[Wednesday POV]
The chalk lines were exact this time. A year ago, I had drawn them for a different purpose, testing the tensile strength of Perseus's devotion. That ritual was born of suspicion and sharpened by spite. This one was different.
Perseus's origins remained a question mark, and questions demand answers. Whispers said he might belong to House Thorpe, one of the grand American psychic families. If true, then when we marry in two years their ancestral dead would thread themselves into the Addams spirit network. More eyes, more knowledge, more cards for the next generation.
As for what the Thorpes will do? They should be grateful they are still alive.
The circle was simple, by my standards. Chalk lines etched with salt. A pendulum of black thread and a brass needle suspended over the center. Around the edges I placed gemstones, each keyed to a psychic family from the USA.
The ingredients were straightforward: one drop of blood, one instrument of balance, and the patience to watch which stone drew the needle. A family tree reduced to an experiment. Exactly how I prefer it.
I dusted my hands, rose, and opened the crypt door to fetch Perseus.
Mother waited outside, a column of black silk with a small oak chest balanced in her hands.
"I know what you're doing, mi cuervo," she said, voice smooth. "But remember this, sometimes the answer you seek drags other truths with it and death may be the fastest way. You will have to decide, and hesitation may cost more than you expect."
She pressed the chest into my arms. Then drifted away without another word.
Strange, even for her. She did not warn me off; she warned me about choices. I looked down at the box, then toward the hall. Would Perseus refuse the revelation even if it confirmed what he already suspected? What truth, exactly, was waiting to be unboxed?
While I was still unraveling the thought, I found him in the gallery, sketchbook open, gaze not entirely in this world.
"Come with me," I said.
He looked up, one brow arching. "Need a guinea pig? Borrow your brother."
When I didn't answer, just stared at him, he added warily, "Or another ritual? Part two of your little love-execution experiment?"
"This time it isn't about affection," I answered. "I only need a drop of blood. We will confirm your lineage."
He held my stare longer than usual, then shut the sketchbook. "Fine."
Back in the crypt, his eyes tracked the chalk lines. "Looks fancy," he murmured. "Which part explodes?"
"Hopefully the subject," I replied. "Stand there."
He pricked his finger without ceremony, a bead of red fell onto the center ring. The circle shivered. The pendulum stirred.
Before touching the psychic stones, I slid in another bowl, gemstones tied to minorities. Mother's warning sat like a weight behind my ribs. If I was going to look, I would look everywhere.
He smiled lightly. "Testing all of them? Curiosity killed the cat."
"But satisfaction brought it back," I said.
The needle swung once, twice, then dropped hard into the bowl of neglected gems.
Perseus's mouth parted. "You even put the gemstone of other races?"
I said nothing. Silence was enough.
I gathered the gems, spread them again, excluding what was irrelevant after his slip.
The pendulum trembled, spun, and slammed into the black stone. The impact was soft, but the meaning was not. Fey, not the natural spirits like dryads, naiads, or sylphs, but veil-spirits: the ones that walk between realms, whispering in human ears, gifting nightmares, symphonies, even souls.
"How long have you known?" I asked.
He stared at the stone. "A few years. When you register in the Outcast Society, they make you take the test."
I searched the shelves and pulled free a book on fey. Its pages were crowded with centuries of lore about how they were sought for aid or hunted for power, but some general traits mirrored Perseus:
-They cannot lie, but twist truth.
-They love bargains and contracts.
"You fit," I said, and shut the book.
I set Mother's chest on the stone floor and opened it. Inside lay a heart, ambered and threaded with living vines, pulsing faintly like a seed refusing to rot. Beside it a black-handled dagger.
Perseus whistled. "A dryad's heart."
"My mother gave it to me," I said. "She knew this would happen. You'll likely need it to fully activate your bloodline."
I looked at him. "Until now your full potential is dormant, like werewolves before wolfing out. So why haven't you? Why didn't you awaken it?"
He looked at the heart, then at me. "Why, why, why so many whys?" He laughed, but his eyes betrayed another tale. "Because there are some… outcomes I don't want to happen."
The humor drained from him like color from a dying flame. What remained was something human, fragile, and almost beautiful.
He turned as if to leave.
No. Not again.
I caught his wrist. The same eyes that once drowned in sorrow met mine again. Last time, I had watched in silence. This time, I would not let him sink alone.
But what could I say? Where was the problem? What was the price?
I sifted through what I had just read… Was it the fey memories that get branded into the bloodline after they died? Was he afraid that when he awakened, he would know the truth of his parents?
"Is it about your parents?" I asked quietly.
For a heartbeat he said nothing. Then, slowly, his shoulders eased, the corner of his mouth tilting in something that wasn't quite a smile.
"When I registered with the Outcast Society, they told me about my origins. Kind of creepy how much they knew about my past, but it made sense because they were the ones who hunted and killed my father."
He exhaled, a sound halfway between a laugh and a confession.
"My father was a spirit-fey who walked the borders of dreams. One night he entered a mortal woman's dream and fell in love. When she woke, she thought it was just a dream… until she found herself pregnant."
His gaze drifted somewhere far beyond the crypt walls. "Can you imagine a teenager suddenly pregnant? She was lost, hid it from her family, and after I was born, she left me in the forest out of desperation."
He smiled faintly. "As for my father, hunted by the Outcast Council for crimes he'd spent centuries committing. Slipping into dreams, planting ideas, inspiring some, destroying others. One of his last recorded victims was an Austrian painter. He whispered some questionable ideas… I can't really blame them for killing him."
I looked at his smiling face. So, it was something else. But what?
Does it have something to do with his race?
He said his father could walk between dreams, yet he can summon sketches into the real world. It didn't make sense to assume he'd hit some genetic jackpot, so why was his gift so different? What would he gain by fully awakening his bloodline?
There were so many questions and no answers.
Where was the problem? Think, Wednesday. Don't let him slip through your fingers.
He watched me, a flicker of amusement in his eyes. Then he reached out and pinched my cheek.
"I have the feeling," he said, "that you're overthinking."
"Am I?"
"The dryad's heart is only the first step. After that I need to bind a person, the same way a dryad needs a tree."
I watched his hand slide from my fingers. "Why…" not me? You don't think I am the right person? The one who will always be by your side?
He looked at me softly, sighed, and tilted his head. "Still overthinking?" His tone was gentle, teasing, but the weight behind his eyes betrayed it.
"I imagine you wanted to ask why not bond with you, right?"
He stepped closer and cupped my face between his palms, squishing my cheeks lightly as if trying to soften the moment. "Because I don't want to take away a choice, your choice."
He studied me for a second longer. A finger traced the curve of my lips, feather-light.
"The moment you bond with me, you'll gain power beyond anything you've known. Your body will return to its peak, your strength, your mind, everything reborn. But in exchange, your freedom ends. You'll never leave my side again."
"Don't you think," I whispered, "that we'll be together forever anyway?"
He laughed softly, the sound fragile. His fingers pressed harder against my cheeks, turning my head slightly to the side. "I'm sure we will," he said, though the light dimmed in his eyes. "But…"
He let out a breath, smile still there but smaller now. "I want you to have the option. If one day, for whatever reason, you wake up and this… us, doesn't feel right anymore, you should have the choice to leave."
He slid his hands away from my face and walked toward the window. Moonlight spilled over him, tracing the edges of his shoulders as he looked out.
"I have my highs and my lows," he said quietly. "Some days I'm happy, other days I'm not. Sometimes I see every flaw I have, and sometimes I think I'm perfect." A short laugh escaped him. "At the end of the day, I'm just like everyone else, imperfect, a person with a myriad of feelings, thoughts, problems."
He glanced back at me, smile small but sincere.
"I'm not like you. You're just… different. Graceful, beautiful, and completely unreachable. Sometimes I wonder why you fell in love with me. Maybe you fell for a version of me that isn't real… the perfect illusion. And maybe one day, you'll wake up from it and see me as I truly am, just an ordinary man trying his best to fit into this world."
He turned back to the window, voice softer. "I don't want to make a cage out of love, clip your wings. You need to be free, free to choose whatever you want."
Without turning around, he laughed lightly. "In the end, keeping the choice untouched is still different from never being allowed to choose at all."
I watched him, composed and unaware of the quiet catastrophe he looked like.
"The dagger," I said quietly. "It isn't part of the awakening, is it?" I smirked at his back.
He turned fast, already understanding the meaning behind.
You talk so much about how imperfect you are, yet perfection never mattered to me. You are contradiction made flesh, too kind for the darkness that shaped you, too cruel to belong among the light. You speak of flaws as if they make you smaller, when in truth they are the reason you still feel human.
You keep pretending to be ordinary, but nothing about you ever was. I saw your genius, your madness, eldritch horrors murmuring in your ears.
You are the one who understands me the most, yet you missed one truth, my delightful tragedy.
I'm not the one imprisoned with you.
You're the one imprisoned with me.
The blade was already in my hand, already flashing. I drove it into my chest.
It slid through skin like ice through silk. Pain bloomed, sharp and bright, scattering through me like sparks. The air vanished from my lungs; I felt my heartbeat stutter, the warmth leaving my fingers as blood poured, hot and endless. My breath came in short, broken gasps, the world tilting.
I lifted a hand toward the empty air, as if I could grasp death itself, but before my fingers closed around the void, he caught me, dragging me back from death's reach, his arms closing around me.
"You are fucking crazy," he breathed.
I tried to respond, but when I opened my mouth, only blood spilled out, splattering his face.
It pleased me to see his flawless features tainted by my blood. Now he was bearable.
In one fluid motion he seized the wooden heart that lay near us and bit into it.
The shell cracked like splintering bark. Light spilled between his teeth, running down his throat like liquid gold.
The change tore through him. Wooden horns erupted from his skull, a crown of tangled branches, dark and living, twisting together as though still growing. His skin shimmered, faint constellations drifting beneath the surface. Hair spilled around him like fog, glowing faintly in the dark. Wings unfolded, vast veils of dreamstuff, shards of starlight caught in shifting mist. Behind him, a tail uncoiled, sinuous and sharp.
Then his eyes opened, green, wild, forest-deep.
So beautiful.
How beautiful death is.
How beautiful this moment is.
You wanted freedom for me.
I wanted eternity with you.
You chose for me, but who said you could do that?
************
Author Note:
With this, Season 1 comes to an end. I'll be taking a few months to work on Season 2, so feel free to add this book to your collection, save it somewhere, or simply forget about it until it suddenly shows up again on Webnovel!
During this break, I'll also be rewriting a few older chapters I wasn't fully happy with and maybe adding some new ones. You can ignore those updates for now, because in a few months, you'll probably have to reread the entire fanfic anyway. heheh