Chapter Text
The hearse’s engine died with a mechanical sigh—appropriately funereal. Through tinted glass, Nevermore Academy loomed against the grey Vermont sky, a Gothic monument to outcasts that had recently learned the price of its sanctuary.
Twenty-seven days since Tyler Galpin’s transformation. Twenty-seven days since Nevermore’s illusion of safety was shattered like vertebrae under excessive pressure. The administration’s response had been predictably inadequate: cosmetic changes masking systemic vulnerabilities.
Lurch opened her door with his customary groan. Wednesday emerged into air that tasted wrong. The familiar cocktail of teenage angst and supernatural otherness now carried undertones of formaldehyde—not from actual preservation, but from the desperate attempt to maintain normalcy’s corpse.
“I shall retrieve my belongings myself.” She dismissed Lurch with a glance, attention fixed on students scattered across the Quad. They moved in tight formations, scanning constantly, never straying far from shelter.
Herd behavior. Classic trauma response. The predator is gone, but the prey remember.
Her assessment catalogued changes with clinical efficiency. The gargoyle perched above the main entrance now sported a subtle glass eye where stone should be—a camera lens masquerading as architectural detail. Gothic windows gleamed with unnatural sheen, suggesting ballistic-grade reinforcement. Three faculty members stood at strategic points across the grounds, positioning too deliberate for coincidence.
Professor Hendricks at the east entrance—former military, judging by his stance. Ms. Caldwell near the greenhouse, jacket bulging with concealed weapons. Mr. Torres by the dormitories, eyes scanning in practiced patterns.
A flash of pink disrupted her monochrome analysis.
Enid stood at the Quad’s center, surrounded by a defensive semicircle. Ajax fidgeted with his beanie while Yoko leaned against the stone with calculated casualness. Enid’s hands carved enthusiastic arcs through the air as she spoke, smile radiating its usual wattage.
Surface normalcy. Deeper observation required.
Wednesday dissected the scene with surgical focus. Enid’s shoulders held tension that hadn’t existed before—muscle memory from transformation, perhaps. Her stance had widened, weight balanced for sudden movement. Most telling: her positioning kept all approaches in peripheral vision while maintaining clear paths to multiple exits.
The wolf has learned to hunt even while appearing docile.
“—completely fine! The new security measures are actually kind of reassuring.” Enid’s voice carried across distance, pitched slightly higher than natural register. “Though I still think the gargoyle cameras are super creepy. Like, way to make Gothic architecture even more nightmare-inducing.”
Ajax mumbled something indistinct, body language screaming anxiety—constant beanie adjustments, shifting weight, eyes darting between shadows.
Yoko’s response cut through clearly: “Nightmare-inducing is kind of the point, Sinclair. Nothing says ’safe learning environment’ like constant surveillance.”
Wednesday filed away the bitter edge in Yoko’s tone. The vampire had always possessed pragmatic cynicism, but this carried genuine anger worth monitoring.
She retrieved her bags from the hearse with mechanical efficiency, noting how passing students gave her a wider berth than usual. Not their typical wariness of Wednesday Addams, but something more primal. They recognized another predator.
Their instincts have sharpened. Perhaps not entirely useless.
The main hall’s acoustics had altered. Where once vaulted ceilings swallowed sound into Gothic ambience, now every footfall ricocheted like accusation. Whispers traveled in ways that defied physics, creating a pervasive atmosphere of paranoia.
She passed Bianca near the trophy case. The siren queen offered a single nod—chin lifted exactly fifteen degrees, held for precisely two seconds before returning to neutral. Not subservience, not friendship. Acknowledgment of shared battlefield experience.
Wednesday returned the gesture with microscopic exactness, their exchange lasting less than four seconds yet communicating volumes about post-crisis social restructuring.
The familiar hallway felt narrower, though measurements would prove otherwise. Other students pressed against walls as she passed, fear now tinged with something else—respect, perhaps. Recognition of what she had proven capable of.
Her door opened to organized chaos in transition. Her side remained monochrome minimalism—every object positioned for maximum efficiency. Enid’s explosion of color showed signs of attempted organization, though entropy would inevitably reclaim it within days.
Thing had already begun his work, skittering across surfaces with arachnid efficiency. He wasn’t merely unpacking; he was reconstructing their investigative apparatus. Fresh paper aligned beside her typewriter. Red string coiled beside unused pushpins. The corkboard stood cleared, awaiting new mysteries.
A single photograph lay face-down on her desk—Tyler’s Hyde form, captured in death. Thing tapped it once, then scurried to her criminal pathology textbook, drumming two fingers on its spine before pointing toward the window.
Wednesday followed his gesture. Enid remained visible in the Quad below, pink coat a beacon against winter grey.
“That variable has been neutralized, Thing.” Her voice maintained characteristic flatness. “We are now observing its aftershocks. Prioritize reconnaissance of the new faculty. Their résumés seem suspiciously curated.”
Thing signed something rapid and complex that roughly translated as concern about other potential threats.
“Paranoia has become Nevermore’s primary educational offering this semester. We shall conduct our own assessment independent of administrative assurances.”
She moved to the window, assuming her favored observation post. Below, Enid’s group began dispersing with the reluctant pace of those who found safety in numbers. Ajax slouched toward the boys’ dormitory, hands deep in pockets. Yoko glided away with vampiric grace, sunglasses reflecting nothing.
Enid lingered, saying individual farewells with touches—a hand on Ajax’s shoulder, fingers briefly squeezing Yoka’s arm. Each contact lasted exactly long enough to convey reassurance without appearing clingy.
Pack behavior. The wolf integrates with her human facade more seamlessly than anticipated.
Wednesday tracked the pink coat’s progress across the Quad, through the main entrance, up visible stairs through Gothic windows. Only when it vanished into Ophelia Hall’s entrance did she register the subtle relaxation of her own shoulders.
She turned from the window, fingers absently drumming Morse code against the sill.
Thing scuttled closer, tilting in what might have been concern.
“I am merely noting environmental changes.” The words rang hollow even to her own ears. “The ecosystem has shifted. Adaptation is required.”
Thing signed something that looked suspiciously like skepticism.
Wednesday ignored him, moving to her desk with purposeful strides. She lifted the Hyde photograph, studying Tyler’s monstrous form with detached interest. The creature that had nearly destroyed everything lay reduced to two dimensions, trapped in photographic chemicals.
Death diminishes even the most impressive monsters.
Yet her thoughts drifted not to the creature in the photograph, but to the flash of pink visible through the window. To shoulders that carried new tension. To exits mapped and escapes planned by someone who had learned that safety was conditional.
The thought should have been purely analytical. The warmth that accompanied it was a variable she had no intention of documenting but could no longer entirely ignore.
* * *
Typewriter keys struck paper with metronomic rhythm, each impact calculated for maximum efficiency. Wednesday had positioned herself at the desk forty-three minutes ago, documenting observations about Nevermore’s altered ecosystem. The Hyde photograph now resided in a manila folder labeled “Resolved Threats”—filed between a newspaper clipping about a suspicious drowning and her great-aunt Calpurnia’s obituary.
Entry 1,247: The installation of surveillance equipment has created an interesting paradox. Students believe themselves safer while simultaneously exhibiting heightened stress responses. The administration has confused the illusion of security with—
The door handle turned. Not with its usual enthusiastic bang that once announced Enid’s arrival like a sugar-fueled hurricane, but with a quiet, controlled click.
Wednesday’s fingers stilled above the keys.
Enid entered with fluid economy, each movement purposeful. The door closed behind her with measured control, lock sliding home with barely a whisper.
She swept the room in a pattern Wednesday recognized from her own threat assessments—corners first, shadows second, exits third. When those eyes landed on Wednesday’s meticulously arranged side, they lingered on the fresh investigative setup: cleared corkboard, coiled red string, stack of unopened correspondence from various law enforcement agencies seeking “consultation.”
A smile touched Enid’s lips. Not the thousand-watt beam that once threatened retinal damage, but something quieter. More knowing.
“Your side looks exactly the same. Like, down to the millimeter.”
“Consistency provides tactical advantage in an unstable environment.”
The subtext hung between them like morning fog over a graveyard: Our unstable environment. The one where Hyde claws had torn through the supposed safety.
Enid moved to her bed, shrugging off her pink coat with controlled movements. Where once she would have flung it carelessly, now she folded it before placing it on her chair.
“Tactical advantage. Right.” She pulled open a suitcase filled with every shade of pink textile ever manufactured. “Though I notice you upgraded the investigation board. Planning to solve another murder before midterms?”
“Statistically speaking, Nevermore experiences a significant crisis every 3.7 months. Preparation is merely practical.”
“God, that’s depressing.” Enid lifted a sweater adorned with rainbow unicorns, studying it with an expression Wednesday couldn’t quite identify. “Also probably accurate.”
“You know what else is depressing?” Enid continued, hanging the sweater with unnecessary force. “Everyone looking at you like you might spontaneously sprout fur and claws. Like, hello? I saved everyone’s ass. You’d think that would earn me something other than weird side-eye in the cafeteria.”
“Fear is a more honest response than gratitude. At least it acknowledges your capability.”
Enid paused mid-reach for another sweater, turning to study Wednesday with unnervingly perceptive eyes.
“Is that your way of saying you’re proud of me?”
“I am stating an objective assessment of social dynamics.”
“Uh-huh.” Enid’s knowing smile returned. “You totally are.”
Wednesday’s attention snagged on details as Enid stretched to reach the closet’s upper shelf. Cotton pulled taut across shoulders that had broadened—subtle but measurable. When Enid’s hand gripped the shelf, Wednesday noted her fingernails. Still painted bubblegum pink, but the nail beds showed thickening at the base, keratin structures reinforced beyond baseline human parameters.
A stack of sweaters tumbled from Enid’s grip, cascading across the floor in a pastel explosion. Her hands jerked back, fingers splaying as if the fabric had burned them.
“Damn it.”
She flexed her hands, staring at her own fingers with an expression Wednesday recognized from her own mirror—when visions came unbidden, when control slipped through mental fingers like water.
Motor control disruption. The new power lacks calibration.
Enid’s carefully constructed confidence cracked. Her shoulders hunched inward, making her frame smaller—prey behavior, not predator.
Thing began his scuttle across the floor, prepared to offer comfort, but Wednesday spoke first.
“Uncontrolled variables require systematic analysis and repetition to bring them under command. It is a matter of methodology, not moral failing.”
Enid straightened slowly, turning to face her fully. Fear receded like a tide pulling back from shore, replaced by something Wednesday’s extensive emotional taxonomy couldn’t quite classify. Recognition, perhaps. Understanding.
“Methodology,” Enid repeated, tasting the word. “You’re offering to help me.”
“I am stating a fact about skill acquisition.”
“You’re offering to help me.” Softer this time. “With control. With... this.” She gestured vaguely at herself, at invisible wounds that wouldn’t heal.
“Your lack of control presents a potential liability to our investigative efforts. Addressing it is practical.”
Enid’s smile shifted into something Wednesday had never seen before—gentle but knowing, seeing through clinical words to something beneath.
“Yeah. Practical.” She began collecting fallen sweaters, movements more controlled now. “It’s good to be back, Weds.”
The diminutive form of her name, once a source of grinding irritation, registered differently now. An operational identifier between partners.
Between whatever they had become to each other in the crucible of near-death.
Wednesday gave a single, sharp nod—chin dropping eight degrees before returning to neutral.
“Your return was anticipated.”
“Anticipated,” Enid echoed, and that knowing smile widened fractionally. “I’ll take it.”
She resumed unpacking with renewed focus, each movement more controlled than the last. Wednesday returned to her typewriter but found her attention divided. Every few keystrokes, her gaze would drift to observe another alteration: the way Enid tested objects’ weight before grasping them, the micro-adjustments in grip strength, the conscious modulation of movement speed.
Thing scuttled between them, signing something elaborate about dinner timing, but neither responded. The space between them had shifted, charged with understanding that didn’t require words. They had moved beyond reluctant roommates, beyond even a tentative friendship forged in crisis.
This was something else. Something that made Wednesday’s usually exact mental categorization systems throw error messages.
“Hey, Wednesday?”
“Yes?”
“The investigation board. The red string and everything.” Enid gestured toward the prepared materials. “We’re doing this together, right? Whatever comes next?”
Wednesday’s fingers found their position above the keys but didn’t strike.
“Your observational skills proved useful during the previous incident.”
“That’s Wednesday-speak for ’yes, we’re partners,’ isn’t it?”
“It is an acknowledgment of demonstrated competency.”
“Partners it is, then.” Enid’s grin flashed—not the old megawatt smile, but something sharper. Something that showed those elongated canines. “Fair warning, though—I’m probably going to be way better at the good cop routine now. The whole ’controlled danger’ thing really sells it.”
“Your definition of ’controlled’ requires significant calibration.”
“That’s what I have you for, right? Methodology and calibration?”
Wednesday resumed typing, keys striking with renewed purpose.
“Among other utilities.”
Comfortable silence fell between them—weighted with promise, with partnership, with something Wednesday would analyze later when Enid’s presence didn’t create such fascinating disruptions to her usually ordered thoughts.
For now, she documented the obvious:
Entry 1,247 continued: The ecosystem has adapted. We have adapted with it. The partnership remains intact and has potentially evolved beyond its original parameters. Further observation required.
She didn’t document the way her peripheral vision tracked every movement Enid made, or how the sound of her breathing had become a comfortable baseline to Wednesday’s sensory awareness.
Some observations were too dangerous to commit to paper.
* * *
3:17 AM glowed in accusatory red. Wednesday lay motionless, spine aligned against her mattress, eyes tracking ceiling water stains that resembled various stages of decomposition. Her six-hour sleep protocol—implemented at age seven, maintained with monastic discipline—had been compromised.
Across the room, bedsprings groaned in irregular rhythm. Soft whimpers punctuated each creak.
Residual anxiety from re-acclimation. Should self-correct within two to three sleep cycles.
Wednesday closed her eyes, initiating manual override. Count backwards from one thousand in Latin. Catalogue the chemical composition of common poisons. Recite the stages of rigor mortis.
The sounds persisted.
Her jaw clenched—an involuntary response she immediately corrected. Sleep deprivation would compromise her analytical capabilities. Enid’s nocturnal disruptions were therefore a direct threat to operational efficiency.
Soft tapping interrupted her rationalization. Thing stood upright on her nightstand, stitched seams pulled taut in acute concern. He signed frantically toward Enid’s side of the room.
“It is none of our concern.” Wednesday’s whisper barely disturbed the air. “She is processing data from the previous crisis.”
Thing tapped again, more insistently. His fingers formed sharp, accusatory angles before pointing directly at Wednesday.
You are concerned.
She turned her back to him with deliberate finality. The dismissal should have ended the interaction. Should have allowed her to return to her disrupted sleep protocol.
But her auditory cortex remained stubbornly attuned to the sounds across the room. Each whimper registered with unwanted clarity. Each creak of springs noted and analyzed for patterns indicating distress levels.
The whimpering ceased.
Wednesday’s breath held for exactly three seconds.
The silence broke with a sound that vibrated through the floorboards, bypassing her ears entirely to resonate in her sternum. A growl. Low, guttural, carrying frequencies that predated human civilization. It wasn’t loud, but it filled the room with primal warning that her hindbrain recognized before conscious thought could intervene.
She sat up. Her body moved without consultation, spine straightening in response to a threat assessment her lizard brain had already completed.
Involuntary partial transformation during unconsciousness. The variable has become unstable.
Wednesday’s feet found the floor without sound, toes spreading for optimal weight distribution. She crossed the invisible demarcation that bisected their room—a boundary she’d respected with religious dedication since their first night as roommates.
Moonlight sliced through their window in geometric patterns, casting Enid’s bed in stark relief. The familiar explosion of pink bedding looked grey in darkness, but movement beneath the covers drew Wednesday’s focus with magnetic intensity.
Enid twisted in her sheets, fabric wound around her limbs like restraints. Her silhouette was wrong—fingers too long, joints bent at angles suggesting metacarpal extension. Dark curves tipped each digit where nails should have been smooth. Her lips pulled back from teeth that caught moonlight like wet bone, canines descended past human parameters.
A single tear escaped her clenched left eyelid, tracking silver down her cheek before disappearing into tangled hair.
Wednesday’s first impulse was documentation. Note the transformation velocity. List the specific muscle groups involved. Calculate the metabolic requirements of partial transformation during REM sleep.
But the tear short-circuited her analytical process.
Her hand moved without permission, crossing the space between observation and intervention. Before she could form a proper hypothesis for the action, her palm pressed flat against Enid’s forearm.
The skin burned fever-hot, at least three degrees above baseline human temperature. Muscle tremors vibrated through the contact point, transmitting directly into Wednesday’s nervous system.
“Enid.” Her voice emerged in perfect monotone, each syllable weighted with command despite the absence of emotional inflection. “Regulate. This energy is yours to control.”
She kept her hand steady, becoming a fixed point in the chaos.
“You are the apex. Not the aberration.”
Beneath her palm, the tremors began to subside. The guttural growling softened through several octaves, becoming a shaky exhale that sounded almost human. Wednesday watched with clinical fascination as the claws retracted—keratin structures sliding back into nail beds with a sound like silk over bone. The sharp angles of Enid’s face softened, jaw realigning, cheekbones settling into familiar curves.
Enid’s eyes fluttered open. Unfocused initially, pupils dilated from sleep and something deeper—residual fear that hadn’t quite released its grip. Then they sharpened with jarring speed, blue-green irises contracting as they locked onto Wednesday’s face, hovering above her in darkness.
The gaze dropped to Wednesday’s hand, still pressed against fever-warm skin.
Silence crystallized between them, dense with implications Wednesday’s mind scrambled to categorize. The intimacy registered across multiple sensory channels—heat differential between their skin, synchronized breathing rhythm, moonlight caught in Enid’s widened eyes.
Wednesday retracted her hand as if the contact point had suddenly become electrically charged. The movement was too fast, too sharp—a tactical error broadcasting panic her face would never show.
“Wednesday?” Enid’s whisper came raw and fragile, vocal cords still recovering from growls they weren’t designed to produce.
Wednesday defaulted to protocol with desperate efficiency. “You were exhibiting signs of somatic distress. I was merely collecting observational data.”
The excuse rang hollow, hanging between them like a poorly constructed lie.
Enid didn’t argue. She simply looked at Wednesday, eyes wide with fear clearly not directed at Wednesday but at herself. At what she might have done. At what she was becoming.
She pulled her knees to her chest, a defensive posture that made her seem smaller despite her lycanthropic enhancements. The gesture was so fundamentally Enid—seeking comfort through compression, making herself a smaller target.
Something twisted beneath Wednesday’s sternum.
This is not simple lack of control. This is post-traumatic stress manifesting through her supernatural biology. She is reliving a moment of profound terror every time she loses focus.
The transformation that had saved them all—Enid’s violent awakening into her full power—hadn’t been a triumph. It had been survival at its most desperate, power born from the certainty of death. Every partial transformation now carried echoes of that moment when she’d had to become something monstrous to save what she loved.
The problem wasn’t physiological; it was psychological.
“I was back there.” Enid’s voice barely carried across the space between them. “In the woods. Tyler was—the Hyde was coming for you, and I couldn’t change fast enough. I kept trying but my body wouldn’t—”
She pressed her palms against her eyes, shoulders trembling with suppressed sobs.
“Every time I close my eyes, I’m too slow. Every time, you die because I’m not strong enough.”
She dreams of my death. Repeatedly. And her wolf responds to the perceived threat with partial transformation.
“Your response time during the actual event was within acceptable parameters,” Wednesday said, tone maintaining its characteristic flatness despite the chaos in her chest. “You arrived with thirty-seven seconds to spare before critical injury would have occurred.”
“Thirty-seven seconds.” Enid’s laugh held no humor. “You calculated it.”
“I calculate everything.”
“Did you calculate this?” Enid gestured vaguely at herself, at the space between them, at invisible wounds that wouldn’t heal. “Did you factor in the part where I can’t control it anymore? Where I’m more dangerous now than before I could transform?”
Wednesday considered the question with genuine focus. Her calculations had accounted for physical recovery, adaptation periods, even psychological adjustment phases. But they hadn’t anticipated this specific malfunction—strength becoming liability, power becoming prison.
“No,” she admitted. “This variable was not anticipated.”
Enid’s smile was brittle. “At least you’re honest.”
“I am always honest. Deception requires emotional investment I prefer to avoid.”
“Right.” Enid pulled her covers up to her chin, a child’s gesture that looked wrong on someone who could tear throats with her teeth. “Sorry I woke you. I’ll try to keep it down.”
Wednesday should have accepted it. Should have returned to her bed, resumed her sleep protocol, documented the incident in tomorrow’s journal entry. Should have maintained the careful boundaries that kept them functional as roommates and investigative partners.
Instead, she heard herself saying: “The nightmares will intensify without intervention.”
Enid’s eyes found hers in darkness. “Speaking from experience?”
“Speaking from statistical probability. Post-traumatic stress follows predictable patterns. Without proper management protocols, symptoms escalate rather than diminish.”
“Management protocols.” Another hollow laugh. “You make it sound so clinical.”
“Everything is clinical when properly examined.”
Wednesday moved to her desk, muscle memory navigating darkness without need for sight. She retrieved a leather journal from the third drawer—one Enid had never seen her use. When she returned, she placed it on Enid’s nightstand with careful deliberation.
“Document them,” she said. “The dreams. Write them immediately upon waking. Every detail, no matter how seemingly irrelevant.”
“Why?”
“Dreams are data. Data can be analyzed. Analysis leads to understanding. Understanding enables control.”
Enid’s fingers brushed the journal’s cover, tracing the embossed pattern—a raven mid-flight, wings spread against leather dark as midnight.
“This is yours.”
“It served its purpose. Now it may serve yours.”
“Thing will assist with documentation if manual dexterity becomes compromised during partial transformation,” Wednesday continued, voice steady. “He has experience transcribing under adverse conditions.”
From her nightstand, Thing signed enthusiastic agreement, practically vibrating with eagerness to help.
“You’re both very sweet,” Enid murmured, and Wednesday’s spine stiffened at the adjective. “But I don’t think writing is going to fix this. I’m broken, Wednesday. The thing that makes me special is the thing that might hurt everyone I—”
“You are not broken.” The words emerged with more force than Wednesday intended, sharp enough to cut. “You are adapting to power you were never properly trained to integrate. The failure lies with your pack’s preparation, not your execution.”
“My parents—”
“Your parents expected transformation at twelve, not seventeen. Their methodology assumed years of gradual integration. You achieved in moments what should have taken years. The psychological infrastructure hasn’t had time to develop.”
Wednesday found herself sitting on the edge of Enid’s bed without conscious decision to move. The boundary violation should have felt catastrophic. Instead, it felt inevitable.
“Power without structure is chaos,” she continued. “You require frameworks. Protocols. Practice.”
“Is that an offer?” Enid’s voice held something Wednesday couldn’t identify—hope, perhaps, though she had limited experience recognizing it.
“It is a statement of fact.”
“Wednesday Addams, are you offering to train me?”
“I am offering to provide methodological structure to prevent further operational compromise.”
“That’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me.”
Wednesday’s pause lasted exactly two seconds. “We have never engaged in romantic discourse, so that is technically accurate but contextually meaningless.”
Enid’s laugh—real this time, warm despite its softness—did something unfortunate to Wednesday’s cardiovascular system.
“Right. Contextually meaningless. Got it.”
She shifted, making space on the bed that Wednesday didn’t take. The invitation hung between them like a bridge Wednesday wasn’t ready to cross.
“Tomorrow,” Wednesday said, standing with mechanical control. “We begin at dawn. Wear something you don’t mind destroying.”
“Dawn? Seriously?”
“Optimal hormonal balance occurs immediately after waking. Cortisol levels are naturally elevated, making transformation easier to initiate and control.”
“You’ve been researching,” Enid said, and the wonder in her voice made Wednesday retreat another step.
“I research everything relevant to operational success.”
“And I’m relevant to operational success?”
“Your capabilities have proven essential to previous engagements. Maintaining those capabilities is logical.”
“Logical,” Enid repeated, but she was smiling now—not the brittle expression from before but something softer. Something that made Wednesday’s tactical retreat feel more strategic than ever.
“Sleep,” Wednesday commanded, already moving toward her own bed. “Tomorrow will be physically demanding.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The gentle teasing in Enid’s tone should have irritated her. Instead, Wednesday found herself calculating training regimens that would push Enid to her limits while providing the structure she desperately needed. Purely practical. Entirely logical.
The warm satisfaction spreading through her chest was merely anticipation of a successful training protocol. Nothing more.
Thing signed something from her nightstand—something about hearts and obviousness that she pretended not to see.
Across the room, Enid’s breathing gradually steadied into sleep rhythms. No more growls. No more whimpers. Just soft, steady peace.
Wednesday stared at the ceiling, resuming her count of water stains. But now she found herself calculating something else entirely—the exact number of seconds it had taken for her touch to calm Enid’s transformation.
Twelve seconds. Twelve seconds of contact to achieve full stabilization.
She filed the data away for future analysis, ignoring the way her palm still tingled with phantom heat from Enid’s skin.
The lie was comfortable enough to let her sleep.