Chapter 2: Nevermore's Abnormal Roommate
When the dorm room door swung open, Enid Sinclair was sitting cross-legged on her bed, painting her nails a shade of pink that could probably be seen from orbit. Afternoon light slanted through the window, catching the pink and blue streaks in her golden hair and making her look like a walking highlight reel.
"Okay, I love your aesthetic," Vic announced, stepping inside like he owned the place.
Enid looked up and froze. Her eyes bounced between Wednesday and Vic, then landed on the slick black head emerging from Vic's shoulder like it was the most natural thing in the world.
"Who are you?" she asked — her voice approximately three octaves higher than Wednesday's natural register.
"I'm Vic! This is Venom!" He pointed at himself, then at Venom with the enthusiasm of someone at a county fair. "We're your new roommates!"
Enid looked at Wednesday. "Is he serious?"
"Unfortunately," Wednesday said.
"Hey!" Vic protested. "We're a great time."
Venom nodded sagely. "Especially when he loses it completely."
Enid blinked. Then, like a switch flipping, she broke into a full, brilliant smile.
"Alright then." She hopped off the bed and thrust out her hand. "Enid Sinclair."
Vic shook it with the energy of a golden retriever who just heard the word walk. "Victor Black! Also — Venom says you smell like strawberry shortcake."
"— I absolutely did not say that."
Wednesday moved to her bed without ceremony, dropped her luggage, and said flatly: "If either of you plan to talk all night, I will nail your tongues to the wall."
Vic and Enid went silent at exactly the same time.
Venom muttered: "She's more unhinged than we are."
Vic nodded slowly, a look of deep admiration on his face. "I'm obsessed with her."
Enid looked between the two of them and laughed — the kind of laugh that starts somewhere in the stomach and doesn't ask permission.
These guys are genuinely something else, she thought.
She would come to regret that optimism within the hour.
By the time Wednesday had produced the first hammer from her suitcase, Vic was perched on the windowsill working his way through what appeared to be a chocolate bar shaped vaguely like a femur.
"Are we demoing the room?" he asked, chocolate crumbs dotting the corner of his mouth.
Wednesday didn't answer. She arranged a row of nails along the head of her bed with the focused precision of someone conducting a séance.
Enid watched in blank silence until the moment Wednesday produced a can of black paint.
"Hold on—" Enid's voice cracked. "That's my wall!"
"It was," Wednesday said, not turning around. "Now it's a Gothic installation. I'm calling it The Raven's Funeral."
Vic launched himself off the windowsill and began bouncing between them like a pinball, eyes lit up. "Venom! Look! It's a turf war!"
Venom surfaced from his shoulder and surveyed both sides with genuine critical interest. "Left side looks like a bag of Skittles exploded. Right side looks like a crime scene. I vote Wednesday."
"Traitor!" Enid snatched a pink throw pillow and hurled it at Venom, who caught it in his jaws and swallowed it whole.
"That was a limited edition Care Bears pillow!"
Wednesday, meanwhile, was mid-renovation — swapping out Enid's pastel curtains for black lace, and pinning a row of specimen bats along the curtain rod. Vic leaned in until his nose nearly grazed a wing.
"Are those real?"
"They were alive last week," Wednesday said.
Enid made a sound like a deflating balloon. "You can't just—"
"I can." Wednesday turned around, holding a pair of tailor's scissors with the casual authority of someone who has used them for purposes tailor's scissors were never intended for. "Would you like a demonstration on what I do to things that are excessively pink?"
Vic wedged himself between them, a piece of chocolate in each outstretched hand. "Peace offering! Enid — 85% dark chocolate, bitter and intense, basically Wednesday's personality in candy form. Wednesday — strawberry flavored. Yes, I know it's aggressively cheerful. Try it anyway."
Both pieces hit him in the face simultaneously.
When Headmistress Weems arrived in response to the noise, the room had been divided as cleanly as a congressional district. Enid's half: a riot of color — fairy lights, stuffed animals, an unauthorized amount of glitter. Wednesday's half: black lace, preserved specimens, and what appeared to be a functioning gallows decoration on the bathroom door.
Vic, for his part, had been assigned a bed-width strip of real estate directly in front of said bathroom door. He was squatting on it, taping the words VIC'S TERRITORY onto the floor with black electrical tape while Venom supervised.
"Why," Weems said, in the tone of a woman who has asked this question before and received unsatisfying answers, "is your territory by the bathroom?"
"Democratic vote," Vic said, completely straight-faced. "Also," he pointed at the gallows decoration, "they installed a noose right there. Very welcoming. Real homey vibe."
Weems closed her eyes for a moment that lasted slightly longer than was comfortable.
"Enid," she said, opening them again, "give them a tour of the academy." She looked at Vic. "Keep him away from anything flammable."
"Or living," Wednesday added.
Weems left without another word. Vic watched her go and sighed contentedly. "You know, she really does care."
The Quad was the central courtyard of Nevermore Academy — ringed by Gothic spires, paved in old bluestone that had been worn smooth by decades of students with unusual footfalls, and anchored in the center by a raven statue that seemed to follow you with its eyes no matter where you stood.
"Why is it called the Quad?" Wednesday asked flatly, studying the layout. "It has five sides. It's a pentagon."
Enid blinked. "It's... tradition?"
"Tradition is a word people use when they can't justify something logically," Wednesday said. She looked at the ground. "Also, there are at least three bodies buried under these stones."
Vic immediately dropped to his hands and knees and pressed his ear flat against the bluestone. "Venom. Listen. The bones are definitely talking."
Venom leaned down alongside him. "All I can hear is your remaining brain cells begging for help."
"Hey! New faces!"
A tall guy in a beanie ambled over, the kind of easy confidence about him that only comes from either being very popular or being completely unbothered by consequences.
"Ajax Petropolus." He offered a hand. "Gorgon. Cool to meet you — just don't touch the hat unless you want to spend the next six hours as a garden ornament."
Vic's eyes went wide. "Gorgon? Like, actual snake hair? Like Percy Jackson-level—"
"Yeah," Ajax said, with the resigned patience of someone who had answered this question many times. He tapped the beanie. "They're under here. Fair warning — they've got attitudes."
"Dude." Vic reached for the beanie. "I have to see—"
"Wait—"
Enid and Wednesday both took three synchronized steps backward.
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