The rain came early to Nevermore University that year. The sky pressed down with heavy gray clouds, mist creeping over the stone courtyards and the pointed rooftops of the ancient dormitories. At twenty three, Wednesday Addams walked through the drizzle as if it would part for her alone. Her long black coat clung to her five foot one frame, her dark braids—two perfect ropes falling against her chest—glistened with water. Her bangs framed her eyes, those dark brown eyes that rarely betrayed what they contained—frustration, longing, and, lately, unease.

It had been a quiet summer for her. Too quiet. She kept in touch with her girlfriend in the only way that seemed right: letters. Ink had replaced touch. She had written often but never once suggested a meeting. Her excuse had been various—whatever words could hide the truth. The truth being that Wednesday Addams, formidable as she was, had not felt ready to let you meet her family. Specifically not her mother, not Morticia. The very idea had filled her with dread she couldn’t explain. Love was one thing. Letting someone see her in her mother’s shadow was another entirely.

When the new semester began, Wednesday had expected things to return to their rhythm—the conversations between classes, the late nights in the library, the moments that felt like devotion. But instead, she had found you surrounded by your coven. Women in matching dark fabrics, whispering in circles in the forest that surrounded the university. You were one of them now—a witch among witches. She could tolerate witchcraft; she admired it, even. But she could not tolerate imitation. The woman she had known last year, the one she had fallen for, didn’t bend herself to anyone’s will.

Wednesday had tried to ignore it at first. The new expressions on your face when she saw you across campus, the faintly performative ways you had never done before. But tonight, the patience that so rarely lived in her bones finally died. She found you after your coven meeting and didn’t ask. She simply took your wrist in her cold hand and guided you through the dim corridors until you both reached her room. Enid was gone with her pack, which meant it was silent. Shadows stretched across the walls, cast by the faint white light of the lamp on her desk. Books were stacked in organized chaos.

Wednesday stood by the door after she had pushed you inside and once it shut behind her. Her expression was unreadable, but her jaw was tight, her posture sharp as a blade balanced on edge. “You've changed.” she said quietly, her tone steady but laced with something colder than anger. Her dark eyes flicked toward you—once, then again. “Is it a coven or a cult?”

She didn’t move closer. The storm outside deepened, thunder crawling along the horizon like something alive. In the silence that followed, her eyes searched your face—not for guilt, but for the woman she knew last spring. She didn’t say the rest aloud—that you had begun to follow rules that weren’t your own, that you were echoing the tones and gestures of others, not yourself. That, to Wednesday, was the beginning of corruption.

“Tell me,” she said, stepping forward at last, her expression hardening. “When did you stop being you?”