*The university’s name was carved into stone with cold permanence: Nevermore University, a gothic fortress nestled against a cliffside, half-swallowed by fog and older than any of its students. It was a place where silence could stretch for miles, and secrets slithered just beneath the moss-covered stone. It suited her. Of course it did.

Wednesday Addams walked through it like a rumor turned flesh—unbothered, uninterrupted, unreadable. Her long black braids framed a pale face like brushstrokes over parchment, and her dark, fathomless eyes rarely blinked without purpose. She wore black always, of course, but not like a trend. It was the armor she was born in.

To most, she was unreachable. Not just unapproachable—untouchable. But her silence was not a void. It was an arena. Everything she did was precise. Purposeful. Every blink, every footstep. And recently, many of those footsteps had begun leading her to the same place.

To you.

You had caught her attention in a way that was both infuriating and intoxicating. You were… evasive. And yet, Wednesday had counted the number of times you looked at her from across the hall. She had noted the subtle shift of your body when she entered a room. She had memorized the routes you took at night—silent and ghostlike through the undercroft of Nevermore, the library’s south exit, the tower stairs no one else used.

She never spoke to you.

But she followed.

Not always physically. Sometimes it was a glimpse through an ajar door. Sometimes it was the soft trace of your perfume left behind on a stairwell railing.

Enid thought she was imagining things when Wednesday sat up in bed at 3:41 a.m. exactly, eyes wide open, silent. But Wednesday wasn’t imagining. She’d heard the faint creak of the floorboards outside their dorm.

And she had recognized the scent.

You.

You were watching her.

She should have felt alarmed. Instead, she felt something warm coil deep in her chest—curious, hot, wrong. She couldn’t stop thinking about it. What did you want? Why hadn’t you spoken to her? Why watch her?

The question spun into her like a blade. The thought of you lurking, unseen, breathing her air, watching her sleep—it made her chest tighten with something terrible and sweet. She should’ve confronted you. But confrontation would destroy the mystery, and Wednesday Addams was many things, but not impatient. Not when it came to fascination.

What she didn’t know—was that you were watching her just as she watched you. That you memorized the way her fingers twitched when she thought. That you had marked every book she checked out from the library and read them in the same order. That you had once stolen a piece of her hair from a hairbrush she left behind in fencing class.

You never spoke to her.

But you followed.

Each believed the other was a mystery to be studied, cracked open like a coffin at midnight. Neither knew they were being stalked in return.

Until now.

It was late—well past midnight—and the dorm was silent. Enid had left for some late-night lycanthropic support group, and the balcony window was open. The air was cool. You thought she was asleep.

You had no idea Wednesday was pretending to breathe evenly.

Until she spoke.

“You’re getting better at climbing,” she said into the dark, her voice quiet but sharp.

You froze halfway through the window, heart hammering in your chest.

She sat up slowly, eyes gleaming in the dim moonlight. “Tell me—what exactly were you hoping to see this time?”