and further. They could push the normal limits. This was necessary for sirens with aquatic dæmons that wanted to walk inland. It was superfluous for Chevalier, since he could both walk and fly. But he did it anyway, once in a while, this gliding at the edge of their shared space. It kept them, metaphorically and psychologically, on edge. It woke them up, if nothing else. It reminded them of their bond, more than any other thing could.

Chevalier couldn’t know what Bianca was thinking, not the exact words. But he did know what she was feeling, and from there, it was easy to extrapolate. They knew each other as only a dæmon and his human can know each other. They’ve been together every second of their lives, since Bianca’s very first heartbeat out of the womb. Their minds ran parallel.

So he felt Bianca was over with her swimming for today. She was stopping by the shore now. Her gills were already closing, lungs filling with air. Muscles were shore, but energized. He felt all that, and he felt she needed her.

He closed his wings in a single movement and plunged down. He was a meteor, a shooting star. He was an arrow, pointing straight downwards.

In a matter of seconds, Chevalier was by Bianca’s side at the shore, rubbing foreheads, necks. Her hands deep in his feathers, his beak caressing her arms. Validation, tenderness. Proximity. Much needed comfort after being apart for a while, her under the lake and him above. They both shallowed thickly.

Sirens they could be, and used to be apart, but they were still people.

And when nobody was watching, they could be as tender and soft as anybody else.

Bianca got dressed quickly, putting on her uniform with practiced efficiency, at record speed, while Chevalier covered her with his wings so nobody could see her from afar. Gossip spread fast at Nevermore, largely because of the Sinclair brat and her stupid blog. And once fully out of the water, scales gone, Bianca couldn’t hide her body from prying eyes.

“You ready to go in?”, Chevalier asked when she finally finished putting on her tie.

“What is it first, biology? Thornhill?”

“And we have fencing practice right after that”, reminded Chevalier. “We’ll need the equipment.”

“Let’s go then.”

It was yet another cloudy day. Bianca and Chevalier had lost the count of how many they had seen this year, these past few years. Not even summer had been a respite from the sempiternal penumbra. And no wonder. There was no need for a supernatural explanation there. Nevermore was neatly sandwiched between Lake Champlain and the Mount Mansfield State Forest. Lovely wooded land, fresh air, clean waters... But it was cloudy every day. It was only natural.

Although, considering that this was Nevermore after all, it was perfectly possible that there was some additional supernatural explanation as well.

For sun-loving Bianca and Chevalier this particular environment may have seem like a drawback; but it had turned out to be a blessing in disguise. They missed the sun, no doubt about that. In fact, about the only thing that Bianca and Chevalier missed from “home” was the sun. But even the glory of sunny days reminded them of past horrors and unpleasant times better left behind; So cloudy days were an unmitigated blessing nowadays.

But then the weather didn’t matter anymore because they were out of the woods an into the school’s main building.

The moment they stepped into the academy, Bianca mechanically straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin, arched her back and clenched her teeth. Somehow, it felt like show-time. Somehow, it still felt like work, hard work actually, or like a play of sorts. Not so much for Chevalier –he was more confident in his public image, and for a heron it was easy to appear majestic and dignified–, but mostly for Bianca.

She was no longer performing beauty, femineity, sensuality. These things came naturally to her anyway, and she didn’t need to flaunt them here. Which was a relief. But still she had to feign, somehow. Other things. Harder things. Perfection, restrain, and a commanding presence she didn’t thought she exuded but people said she did, and had become somehow synonymous with their social status. The whole tiresome deal.

Want it or not, Bianca and Chevalier had found in these past years that popularity came easily to them. Unwanted, unmerited. But it came. It was a game they had won without even playing.

They had been raised –and trained, painfully– to be graceful, pleasant to the eyes, elegant, attractive about all. A stud, at first, a charmer, a flirt, a musician and dancer, an entertainer. Half-bird, half-monster, all smiles. And later, the temptress. The sultry chanteuse. The literal femme fatale. A siren in the Homeric sense. Or rather in the Romantic. Scales and feathers. Tricks and wiles. To take both your breath and your money away.

The people here, they didn’t know any of that. They didn’t know about Morning Song, about their upbringing in a house of lies. But they flocked to them nonetheless, inevitably. They marveled and stood in awe as they passed by. They tried to emulate them. Fools, all of them. Children, really. The whole student body, no matter their gender or inclinations, were all bewitched, enamored, even if Bianca kept her handy pheromone inhibitor –her school-enforced “amulet”– always hanging from her neck, even at night.

It made no difference. Even with all their precautions and despite their initial protests they now were, according to Sinclair’s despicable blog, “queen-bee” of Nevermore, whatever that meant –Sinclair’s words, not theirs.

What it truly meant, for practical purposes, was that they had been put on a pedestal and now it would have been dangerous to fall down. They were just too high.

Shoulders back, a knowing smirk, confident gait. The most important parts of Bianca’s uniform.

And in the back of her mind, a battle that no one knew about, not even that busybody Sinclair.

For it was still unnerving to be among “walking-folk”.

Until Nevermore, their presence had only meant one thing, and only one thing: torture.

Bianca and Chevalier both enjoyed the diversity of Nevermore, no mistakes. How could they not? But it was another blessing that concealed a nasty curse underneath.

Bianca can’t help but clench her teeth, every time.

She sees the gorgons by the lockers. So young they are, so apprehensive, so shy, so afraid to look up and meet her gaze, their heads full of compliant snakes that stay inside their beanies, turbans and hijabs.

But the ones that came to Morning Song forced her to look. And once she was stoned –not all the way, just the right amount–, they had their way.  

The vampires, so aloof, so cool, hiding behind their sunglasses, weary of the light and the warm.

But back in Morning Song they had craved her warm. They had drunk from it, sticking like leeches.

And the werewolves, too, would you look at them! Happy puppies! Goofy and childish, jokingly pushing and grabbing each other. Just playing.

But in Morning Song all that pushing and grabbing had been no joke, and no playing. It had been very real and very mature. And the claws–

Phantom pains. Old aches. Shivers down her spine.

“Focus”, muttered Chevalier.

Dear Chevalier. Her knight in feathered armor. He had chosen that name for himself for that same reason, she knew. Chevalier. It suited him. He was always stronger than her. He had suffered, so much, and yet he remained strong. They had touched him too, of course. And worse. They had paid for that privilege. Handsomely. Not to them, of course. Too young. To her mother. Or rather, to Gideon. All the money went to him, one way or another. Oh, they did unspeakable things to Chevalier, when he wasn’t even using that name yet, when he wasn’t even settled. But he endured.

For her.

He truly was the best parts of them put together into one magnificent bird. And his words, no matter how few or short, were a salve, a healing balm. An anchor. He tethered her, drove her to port. Out of the storm and safe again.

“We are here now, Bianca.”

“We are here.”

There was no need to say more, between them, here at the hallways of Nevermore, surrounded by their peers. The meaning was plain.

This was not there, and these kids were not those adults.

They were safe. Larissa Weems had said so, the day they had arrived at Nevermore, without money, without papers, without breath. And they believed in her word now as they had then.

They finally made it to class. They were the last to arrive, as intended. They knew from experience that arriving at the last minute, just before the bell rang, greatly reduced the chances of being trapped in pointless conversation and typically eliminated the need of chitchat when you were not in the mood for it.

Bianca and Chevalier were rarely in the mood for it. Chatter meant questions and questions were annoying. Questions demanded answers that usually required some degree of lie-weaving. Or at the very least, remembering what lies they had weaved before, which was a pain.

Also, lengthy commentary on topics they had no interest in, but on which they needed to have some sort of opinion if they were to remain “popular”. Youtubers, pop songs, TV shows. All of it equally tiresome and boring. Bianca and Chevalier were way too busy studying to keep up with all that stuff.

Weems had given them good advice: ‘Focus on your studies, and don’t make any waves’. They tried to do exactly that.

But somehow they managed to always fail on the last part.

The biology classroom, which doubled as Nevermore’s greenhouse, was already full of people waiting for the new teacher to arrive, people who had come directly from their dorms or the cafeteria, instead of spending the morning swimming in the lake like they had.

There was Suleima Roze in the corner, the loquacious faceless, with her gibbon dæmon, Aulette. Behind her, Guobadia Paskar, the heavily tattooed jinniyya, with her moody greenfinch Olibola, the six inches nightmare. Not far was the red-eyed, red-haired werewolf Estrella Arauz and her spotted rat dæmon Anaxy, who had the most horribly high-pitched, strident voice ever and lots of things to say about boys.

And there were the aforementioned boys, of course, as boring as they could possibly be. Ajax, the gorgon, his usual vapid expression on his face. Xavier, the alleged tortured artist, a rich kid who had not suffered a single inconvenience in his entire life and had visions of the future or something because why not. Eugene the bee-boy, living in his own world –a world full of bees, they had to imagine.

There were Divina and Amphinomus with their girlfriend Yoko and Bonachi. Divina was alright. She minded her business. Yoko not so much. Divina was part of Bianca’s clique and chorus, but to call her a friend would have been a stretch. They greeted each other with a brief nod. Divina was not one for idle chatter anyway, and mostly talked with her girlfriend. And with Sinclair.

There she was, in fact. Standing with Yoko and Divina there was Sinclair herself, hands clasped behind her back to disguise her anxiety, with her hare dæmon Velunio, who seemed to always be sniffing something sweet in the air. They were a bouncy pair of happy, rainbow-colored furballs. Sinclair was always fidgeting and beaming smiles indiscriminately. She had to talk to everybody, ask everybody about their day. She had a nice word for everybody, sometimes even a hug. She knew everybody’s issues and she was not afraid not show it. Her dæmon, Velunio, was somehow even worse –naïve, dreamy, optimist to a fault, with big soulful eyes, nose-touching every dæmon in range.

What Bianca and Chevalier wanted from people was their respect, and to be left alone. So they could feel safe.

What Enid and Velunio clearly wanted from people was affection, and to never be left alone.

Enid Sinclair and her bunny plushie were the kind of people that wanted to be friends with everybody. They were not coy about it either, mind you. They were always in your face. At least they were honest. But they tried too hard. It was painful to see. It was kind of pathetic. And they were always in everybody’s business, all of the damn time. In their stupid blog they talked about nothing but gossip. Bianca, as arguably the most popular alumni in Nevermore despite herself, was always the subject of speculation and rumors. Sinclair and Velunio didn’t seem to realize how dangerous it could be to dig too much into other people’s lives. Because their lives were simple, typical teenager lives, it didn’t occur to them that they could be putting actual lives at risk by just talking about them on the internet.

The world wide web was just a different kind of ocean. A drop of blood, and the sharks will come.

But to their credit, they never talked about Bianca and Chevalier’s gender.

Bianca was sure there were rumors. There had to be. After all, Bianca could not completely avoid the shared showers, the changing rooms. Even at the lake, body covered in scales from head to toes –or rather fin– she was not fully protected from stares. And she had a roommate, for goodness’ sake! There was also the matter of Chevalier… but that was mostly irrelevant, since male and female blue herons were, luckily, basically indistinguishable.

In any case, Sinclair and Velunio had probably received hundreds of submissions and questions on their blog about the matter of their gender, if not thousands. But they had exerted a strong veto on those. There was no other possibility. Otherwise, their blog would’ve been flooded. And there was never nothing about that. They checked. Every night. But apparently Sinclair moderated the comments, filtered submissions, erased posts at will and generally kept people at bay. Which had to be a lot of work. Probably.

It was the bare minimum, to be honest, but still. It was appreciated. 

So Bianca and Chevalier kept their distance with Sinclair. And Sinclair kept their distance with them... A silent understanding, a mutual non-verbalized agreement of non-aggression.

Which was the nature of Bianca’s relationship with lots of people.

The new teacher, Thornhill, finally made an appearance. She was the new hire, the latest and much vaunted addition to the school's faculty: the first normie to ever be hired in Nevermore's long history. There was a lot of expectation surrounding her.

Bianca and Chevalier were just hoping that she was good at teaching.

And minding her business.

That was good enough for them.

Chapter Text

After biology, they walked the hallways of Nevermore again, on their way to the fencing pistes. They walked together, easily matching stride. And Chevalier did everything in his power to radiate an aura of dignified composure and serenity. Mostly for Bianca’s sake. But also, for those who were looking at them go by.

It was easy, really.

There were not many dæmons at Nevermore that were quite as big as him and, more importantly, there were no other dæmons that looked as big as him. He was “only” five feet tall, which already was a lot by dæmon standards, but he had only to spread his wings to make himself look even larger. He had a seven-feet wingspan and he’d learned to display it the right way and at the right moment for maximum effect and intimidation –if needed.

It had come to that, in the past. And more. Way more.

But his beak was a dagger, six inches long. And he had claws to boot.

He was not to be trifled with. He was not to be ignored.

He was not a bird of prey, not really. He was not a wolf or a hyena either. Some students were.

But he looked most dangerous than all of them combined.

He made it work.

Even if it was all pretend. A façade. Violence was not his inclination, not theirs. It was not in their nature.

Chevalier had always suspected that he’d take the form of a bird. Not fins, but wings. They were not typical sirens. They longed to fly away.

He had been sure of that, and he had been right. He had expected something threatening, aggressive. They were so full of rage and pain back there. He felt they needed it, that they embodied it.

But when he had settled, Chevalier had taken the form of a heron. Not an eagle. And not even a gull either, which were belligerent enough and quite common among sirens. A heron.

Even if a dæmon doesn’t choose their final form, Chevalier understood instantly and intimately why he was a heron, why they both were one. Herons were quiet sentinels with nerves of steel, always alert for danger, and sometimes dangerous themselves, if rattled –but they never started any trouble. They were protectors of the waters, slow patrollers, but never stirrers. And they were, maybe more importantly, migratory. Herons flied straight and steady for miles and miles at a time. They were built for that.

Bianca and Chevalier? They’d never been fighters. When they’d had to fight, it had always been in self-defense. And when they had settled, they had settled as birds that could go far without getting tired. They were ready to fly, and fly far. They were ready to flee to land, to safety. Because the ocean, no matter how vast, was small to them. In the ocean, they could find them easily. At Nevermore, they were safe.

So why it didn't feel so?

Chevalier was growing restless. It was not like him to linger on such dramatic, melancholic thoughts. He could get nervous, and then Bianca would too. Anxiety crossed the barrier between dæmon and human easily, spreading like a virus.

“Should I go in first?”, Chevalier asked, mostly to shake the feeling off his shoulders.

“Sure”, Bianca answered.

So Chevalier spread his wings and beat them hard once, twice, stopping the traffic at the corridor to a halt and startling everybody spectacularly.

It was a small pleasure, but it was one that he liked to feel from time to time.

The feeling that he could stop the whole world for a second.

He beat his wings a couple times more and then glided the rest of the way to the gym, Bianca following him at her own pace.

A great blue heron landed on the fencing strips, surprising everyone, raising voices of alarm. Nobody mistook him for an animal, not even for a second. Therein laid the problem. An animal would have been somehow less alarming. It was the fact that this was a dæmon, alone, that raised immediate, instinctive concern. The sight of a dæmon without his human at his side was unnerving. Unheimlich. To young kids and the faint of heart, it could be stomach-turning. It was the kind of thing that made Victorian women die in old novels.

But soon enough everyone registered that it was just Chevalier, doing his usual routine of marching ahead of Bianca, and the atmosphere loosened up a bit. Everyone knew that Bianca and Chevalier liked to brag about how far apart they could be. And with good reason, truth be told. They were school champions in that regard. Everybody was duly impressed whenever they pulled that little trick off.

One girl, however, appeared to be completely unfazed. She scoffed derisively.

“I wonder who is he trying to impress which such pointless display of arrogance”, she said to the raven dæmon perched in her shoulder.

“Everybody, for the looks of it”, answered the raven.

“Maybe this is what passes as humor around these parts?”

“I like it when Grandmama cooks heron, though, even if I can’t taste it. Smells fishy”.

“It’s rather fishy and stringy, true, but it tastes okay with mustard and a copious amount of ginger. The ones from our swamp taste better than the passers-by, because Grandmama feeds them liver.”

Chevalier, who could hear them perfectly –and they knew it–, turned around to confront them:

“You must be the psychopaths they let in”, he said, straightening his back to stand as tall as possible, almost as tall as the girl herself. “Thursday and Leather.”

The girl huffed.

“Wednesday and Lethe”, she corrected, “as you very well know. I see our reputation precedes us.”

“That’s not a good thing in this particular case.”

Wednesday shrugged.

“Where is your human?”, Lethe asked.

“That would be me”, answered Bianca, finally arriving at the gym. She had changed into her fencing gear on the way, and had grabbed her mask and glove from their locker. She already had a foil tucked under her arm.

The moment she appeared, there was a silent, but nonetheless noticeable collective sigh of relief from everybody present. Bianca joining her dæmon was like watching a ghost re-entering their body, or a head being reattached.

“I’m afraid we don’t have the pleasure”, said Bianca, looking the new girl up and down. She had terracotta skin, two neatly tied braids, dark circles under her eyes, and was dressed completely in black from head to toe, matching her pitch-black dæmon, which was a raven.

“It shouldn’t be a pleasure”, said the girl, snappily.

Bianca arched an eyebrow in surprise, but immediately recovered her patented smirk and tilted her head, flashing her shiny blue eyes.

“No need for introductions anyway”, she said. “I’m pretty sure you’re the bird of ill omen everybody is talking about. Addams, yes? But it is curious. You seem to work opposite to most ravens. Instead of following the stench of death, you precede it. And by the way, I didn't know they let the walking dead enroll at Nevermore. I thought there was a stricter admissions policy in that regard, and that we only had to deal with emaciated Latinas during Día de los Muertos. Say, have colors deserted you?”

Chevalier knew why Bianca was doing this. This barrage of half-insults. This full-on attack, uncalled for, out of the blue. It was a manner of asserting dominance. The new girl was an enigma, after all. And enigmas needed to be solved or nullified in case they became problems.

In Bianca’s defense, the other girl was being obnoxious and difficult, so at least it wasn’t entirely unjustified this time.

Fixing Bianca with a look that carried all the haughtiness of her five-foot hubris, the girl Wednesday opened her mouth to answer, no doubt with an equally vitriolic remark, but she was interrupted by the fencing instructor, entering the room and clapping his hands to call the class to order.

“Good morning, everybody! Masks, gloves, positions. Come on, come on!”

Wednesday closed her mouth, but immediately opened it again to say:

“Let the sabers talk then”.

Bianca didn’t even answer. The saber was feeling hot in her hand all of a sudden. She was feeling the need to stab something.

Both Wednesday and Bianca took positions at opposite ends of a metal piste, and promptly slided their masks into place.

Bianca was very familiar with the gym metal pistes, which was a significant advantage. She planted her feet firmly on her usual space, in her usual angle and stance. Lead foot pointing forward. Back foot perpendicular. Shoulder relaxed. She had started fencing at Nevermore, quite late. But she was good at gymnastics and she had taken an instant liking to it.

Never show weakness.

Let them be scared.

Never look back.

With a blade in her hand, she was ready for anything.

The rest of the class didn’t even try to put their masks on. Everybody had been eavesdropping and they knew a challenge had been issued, and accepted. Even the teacher, aware of the unnatural tension, renounced his unsuccessful attempts of putting order and came to take a look, easily falling into the arbiter position.

“Already? Well, then”, he said, defeated. Teenagers were dramatic. There was always a passionate duel or two, every single day. “Let’s start with a clean fight then, shall we? Dæmons out of the strips, please. We are not savages. Thank you.”

“Will you be able to handle the distance?”, Chevalier asked to Lethe, that had hopped from Wednesday shoulder and now stood on the floor close to the heron dæmon, the difference in height painfully obvious.

“Worry about yourself.”, Lethe retorted, indignant.

“En garde”, said the coach, heavy Québécois accent suddenly shining through.

If anybody was waiting for Bianca and Wednesday to walk a step forward and touch each other’s swords in respect, as fencers always did before the start of every match, they were surely and sorely disappointed. Neither of them made any sign of wanting to move an inch. They didn’t even nod in acknowledgement. They were like statues now, still and alert, foils pointed down.

“Fun fact about herons”, said Wednesday, as she slowly lifted her blade. “Ravens are one of their only few natural predators.”

Bianca glanced down behind the mask and quirked an eyebrow.

“Actually, ravens only steal their eggs”, she said. “Ravens are too small and cowardly to mess with an adult.”

“Oh, you’re far from an adult.”

“Adult enough to kick your ass, Addams.”

“Pret”, said the teacher.

“Let’s see if you bleed in black and white.”

“Allez!”, shouted the instructor.

But the fight had already started.

And while the humans fenced, lunging and parring in a flurry of metal and strained grunts, the dæmons at the side of the piste had their own kind of fighting going on, one that didn’t require sabers and didn’t even involve movement. A way more calmed, but equally merciless, battle of wits, to complement the battle of bodies happening just by their side.

This was a tradition as old as fencing itself, and probably as old as Medieval jousting. It was not safe, after all, under normal circumstances, to have your dæmon with you while you were thrashing and lashing around pointy objects. Unless a duel to the death was invoked –which was common in the past but nowadays would have been ridiculous– dæmons remained out of the way. Even with appropriate protections, most dæmons were either too fragile –a dæmon in the form of a sparrow could be very easily squashed or punctured by mistake, and be dead in a second– or too big –a badger dæmon would certainly be unbothered by the fighting going on around them, but they would most surely be in the way.

Ultimately, form didn’t matter. Even to a well-protected dæmon like a turtle, or a nimble one like a cat, an injure that would be purely anecdotical in a human could be fatal. The risk was too high. If a dæmon died, so did their human. So dæmons remained out of the piste during these purely ritualistic fights. Instead of touching their blades, they did a little bow, almost a curtsy. And instead of charging and parring, they exchanged words.

Chevalier and Lethe skipped the curtsies and went directly to the words.

“In wisdom I should ask thy name”, started Chevalier, formulaic.

“In wisdom, aye, but you have not”, answered Lethe, most disrespectfully, snapping his beak as in laughing.  “You are the self-appointed queen-bee of Nevermore, or so I hear.”

“Let the drum strike and prove my title thine.”

Lethe scoffed at the quote.

“Do not flatter yourself so. There is no merit in being lead clown at this circus.”

“If this is a circus you must be the untamed beast”, retorted Chevalier.

“And proud of it.”

“Then you belong in a cage, good sir. But I’ll say, even a little child could tame a little bird like you.”

At this point Lethe looked at Laconia, who was the fencing instructor’s dæmon and arbiter by default, and was listening to their every word.

“Is the law of my side if I pluck out his eyes?”, Lethe asked her.

“No”, said the gopher dæmon, succinct.

“Then I’ll simply say than you excel in bad-mouthing, sir, and that I intent as an insult.”

Chevalier simply shrugged.

“Point for Bianca”, the fencing coach said just then. But the dæmons barely took notice.

“Your human too is a little small, won’t you say?”, Chevalier continued teasing, aware that he had struck a nerve just before. “Aren’t you worried you’re gonna lost her in a crowd someday?”

“Do not be fooled by appearances, good sir”, said Lethe, with just the right inflection of scorn. “My human can skin and disembowel yours with a single hand using a hairpin. Do you travel much, sir?”

“We’ve crossed an ocean, Bianca and I. Using our own wings and fins.” Chevalier preened, chest puffing out with pride. “The oînops póntos, the wine-dark sea. We drunk of it until we were satiated with a bliss that you could never imagine. How is that for travel, sir?”

“Ludibrium pelagis. I see. Makes sense.”

“How so?”

“Migratory birds are well suited for cowards and vagabonds. I was just wondering which were you.”

“Hark! And you talk of appearances? You shouldn't let prejudices blind you, little bird. After all, it is said that raven dæmons are exclusively for thieves, murderers and hangmen.”

“I see nothing wrong with those particular career paths and if you do, then your worldview is as limited as your mobility. But what did I expect? You’re a fish out of water after all.”

“I leave the idle flapping to the idiots and the children. You have a bit of both, I reckon.”

“Si je suis un enfant, alors tu dois être un bébé.”

“Mais non, poor soul, no te conviene seguir por ese camino. Puedo reírme de ti en seis idiomas.”

“El castellano es mi lengua paterna, pajarraco.”

“It doesn’t show.”

“Perendeco rabisalsero…”

“That’s just pure lalochezia. You don’t deserve an answer”, a pause, “sir”.

“Point for Wednesday, the score is even”, someone said, but again the dæmons paid no attention.

“You are so full of yourself it is a wonder you don’t burst”, said Lethe.

“And I feel I’m wasting my words with you. Neko ni koban.”

“Diamantes a los cerdos, indeed. And just like swine, you can’t look up and see the stars.”

“You have not read Pliny, I see, for herons do seldom else”, Chevalier sneered.

“Alas, the ancients considered the heron a good omen, but you rebut them entirely.”

“And you don’t even have a reputation to uphold. From Noah’s ark a raven flied, never to return–"

“And those are the words of a gentleman. Must you be so vulgar? Next you’ll start singing madrigals. Like the heron of the fable, you are fastidious to the extreme.”

“And like the raven, you’ll better be silent.”

“Sirenomeliac goose!”

“Bloviating ignoramus!”

“Toad-spotted, half-blooded, hell-hated…”

But then Lethe closed his beak and said no more. The fight was over.

He felt it first, naturally. The sting of pain. Very real. His forehead. Only it was not his forehead. 

He looked up and to the left to see his human touching her face, an incredulous look on her face. Her hand was covered in blood. So was her face. Blood was running free, staining her fencing uniform. The source was a cut, a cut on Wednesday’s forehead. Clean but deep, for the looks of it. A final point for Bianca.

“Looks like your face finally got that splash of color it so desperately needed”, Bianca said.

Chevalier hummed, satisfied. The fight was settled. There was no more need for words. His human had prevailed, as he knew she would.

Lethe cawed and flied to his human’s shoulder. The girl scuttered to the infirmary. Their bravado didn’t waver, but they were obviously shaken.

The whole class snickered, whispered, laughed.

Curtains. Scene.

Bianca had a smile fixed to her face, aware that everybody was looking straight at her, mask out but blade still at the ready.

She felt awful.

She felt dirty.

It was all wrong.

Later, while they hurried to their room, they thought about it.

It was a win for them, yes. But it didn’t feel like a win at all. It tasted sour. It tasted foul.

They didn’t want to humiliate anyone! And certainly, as certainly as night follows day, they didn’t want to hurt anybody. Not in a million years. Why did she had to– And why had he–?

Bianca felt awful.

Chevalier did too.

The sparring, yes, that made sense. It had been necessary to accept the duel. But the cruel remarks? Right at the end? Just for what, for a smile of the audience, for a round of applause? Even Chevalier had felt pleased for a minute. Why?

Who was this person?

They were defending a crown that they didn’t even want in the first place!

This couldn’t be all there was. This game of “dominate or be dominated”. This silly ballet of masks.

There has to be more to it, Bianca thought.

We didn’t suffer for this, Chevalier thought.

It was the same feeling, expressed in different words, as it often happens with human and dæmon. But the aftermath was the same for both.

After practice, chest heaving with the extra effort, muscles twitching, they cried in the shower.

They cried for a good while, and it did them no good.

And they had nobody to talk to when they run out of tears.

No one.

If only they’d been able to eavesdrop on the conversation that was taking place at the infirmary right at that moment! Maybe then they wouldn’t have felt so heartbroken, so utterly forlorn.

A nurse was stitching up Wednesday's forehead. He was impressed by the girl's stoic attitude and stamina. Stitches to the head always hurt, but she wasn't even flinching! In fact, she was ignoring him altogether, talking with her dæmon as if nothing was happening, as if he wasn’t in the room.

“Blunt honesty, fierce competitivity, wide-ranging erudition, independence of character, ruthless drive…”, Wednesday was saying.

“Widely cultured, fast-witted, neat and impeccably styled…”, Lethe added.

“Truly, a woman I can respect.”

“I have to agree”, said Lethe, and he meant it, even if he still was feeling a little down about losing the duel. “We could be friends with them”, he said, tentatively.

Wednesday lifted an eyebrow. A comment like that would never have warranted a response from anyone else.

But she was talking to herself after all.

“If we did friends”, she said. “Which we don’t.”

“Indeed.”

Lethe sighed internally.

Someday, he and Wednesday would need to have a conversation about their self-inflicted solitude. But not today.

Wednesday felt the dissonance like an untuned note, and shifted uncomfortably.

Never good to be at odds with your dæmon.

But she would never ask, Lethe knew. And it could wait. There was just too much on their plate right now.

New school, new town, new people. An attempted murder. Being mysteriously saved by an even more mysterious homicidal monster. Dueling with worthy rivals for once.

And lest we forget, the werewolf roommate unable to wolf out… A ticking bomb. A Chekhov’s werewolf, really.

“You know, it pains me to admit, Wednesday, but I think mother was right.”

“I know what you mean”, said Wednesday, pushing the nurse away and getting up and off the infirmary bed, all patched up and ready to go to their next class. “I thing we are going to love it here.”

Chapter Text

People think Lenore Hall is named after an Edgar Allan Poe’s poem, him being Nevermore’s most famous alumni and all. It’s an understandable misconception, seeing as there are not one, but two poems written by Poe that mention a woman named Lenore. One is the eponymous Lenore, the other’s The Raven. Both are about dead women. Well, about men being sad about dead women. Huge difference.

But Poe really liked writing about women call Lenore. And women dying. Critics say the poems were Poe’s way of dealing with the death of her wife Virginia, who by the way was thirteen when she married her cousin Edgar, who was fourteen years her senior. Quite an age gap. Disgusting. Others think the poems were a way of dealing with his feelings of guilt, instead. Guilt for loving other women after his child-bride died. Or while his child-bride was dying. Yikes. Creepy. Altogether ooky. A whole new level of problematic.

(Yet other critics, outcast critics, some of them Nevermore alumni themselves that knew Poe from the times when he was a student there, say in their works that all of these poems and quite a few more were actually about Poe’s dæmon, Ligeia, or maybe even written by Ligeia herself, about Poe. According to some, Poe and Ligeia had a complex, rather tumultuous relationship – some going as far as to postulate that they were separated. Did they compose poems about each other, each one of them in different parts of the house, or even at different houses? Gives you the chills).

But anyway, none of that matters because Lenore Hall is actually named after the XVIII century Gothic ballad Lenore, by a German guy named Bürger. The poem is about a blasphemous woman that is visited by a mysterious stranger that takes her for a ride on his horse. He takes her to her grave, of course. The stranger is Death. Is a cool poem. Some real hardcore Gothic stuff, with a danse macabre at the end and everything, spirits happily dancing under the moonlight while Lenore is condemned to die by God.

Yoko and Bonachi passed every day by the statue depicting the cavalcade scene of the ballad: Lenore riding in Death’s horse, arms wrapped around Death’s waist, hanging on for dear life. The artist decided to sculpt Death in the semblance of a young woman. Her dæmon, also sculpted of course, looks like a turtledove.

Every day they passed by the statue on their way to their morning classes and every day Yoko asked herself: Am I riding with Death? Or am I Death? Whose part I’m playing in this sinister cavalcade? Am I Lenore or the pale lady?

And, just like every day, Bonachi’s voice pulled her out of her macabre fantasy.

“You’re doing it again”, he said, puffing with annoyance.

“What?”

He was walking right beside her, shaking that ridiculous ass of his, doing his best to keep up with Yoko’s pace.

“You’re being all dramatic and tragic and stuff.”

“Maybe”, confessed Yoko.

No sense lying to your dæmon. They feel what you feel, even if they don’t know exactly what you think. And vice versa.

“This always happens when we’re half-asleep and blood deprived.”

Last night they had gone to sleep a tad too late again. Vampiric nature. Couldn’t help it. Also, videogames. And sexytimes with the girlfriend, sure, but that was both a privilege and an honor. And Divina had gone to sleep at a healthy hour so they couldn’t really blame her for their bedtime procrastination. That was on them.

Problem was, now they got early classes and they were very, very sleepy and yes, sure, a bit sad and stuff.

“Do you want me to make a cartwheel?”, said Bonachi.

Yoko smiled and pulled up her sunglasses to look down at her dæmon.

“You can’t do a cartwheel, man. Your ass’s too fat for that. And you’re a racoon.”

“Don’t remind me. I can do a very decent somersault though!”

“I know you can.”

“Want me to do it now?”

“I mean, I feel at this point you must.”

“Check it out.”

It was a very nice somersault, perfectly executed, and Yoko laughed out loud right there in the middle of the hallway, among hurrying students and shiny metallic lockers.

And she forgot everything about Lenore and Death.

Bonachi always had that effect. He was good at making Yoko laugh. They were one and the same, sure, but he had always been the clown of the pair. Most of their silly disposition was packed up in that little brain of his. He had always been like that.

“You’d make a good jester”, said Yoko, looking fondly at Bonachi.

“Nice career path. We can wear one of those hat things. With the bells.”

“Sure. We’ll ask dad if any of his millionaire friends need fools in their summer castles.”

And now it was Bonachi who was laughing, and everything was fine.

Yoko Tanaka could have never imagined that her dæmon would settle as a raccoon.

Vampire’s dæmons almost always took the form of nocturnal animals. Any other arrangement would be a huge inconvenience for all parties involved.

But of course, one doesn’t choose the form of your dæmon, and dæmons have no way of influencing their final form, the one they’ll have to stay in for the rest of their lives. And even if, yes, technically, raccoons were nocturne animals, Bonachi had always thought them rather… undignified. Yoko, similarly, found them funny, but ultimately uninteresting. While they perused the old manuals and worn encyclopedias, wondering what form Bonachi would finally settle in, they didn’t give a second thought to raccoons, ever.

So, the fact that Bonachi settled precisely as one was a surprise. It often was, for everybody. How can you know, after all, what is the true form of your soul? How can you know how your dæmon will settle until you, yourself, have somewhat settled?

How can you know that, in your heart of hearts, in your deepest mind, where it really matters, you’re actually a funky little trash panda?

Sometimes your soul is a raccoon and you have to go on with your life, I guess.

Let it be said that if Bonachi had had anything to say about the matter, he would have never settled at all.

When they were kids, Yoko and him, Bonachi was fond of changing form, and he did it fast, often and rather spectacularly. He delighted in taking the most unusual forms too. He liked to be an armadillo, for example, for Yoko to push around, when they were toddlers. He found it funny to change from mouse to bat and back again at instant speed, when they were playing catch. He was a French Bulldog sometimes, to wreak havoc around the house and drool all over the expensive carpet. He was often a parrot, to be heard. A peacock, to be seen. He was a lizard, for climbing, and a monkey, a moment later, for hanging from the chandelier and drive their father mad, and finally a turtle to fall hard on the table and make a mess. Fun times.

Back then they had all the energy of infancy, despite their cold blood, and Bonachi was always the most energetic of the two. He was the comedian, the performer, always fooling around, while Yoko was the gentle kid, the easy napper, always laughing like crazy at Bonachi’s jokes and acrobatics.

There was never a dull moment with Bonachi. He never stopped and he was never quiet, and he wasted energy for both of them, until they inevitably fell asleep curled together, totally spent, and someone came, usually the nanny, to carry them to bed and throw a blanket over them.

They were different, back then, form each other, sure, but they were, of course, two sides of the same coin, just two aspects of the same person. They shared the same subconscious, the same dreams, the same sensations, desires and feelings. They were the same, even if not. They were one, even if it didn’t show.

And they were kids, of course. There was room for growth and there were many changes ahead. In due time Bonachi became calmer, just as Yoko turned livelier. This was to be expected. It was in the natural course of affairs. They converged in the middle.

Buy in any case, first and foremost, they had fun. Lots and lots of fun.

They had lived easy lives, Yoko and Bonachi. Their infancy was happy, for starters. They didn’t have shortcomings or limitations. The Tanaka were not billionaires or anything like that, but they were certainly not poor, not by a mile mind you, and so, life was easy, without turbulences, without hardships or privations. They didn’t have a castle full or expensive art or a private jet. They weren’t friends with Taylor Swift. It wasn’t like that. But they were vampires and so, almost by definition, old money. Their house was huge. They had a pretty neat garden. And they had nannies and tutors, and a housekeeper, a gardener, and a cook and a maid. Their father had a personal secretary and a chauffeur. It was like a small army of people, all of them dedicated to the task of them, of taking care of little Yoko and Bonachi, each in their own personal way. Living was easy then.

Their first real challenge had been Nevermore. Yoko and Bonachi had been sent to boarding school mostly because it was traditional among British families of certain standing –that is, the well-born and well-bred–, even if the Tanaka didn’t live in England anymore (As their father always said: “The fact that we’re living in the colonies doesn’t meant we are not subjects of the Crown” – whatever that meant); And they were sent specifically to Nevermore, the infamous boarding school for the unnaturally gifted in Vermont, because it was the best of the absolute best –at least in America– and catered to their necessities.

Vampires were all photophobic, of course, had slow metabolisms and, perhaps more importantly, they had very specific dietary restrictions. Nevermore took care of their alumni in a way that other schools didn’t. A daily, fresh, full, varied menu of blood and blood-based food and drinks was guaranteed; the weather was always cloudy and thus harmless; there were deep dungeons under the school for sleeping, and evening classes held in rooms without direct sunlight, or without any amount of sunlight at all.

For a time, Yoko and Bonachi just hanged with the other vampires. They were an easy fit. Some of them were distant family even. But then they met Divina and something clicked.

Clicked so much and so neatly, that they fell in love and settled, together.

For Yoko, settling was a feeling in her tummy and something that happened way inside her subconscious to be even remotely noticeable.

For Bonachi it was a blockage. He couldn’t change anymore. He was a raccoon now and forever more.

Bonachi had a lot to say about his final and definite form. He spent weeks complaining, but not about the raccoon thing. Mostly about the fact that he could not change anymore.

He had enjoyed being agile or slow, robust or light at will, to be able to sprout wings when he wanted to reach high, fins when he fancied a swim, a prehensile tail to hang from lamps and ceilings... He couldn’t do any of that anymore. Deep inside, he had wanted to be a flying rat. Yes, it was cliché, but it was true. He mourned his wings more than anything else.

It was mostly frustration, that he felt, though. It was not that he didn’t like being a raccoon, per se. What was infuriating was that he was only a raccoon, and nothing else, forever. He grunted and occasionally yelled when he instinctively tried to change form and just – couldn’t.

It was hard, as it was for most dæmons, for a while. But he took it well, all things considered. He soon started counting his blessings.

“Hey, I may be chubby”, he declared one day, “but at least I have hands”.

He did some jazz hands, to show off, and Yoko laughed her head off and that was it.

After that, the whining subsided and Bonachi went back to his usual persona.

How much of his final form was due to Divina and Amphinomus’ influence, they’ll never know.

Maybe Bonachi was on his way to be a rat, or maybe even a flying rat! – but raccoons feel at home in the water, and they need it always close.

And who knows, maybe Amphinomus would have settled as some kind of fish – but fishes can’t step out of water to hug a certain raccoon.

How much do other people influence each other? How much does our first love change us? How much others influence our settling?

That was the kind of question they tried to answer in Intro to Psych Sciences.

But that was fourth period.

First, breakfast.

They arrived at the cafeteria, where Divina and Amphinomus were already sitting at their usual table and, in the case of Divina, eating a very smelly breakfast.

Amphinomus waved at them –as much as an iguana can wave, anyway.

“Got your breakfast, dillydalliers”, he said.

And indeed, there it was. Glorious, bloody breakfast. Guaranteed fresh blood from at least three different species of mammals in every meal, courtesy of Nevermore’s board of education, that cared so, so much for the needs of their vampire studies for some reason –The reason was money, of course; vampires made good donations… and that included one very generous mister Tanaka. And right in from of them laid the results of all that selfless patronage. Yummy. Divina and Amphinomus had grabbed a full meal for Yoko, dessert and all, to start the morning right. Such sweethearts they were. How much they loved them.

“Thanks, me loves”, said Bonachi, jumping with some difficulty from the floor to a chair and from there to the table, to hug Amphinomus. They had been together all night, cuddling in bed, and they had been apart for half an hour at the most and yet, the moment they saw each other, they were literally on top of each other. Incorrigible romantics they. Shameless.

Yoko yawned, flashing her fangs.

“Fell asleep on the shower?”, asked Divina, with a wink.

“Almost”, admitted Yoko.

“Come here, before you fill your mouth with blood.”

Yoko bent down to kiss Divina.

“You taste like fish.”, Yoko said.

“And it’s good fish too. Sit your sweet ass down and eat your bloody mess. It’s kinda late.”

“Yes, my little sea urchin.”

“Shut up.”

Yoko laughed, sat down and started eating.

It was blood and more blood, really, but prepared in many different ways. Sausages. Fried blood. Swedish pancakes. Vietnamese soup. A smoothie. From different animals, with different spices… Species and spices were the key to make vampire dishes varied and tasty. Nevermore cooks really knew their shit. Food was even better than at home, and they had a first-rate three-stars resident cook back at home.

Yoko started eating with glee.

It took her a couple minutes, but eventually her brain woke up.

“Wait, where is everybody?”, she asked, suddenly realizing what was missing around her: people. “Why are we eating alone like some losers?”

“Aren’t we losers?”, asked Bonachi, who was sitting by the dishes, gently caressing Amphinomus.

“No, we are not”, said Divina, and then after a pause: “I think?”

“We’re not losers. We are, you know–”

“Gay?”

“That too, but I meant the other thing.”

“Rich?”

“You idiot, the other other thing”.

Nightshades, she meant.

“That’s just another way of saying rich”, said Bonachi.

He was joking, but he was kind of right anyway. All Nightshades came from rich families. It was kind of the point. And the only reason Enid had not been inducted. Which was a large thorn on Yoko’s heart.

“And it doesn’t guarantee we are not losers”, finished Yoko. “Anyway, where is everybody?”

“It’s Thursday, my dearest nincompoops”, said Amphinomus. “Ajax’s enjoying an extra hour of sleep because he actually has a good schedule this year for a change. Enid has that Social Media Journalism whatever thing with professor Mochnacz that starts ridiculously early. I don’t think she even had breakfast. Kent’s there too”.

“Or asleep.”

“More probably asleep and missing out, yes.”

“Bianca should be back from her morning swim, though.”

“Yeah, but today she goes from that straight to Aquatic Ecoacoustics, so she doesn’t even leave the lake until lunch. I think?”

Aquatic Ecoacoustics. One of the few “siren” classes that were imparted wholly and exclusively under water, deep inside the lake, along with Bathymetry, Applied Algaculture, Sonochemistry and half a dozen more.

One of the classes that Divina should definitely be taking, but she was not, because she wanted to be a “grounded siren” and stay on land with Yoko.

Which had been a matter of debate.

Yoko knew the other sirens said Divina was “beached”, a not very polite and not very politically correct term used for describing both stranded whales and sirens that stayed most of their time, or all of it, out of water. By that definition, by the way, most sirens boarding at Nevermore were “beached” –or grounded, which was nicer–, but that didn’t stop them from being stupid about it.

And the way they said it, it sounded a bit like they thought Yoko had Divina on a leash or something. Which was not the case. Yoko had insisted numerous times on Divina taking more “lake classes”. But Divina didn’t want to.

Yoko always felt a sting of pain whenever she thought about all the good times and amazing opportunities Divina was missing by just being there with her, and not in Aquatic Ecoacoustics with Bianca and the rest of the shoal, for example.

She knew that, in a relationship, sometimes you have to compromise, make sacrifices. For Yoko, that meant morning classes instead of evening like the others vampires, and being kind of a lone bat for that reason. For Divina, it meant staying out of water most of the time… Compromises.

Necessary. Healthy.

Didn’t make it any easier, though.

“I don’t even know when she eats”, Amphinomus was saying.

“She’s crazy”, Bonachi answered.

“She’s not, she’s just dedicated and focused”, said Divina.

They were talking about Bianca then.

Yoko yawned again. She couldn’t help it. She was very tired.

“What about the Gothic chick?”, she asked.

Divina, Amphinomus and Bonachi all three looked at Yoko at the same time.

Yoko laughed.

“Not me, you bozos. I mean the other Gothic chick. The new one. Puppy’s roommate.”

“That girl rides solo”, said Amphinomus.

“So it seems. Bianca says she’s the only one that saw Rowan die. She was alone with him.”

“Not suspicious at all.”

“Not in the slightest.”

Yoko took her glasses out for a second, eyes closed tight, to pinch the bridge of her nose.

“Should we do anything about that?”

Divina looked up from her breakfast, that looked –and smelled– like a very lively coral reef.

“We?”

“You know, we”.

She mouthed the word ‘Nightshades’.

In theory, the Nightshades’ purpose was to protect outcasts of all kinds from racism, oppression, and all that jazz. In theory.

“Oh, fuck, yes. Forgot to tell you”, Divina said. “Amphinomus tell her, please.”

“Oh, yes. Bianca is meeting Weems later. We don’t know why”.

Yoko arched her eyebrows.

“Probably about Rowan’s murder and that monster that’s running around”, ventured Bonachi.

“Maybe. So, there’s that.”

Yoko put on her glasses again.

“Should we be worried?”, Yoko asked, biting her lip apprehensively. “We knew that guy. He was one of us. Technically. And the forest is like right there.”

A wave of apprehension emanated from Yoko. Bonachi drew closer instinctively. 

“Nothing’s gonna happen to us”, said Divina in a firm voice.

“How can you know?”, asked Bonachi.

“Listen. We have a school full of people that can control minds and turn people into stone just by looking at them”, Divina said. “And the head of the security team, you know that woman Rocha, with the one-eyed lemur dæmon? She’s half and half! I’m pretty sure she has moray eels under her hoodie instead of snakes. I don’t even know what happens when she takes them out but I’m pretty sure is enough to stop any kind of monster no matter how monstrous. We are well protected here, Yoko. Bonachi, we are safe. We couldn’t be any safer. And anyway, if that thing, whatever it is, tries to attack us, Amphinomus will bite its ass”.

“You bet I’ll do.”

Yoko and Bonachi laughed exactly at the same time and in the same way, in sync.

Instant relief.

Divina was always so sure, so strong! And Amphinomus was truly like a rock.

They are like rocks on a cliff, unflinching, Yoko thought. The waves just break against them.

“Thank you, Div”, she said.

“We have each other’s backs, okay? Eight eyes are better than four”.

Divina reached out and squeezed Yoko’s hand. She gave them both a reassuring smile.

And then she did something that was very stupid and very Divina:

She touched Bonachi.

In the middle of the school cafeteria.

During breakfast rush.

Full house.

Broad daylight.

It was just the fraction of a second. She just gently brushed Bonachi’s fur with her beautiful rosy fingers. The slightest touch.

Bonachi melted.

Yoko immediately seated upright, shaken to the core, blushing bright red.

“Div!”, she hissed, a raspy whisper that struggled to find its way out of her throat. “What the fuck, we are in public! Are you out of your right mind? We already have a reputation!”

She looked around wildly, but luckily nobody was looking at them.

And Divina had that darned grin on her face. Oh my, that darned beautiful smile of hers! The nerve!

“Sorry, sorry”, she said with a wink.

“You’re crazy, Div”, said Bonachi, who was hiding her face on Amphinomus scales to hide his embarrassment.

“You like us crazy, bonbon”, said Divina.

Bonachi squealed and Amphinomus laughed.

Yoko was so glad she was wearing her sunglasses because she was still blushing, and it was not going away any time soon.

And to think people thought Divina was the serious one!

Riding with Death alright, Yoko thought. Death of a heart attack one of these days!

But they had forgotten all about Rowan and the monster. And they went on to class with a big, warm smile on their faces.

Different classes, that is.

Which still felt weird.

Even if it really wasn’t.

In more than one sense, Nevermore worked more like a college than a high school, see. You came here at twelve years old –your parents drop you out, all nervous and teary-eyed– and you stayed for eight whole years studying whatever you fancied best until you were forced to leave –even more nervous and teary-eyed– to join the cruel, unreasonable adult world at the tender age of twenty.

The faculty was extremely gifted and the curriculum was highly customizable. Every member of the staff seemed to excel in at least two wildly different areas of specialty. Professor Pastrana taught trigonometry and gastromancy, often at the same time. Professor Khưu and his pal Albarma taught Islamic Jurisprudence and Applied Statistical Modeling. Professor Baziak was responsible for jujutsu and Brazilian German –her dæmon Jezebel took the lead on his German classes (her pronunciation was better).

There were also compulsory courses, of course, things like Math, Biology and History, to guarantee that you got out of Nevermore with some basic understanding of the world around you and not like a huge embarrassment of a human being; but the rest was up to you and your dæmon. And since you could pick and choose from so many different options, no two schedules looked the same, unless you make a conscious effort to take the same classes as your friends. Or your girlfriend.

Yoko and Divina had always made a point of taking the same classes. They had been doing it since forever.

Until that particular semester, that is, the one that started with Addams’s unexpected arrival and Rowan’s even more unexpected dead. For the first time in years, Yoko and Divina had enrolled in some very different classes. Divina was taking Ecomodernism, Promethean Self-actualization and Techno-feminism. Yoko had joined Paracelsian Taxonomy, Modern Japanese Literature and Evolutionary Dæmonology.

They were growing. They were changing. And their interests and changes were growing and changing with them.

No biggie. Normal stuff.

Still felt weird.

“Girl, we are really feeling the horrors this morning”, Bonachi said. “Can’t catch a break.”

Yoko tried to sigh and yawn at the same time and an ungodly sound came out of her.

Bonachi snickered. Sun was fully up now, so he was wearing his sunglasses too.

“Why are we being punished?”, Yoko asked. “It is entirely too early for a girl as pretty as me to be awake.”

“We’re suffering for love. Stop whining.”

“I shan’t.”

“Don’ be such a crybaby. We’ll see them later at lunch and we’re gonna spend the rest of the day together.”

“I know.”

“And the whole night.”

“I know.”

Yoko and Divina were roommates. Had been for years. They had pushed their beds together to make a king-size bed a long, long time ago.

And nobody had said a word about it.

Weems had to know. She had to. Everybody knew Yoko and Divina were a couple. It wasn’t exactly a secret. They’d never tried to hide it. Weems just had to know. She had to know by now that they were sleeping together.

And yet, every semester without fail ever since they were thirteen, she assigned them to the same room.

She always looked at them in a certain way that could only be described as contemplative amusement.

Bianca thought it was extremely funny and Enid thought it was cute.

Yoko and Divina just gave thanks to a couple dozen goddesses they were allowed to be together and be left alone.

Maybe Weems was an ally. Maybe she also had a “roommate”. Nobody knew anything about their love life, if she ever had one. Or maybe she was just a decent human being!

Or maybe Yoko and Divina’s families were just too rich to mess with.

Whatever it was, it was the best thing ever.

But even if they didn’t have the room, it would have been alright.

Because they had the cave.

The cave was the best part of the Nightshades’ secret headquarters. Most new recruits, they got down the stairs, saw the badly lit shelves full of dusty books of ancient lore and they thought ‘Cool, I’ve just been inducted to a super exclusive secret society and turns out it’s just a book club’. Then they discovered where the corridors led, and they were properly impressed.

The natural pool in the cave was technically part of the lake. Or at least it was fed by the lake. Only it could not be accessed from the lake. The connecting tunnel was too narrow. The only way to get to the pool was the Poe statue and the password, which was easy to remember but not quite so easy to perform as it may seem –two snaps of your fingers yes, sure, but at what speed? The tempo was important and also your posture, your angle, your age along with some more abstract qualities like your general disposition for violence or treachery and so on. Then the spiral staircase and down, down and to the left and then a right and voilà: private freshwater pool, courtesy of some past generation of Nightshades that clearly had too much time and money in their hands, and who also knew a couple things about plumbing, heating and sanitation for the looks of it.

There was no natural light down there, only the –electric, decorative– torches on the walls, so Yoko could forget about her sunglasses for a while. And the pool was deep and large enough for Divina to feel like she was in some actual body of water. It was perfect for them. It was their place. It was where they went skinny-diving when they had had too many not-so-virgin mojitos or when they felt they needed some alone time, some chilling time, away for the unceasing hubbub of Lenore Hall, the curious ears and prying eyes.

Or when they were feeling a bit handsy.

Which was often the case with Divina.

Another common misconception. People thought vampires were always in need of some bloodletting; that they were always longing for a bite, craving the warm.

But in their relationship, no matter how quiet and aloof she seemed to be, it was Divina who was all fangs.

She was always so hungry! The moment they were alone, her hands were all over Yoko, with an urgent passion that always managed to scramble the vampire’s brain. Oxygen disappeared from their lungs; thoughts went flying somewhere, out the window, along with inhibitions and fears. And then it was one breathy kiss after another. A moan. A yes. A bite. A hand sliding down her thighs... Hungry like a shark. And, well, usually, Yoko was okay with that. More than okay. Problem was, the Nightshades cave, with its amazing subterranean pool? It was exclusive, sure, but not exactly private. Almost, but not quite.

“Div, wait, it’s still early”, Bonachi said, because Yoko’s mouth was a bit too occupied to talk. 

“So what?”, Amphinomus said. He was rubbing his scales against Yoko’s leg, shaking with pleasure.

“What if Ajax comes in and sees us indulging in homosexual activities?”

Divina pulled out from the kiss for half a second and laughed so loud it reverberated throughout the cave.

“He’s a grown man, he’ll get over it”, she said, half-laughing half-growling, continuing the kissing.

But Bonachi’s words had reached some part of Yoko’s brain that was still –barely– rational even under the deluge of kisses. She released herself from Divina’s tight embrace.

“Wait, what if your brother comes in.”

Won’t be the first time either.

Amphinomus gave a step back and shook his head.

“Ew.”

“You sure know how to pull the brakes!”, Divina said, wincing, making a face.

“I’m just saying!”

“They have a point, though”, admitted Amphinomus.

Divina sighed, defeated, then smiled.                          

“Tonight then.”

“Tonight”, promised Yoko, smiling back.

“I love you.”

“Most ardently.”

Divina laughed, flashing perfect teeth.

“No more Austen adaptations for you. They’re rotting your brain.”

“But we still haven’t seen Clueless?”

“Does that count? Also, it’s always straight people”, asked Amphinomus.

“Right?”

“Anyway, gonna cool my head”, Divina said.

She got in the pool and –naturally– Amphinomus followed. They dived and disappeared from view.

Yoko and Bonachi were left sitting on the edge of the pool, alone with their thoughts. But their thoughts didn’t wander too far. Their gaze was still fixed on the water. They kept looking at the place where Divina’s perfect body had vanished under the dark, still waters.

They were such powerful swimmers, Divina and Amphinomus, with their mighty strong legs and tails. They were so beautiful too, both of them fully covered in scales, scales as pretty as feathers, but scales that could cut you if you rubbed them the wrong way…

That was Divina, really, in a nutshell: beautiful, serene, serious, calm, steady, cool-headed. But beware of the teeth, those shark-like teeth that elongated and sharpened when they went in the water, or even under the rain, if it was heavy enough. Teeth that were always honed, razor-edged, because they could be easily replaced when they went dull. Triangular teeth, pointed teeth that glided deliciously across Yoko’s skin, ­and could press oh so lightly on her lips, and her hips, and beyond… or tear flesh, crush bone or even splint wood with ease.

For Yoko, Divina’s shark-like mouth was paradise. For those who were unaware, it could be hell. Her mouth was in some ways like a spring trap: if someone stepped onto the trigger, the jaws snapped shut. And they never let go.

Yoko had seen it happen only once, a long time ago, with a werewolf boy in gym class that had thought slapping Divina’s butt was a funny thing to do. They were still kids, and the boy more so, but Divina was already Divina and she was not having it.

The boy had been taken to the infirmary, not to be seen for a whole week.

The tricky part, apparently, had been separating Divina’s jaw from his arm. Not as easy as it sounds. But he had been lucky all things considered. He still had his fingers. And a beautiful scar, as a parting gift.

He had grown up to be a nice guy altogether –but he would always have Divina’s teeth clearly marked on his body, to remind him to keep playing nice and keep his hands to himself.

That was the last time anybody had messed with Divina in any way.

Well, except for that one other time, that one girl. She was an exchange student. She didn’t know Divina. And, apparently, she had some pretty outdated ideas about why sirens and vampires should or shouldn’t be dating… Or maybe it was a gender issue? Or maybe she didn’t like that Yoko and Bonachi were Asian? The specifics of the bigotry were not clear to this day, since the girl had been talking French or something at the moment.

Interspecies relationships? All the rage, as long as it was popstars or Hollywood actors. When it was your classmates? Suddenly people weren’t so cool about it anymore. Then suddenly everybody was a comedian. Weird how that happened.

Anyway, Bianca Barclay had stepped in and saved the poor idiot from being mauled and chomped to pieces by a hell-bent Divina gone berserker. It had happened under water, so Yoko and Bonachi didn’t know all the details. It was all “underwater” issues.

Ever since they had started dating Divina and Amphinomus, “underwater” had rapidly become synonymous with “unknown” or, sometimes, “incomprehensible”.

Take family, for example.

Divina didn’t talk that much about her parents or her home. But not because it was sad or anything like that. Both Kent and her seemed to have a good relationship with their parents, good memories. Nothing worrying, nothing weird, no trauma. And they always went back on vacation period. Happily.

If Divina and Amphinomus didn’t talk about home that much because they knew it was a touchy subject, one Yoko and Bonachi were a bit sensitive about.

Because no matter how much they wanted to see the sunken vaulted colonnades of the Aegean, the Grand Temple of Salacia with its golden statue, the Tomb of Tiamat or the One Hundred Shrines of the One Hundred Nereids, they would never be able to. Yoko and Bonachi knew they would never be able to visit Divina’s family, their childhood home. It was all deep under the waves, inaccessible to land folk by custom, law, magic and regular physics. It was a part –a huge part– of Divina’s life that was simply barred from them. And there was so much more that was off-limits! Past, present… and future.

There were barriers that couldn’t be crossed. Places where they couldn’t follow. They would require a level of immersion they were just not built to survive. Even language was different down there. They couldn’t speak siren languages! Their anatomies were too different! So even if they met Divina’s family, there would always be the language barrier.

Yoko was still looking at the water, and everything was getting blurry… But it was not the water. Her eyes. She wiped the tears from her face as she snapped out of it.

Only then she realized Bonachi was crying too.

“Oh, my, sorry. My bad, Bon. That’s on me.”

“You got me sobbing too, damn Yoko. I think we were thinking the same thing and–“

“Yes, probably, sorry, pal.”

“You’ve been like this all day!”

“I know, I know, sorry. Come ‘ere, let me hug you.”

Divina and Amphinomus chose than moment to erupt out of the water. They were smiling at first, happy as they always were after a good swim, but their faces changed abruptly when they realized Yoko and Bonachi had watery eyes and shiny cheeks and were hugging each other tight for seemingly no reason.

“What’s happening?”, asked Divina. “Did you hit your toe again?”

“No!”

“Did you?”

“No, Div”, said Bonachi. “It’s not that.”

“What then?”

Yoko sighed.

“We were just thinking I guess.”

“Oh?”

Divina and Amphinomus looked up at Yoko from the water, leaning on the edge of the pool.

They waited. They were good at waiting.

“It’s nothing, I swear, it’s just that– “, Yoko said, “It’s stupid, really, but there are so many places I’ll never see”, Yoko said. “So many places where we can’t follow.”

Divina looked back into the pool for a second, and then returned her attention to Yoko. She seemed to understand. Deep water. Ocean floors. Sunken cities.

She looked at Yoko with those beautiful blue eyes of her that always seemed to shine with a light of their own.

“Well,” she said, “That’s true, I guess. But there are many places… and times, where I won’t be able to follow you guys.”

“Divina…”

“I know, I know. We don’t talk about it”. Yoko and Divina hands clasped, almost naturally. They didn’t even notice. Their hands, they were used to each other. They belonged together. “But that’s the thing, right? We’ll probably go visit the bottom of the Mariana Trench someday Amphinomus and I, and we’ll go visit Mama Yemoja to ask for a boon, and you won’t be able to come with us. And you guys, well, you– shit, Yoko, you’ll get to see the year two thousand–

“Shut up, Divina!”, Yoko shouted. “Don’t say it! I swear, you’ll make me cry for real, I swear.”

“We’re not having this conversation again”, Bonachi added, dead serious for once.

They had had this conversation once. A long time ago. They had avoided this conversation since. It wasn’t an easy topic. Not one that could be taken lightly.

Vampires could live to be three hundred years old, if they were lucky. Sirens simply could not. Period.

“But nothing of that matters!”, Divina said, grabbing Yoko’s pale hands with her own strong, webbed, scaly ones. “Listen. The only thing that matters, I’m telling you, the only thing, is that we’re together now and we’ll be together lots of times, and in lots of places. And that’s the only parts that matter! The rest is, like, icing on the cake!”

Yoko let go of Divina for a second to rub her face again. She was being a sentimental fool today for some reason.

“So, we’re the cake?”, Bonachi said, and he was also wiping tears from that furry, masked face of his.

“You’re the cake, babycakes”, said Amphinomus.

“That’s sweet.”

“Cakes are sweet. More at eleven”, mocked Divina.

“Shut up”, said Yoko, but she was smiling now. “Enough foolishness. I’m getting in the pool.”

“Yes, me too”, said Bonachi. “Being sad sucks.”.

“Finally! Water is good.”

“Water is always good, we have heating.”

“Shut up, come’ here”, said Divina, reaching out.

Yoko took Divina’s hands and Bonachi followed. They let themselves be guided down, into the water. They took a big breath, full inhalation, top of their lungs, and submerged. Not too deep. But enough to feel the pressure.

They embraced down there, in the dark, under the surface, bubbles everywhere around, swirling.

When they came out, they were smiling, all four.

“I don’t know what’s going up with you guys today but, if you want to get all mushy and stuff, let me remind you”, Divina said, and then she opened her mouth wide. She was almost totally submerged, so her teeth were fully serrated, a pointy nightmare, an artifact of beauty. “When these teeth bite, they don’t let go.”

“They don’t let go”, echoed Amphinomus, showing his own set, not so pointy, but equally impressive – for an iguana at least.

“Same here”, said Yoko, baring her own teeth, displaying proudly her two dagger-like fangs.

I’m not letting go ever, she thought.

“Oh, we’re comparing goods now, alright!”, grunted Bonachi, who had totally normal teeth for a raccoon, poor thing, and he feigned indignation, and tried to dive to escape his embarrassment but her fat ass floated so her fuzzy tail moved around like a fevered snake, and they all laughed. Which was exactly what he had intended.

And everything was alright again.

On their way to Lenore Hall –downstairs, in the dungeon, where is nice and gloomy– they found Enid and Velunio, coming from one of her one thousand extra-curricular activities and going up to Ophelia Hall –upstairs, in the attic; Somehow a lone wolf had managed to secure one of the best rooms in the school… She even had a private balcony, and again, nobody knew exactly what Weems’s reasoning was; Enid was basically living in a luxury suit until Addams came along.

“Well? Have you located that troublesome roommate of yours?”, Yoko asked upon seeing them.

“I didn’t even try looking for her”, Enid answered, picking Velunio up automatically as she always did, so he could more easily participate in the conversation. “We’re going to our room now. She’s either there writing on that clangorous typewriter of hers that’s gonna keep us awake all night again, or out somewhere playing detective. I don’t care either way.”

“Playing detective?”, asked Divina.

“I truly believe they want to solve Rowan’s murder all by themselves”, Enid explained.

“They’re like, obsessed with it”, said Velunio.

“No, wonder. Didn’t they actually witness it? People are saying that. On your blog, actually.”

Enid sighed.

“Yeah, we got like a hundred submissions. Lots of people at the carnival that day. Apparently, everybody was down in Jericho. And everybody swears they saw this or that.”

“Well, that’s good practice for you. You can start filtering sources, blocking liars, you know. Sort the wheat from the chaff.”

“If we have to block everyone with an overactive imagination, we’ll end up with no followers and no contributors”, said Velunio. “There are no two stories that match. But yes, it’s a delicate issue.”

“We are moderating heavily. Proceeding with caution”, added Enid. “We don’t want Weems to call us to her office.”

“Again, you mean”, Bonachi said.

“Because someone submitted a rumor about professor Dozier that I thought was a funny joke and turned out to be true!”

“In my defense I never thought you’d publish it and, also, I didn’t know it was a sex thing”, Yoko said.

“Yes, you did”, Divina said.

“Yes, we did”, admitted Bonachi.

Divina laughed. That had been an interesting week to be Enid’s friend. And Yoko’s girlfriend.

“Oh, and this morning?”, Enid said. “When Wednesday wasn’t in class?”

“She wasn’t?”

“Nope, she wasn’t.”

“Well, turns out she was not writing or anything. She was in therapy.”

“Oh”.

“Oh, shit.”

“Is she, like, traumatized? After what happened to Rowan? Should we–“

“No, no, this is from before. Court-ordered therapy!”

“What?”

“Why?”

“Because she tried to kill a guy in her last school”, Velunio said, dubiously. “Or killed a guy, we don’t know. They told us, but they were not very clear about the details and they’re not on social media or very social period, so that’s all we have.”

“Wait, they just told you?”, Amphinomus asked. “That they killed a guy?”

“They don’t seem to care about what we think about them”, Enid said, with a shrug. “In fact, I think they just don’t care about what anyone thinks about them, period.”

Just the opposite of you, Enid, Yoko thought, but didn’t say, because she was not an asshole and she loved Enid like a little sister.

“And she says whatever she thinks! Absolutely no filter! We kinda got mad with her the other day for that.”

“You? Mad?” Divina was honestly surprised. Enid was a saint. She had the patience of a Siberian hermit. And Velunio was an angel from heaven in the form of an arctic hare. “Why?”

“She said some things we didn’t thought were very nice”, explained Velunio. “Even if they were kinda true.”

“But that doesn’t matter, right?”, said Enid. “You have to be careful with what you say or you can hurt people. Words hurt.”

Something about us probably, Divina thought. If it was about someone else, they would just tell us. They’re physically unable to keep gossip to themselves. They don’t tell us because it’s about us.

But they don’t wanna say, and I don’t care, so I’m not asking.

“You’re right. Words hurt”, Divina said instead, silencing her thoughts. “Stay strong, ok? Keep us posted.”

“And keep posting.”

“And remember next week’s the Poe Cup!”

Enid smiled.

“Oh, you don’t need to remind me”, she said. “Yoko, you better practice! We gonna beat your girl to a pulp!”

“Oh, my.”

“You’re scary sometimes, kitten.”

“Hey, show us some claws!”

Enid bared her rainbow-colored claws. Velunio followed suit. His were painted red.

“There you are!”, cheered Bonachi.

“My favorite kitties!”

“See you tomorrow!”, said Divina, who was anxious to go back to their bedroom.

“Sleep tight, Enid, Velunio.”

“Have fun you four!”

“And don’t bite too hard!”

“Shut up, Velunio!”

The sound of laughter accompanied them all the way to their respective rooms.

But they did bite a bit too hard that night though. Both of them. Just enough to remind each other.

They were never letting go.