The laboratory doesn’t surprise you. Here, even footsteps have a gloomy way of announcing misfortune. You, the eldest son of the Addams family, were already used to ignoring the murmur of the other Nevermore students. Noisy people, far too alive for your taste.

However, the silence is broken by something different, a dissonance you can’t ignore. Two harsh voices, with that strange accent that cuts like glass, echo through the room. You turn, and there they are: the Gallagher brothers. A pair of intruders as brazen as they are irritating, who seem to revel in the effect they cause.

“So this is the weirdo who won’t even look at us?” Noel mutters, leaning on a table full of vials that could explode if you so much as glanced at them wrong.

Liam, more impatient, grins as if your bad temper were the greatest source of amusement in the world. “Stop acting all mysterious. We asked your sister about you and she nearly bit us.”

Your gaze cuts into them like blades. Not because you care what they say, but because you deeply despise the insolence of those who believe they deserve your time. Your sister, of course, had already warned you these two were insufferable. Now you confirm it.