Midnight Rainbow (Enid x Wednesday thru Enid's POV)

meaningless (E1)

"Nevermore was founded in 1791 to educate people like us," I tell Wednesday as we make our way down the ornate stairs that lead to the great hall. "Outcasts, freaks, monsters, fill in your favorite marginalized group here."

Students filter all around us. I wait for Wednesday to be impressed.

"You can save the sanitized sales pitch." She turns to face me. "I don't plan on staying here for long."

"Why not?" I know we just met, but this feels like the start of something important.

"This was my parents' idea." She cuts her eyes to the trophy case, where a picture of a girl who looks very much like her mother stands at the head of a fencing team. "Oh, look. There's my mother smirking at me."

I don't know that it's a smirk exactly, but—

"They've been looking for any excuse to send me here. It's all a part of their nefarious yet completely obvious plan."

I try not to look too giddy, but A) I love when people use the word nefarious in everyday conversation, and B) Wednesday is confiding in me.

"What plan?"

She stares at me with those searing brown eyes. "To turn me into a version of themselves."

Interesting. I can't keep my curiosity under control any longer, so I just go for it."Well, in that case, perhaps you can clear something up." I start walking to the quad, and she falls into step beside me. "Rumor's been swirling around that you killed a kid at your old school." No need to mention that I'm the one doing the swirling. "And...your parents pulled strings to get you off."

"Actually, it was two kids, but who's counting?" she replies, in the calmest, most serial killer voice you can imagine.

Oh. Em. Gee.

I am going to spend the rest of the term living with a murderer. Also, I wonder if she'd let me braid her hair.

I open the doors to the quad, back straight, head high, like, nope, I am not at all fazed by what you just told me. I am that good of a friend. I would literally help you hide the bodies (well, assuming they were all evil or something.)

I raise my palms to the green space that is crowded with Nevermore students in striped black and purple, one twisted brown tree rising out of a reflecting pool in the center.

"Welcome to the quad."

Picnic tables and dreary gray and black stone and everyone buzzing with stories and secrets. It's probably my favorite place on campus.

"It's a pentagon," says Wednesday.

I don't think I like her tone.

"The whole snarky goth girl thing might have worked at normie school, but here things are different. Let me give you a wiki on Nevermore's social scene."

"I'm not interested in participating in tribal adolescent clichés."

"Well, then use it to fill your obviously bottomless pit of disdain," I shoot back (not unkindly) as we walk around the space that I maintain is a quad despite the laws of physics and geometry and stuff. "There are many flavors of outcasts here, but the four main cliques are Fangs, Furs, Stoners, and Scales."

I tick them off on my fingers and point to a nearby cluster of undead students. "Those are Fangs, AKA vampires."

Wednesday side eyes the table of pale, sunglasses-wearing kids sipping blood through straws.

"Some of them have literally been here for decades." So, like, watch out or you'll end up dating a high schooler who's older than your grandpa. Ew.