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The weight of genius had always been heavy.
There was an expectation, unspoken but constant, that Isaac Night would always rise above his peers. He was a prodigy, a walking headline in the making. The fact that he was smarter than most of the professors earned him both envy and indulgence; they excused his absences, turned blind eyes to his oddities. The powers that be saw his potential as a means to draw investors, donors and bright young minds eager to bask in reflected brilliance.
If he could build a heart capable of sustaining life, there was no telling what he might create next.
No one questioned what he did in the lab after hours.
At first, his research had been about survival — about saving his own fragile heart. But that purpose had evolved. Now, every sleepless night, every scrawled formula and soldered wire, was for Francoise. He would not lose his sister to the Hyde.
He balanced trial and error with his coursework, excelling with the detached precision of someone who no longer knew how to stop. His only true competition was Larissa Weems.
There were others, of course, bright minds with sharper tongues, but none like her. She cared in a way others didn’t, driven by an internal rigor that matched his own. He respected her for it. He also resented how she made him want to be better, not for prestige, but for the chance to see approval in her eyes.
The pull toward her had only grown since the Rave’N. They didn’t talk about that night anymore, but its shadow lingered between them, unspoken and constant.
Things were different now. Gomez Addams had been released, charges dropped. The “accident” had been written off as tragic but inconclusive. Larissa pretended she didn’t care, and perhaps to most, she looked the same — poised, diligent and unflappable. Isaac noticed what others missed. The subtle tightness at the corners of her mouth when Morticia entered a room. The flash of restrained disdain that conflicted with old affection. The way she measured her words like she was weighing the cost of every syllable.
He hated that he noticed. He hated that it mattered.
Out of morbid curiosity, he’d asked Gomez what had really happened that night. He wasn’t sure he’d gotten the truth. Gomez had a way of twisting honesty into riddles but he didn’t think he was dangerous. Careless, perhaps, but not cruel.
He felt for Larissa’s trauma, even if he wasn’t mourning Gareth Gates. The boy had been shallow, a product of his privilege and poor decisions. And now he was gone, leaving behind a strange, guilty sense of relief Isaac couldn’t fully justify.
Without the distraction of some undeserving fool orbiting her, he could focus again — on his work, on Francoise and on progress.
He was so close. The prototype was nearly ready: a system that could regulate the physiological instability of Hyde transformation, suppressing the erratic neural triggers before they consumed the host through electrical waves.
After another long night hunched over blueprints and cooling metal, Isaac dragged himself to the library to finish his chemistry assignment. The equations blurred; the ink bled under his fingers. He meant to rest his eyes for a moment.
When sleep came, it wasn’t the deep, dreamless kind he craved..
In the dream, there was no lab, no machines and not metal. There only light. The kind that filtered through Nevermore’s windows in late afternoon, golden and unreal. Dust drifted in the beams like tiny constellations, suspended between moments.
Larissa was there. Not as a scholar or rival, but as she was on quiet days — hair unpinned, sleeves rolled, a faint ink stain on her wrist. She was reading, of course, curled up on the window seat, her lips moving slightly as though she couldn’t help mouthing each word.
He sat across from her, pretending to study, pretending not to watch her.
In the dream, it wasn’t strange that they were alone. It wasn’t strange that every so often, she’d glance up, catch him staring, and smile like she’d been expecting him to.
He wondered if she ever got tired of carrying herself like someone who couldn’t afford to be soft. He wondered what she’d look like laughing without restraint. He wondered if she’d ever stop choosing composure over comfort.
He wondered what it would feel like to be chosen by her.
When she spoke, it wasn’t to mock or challenge or correct him — it was simple, quiet. “You think too much, Isaac.”
He laughed, really laughed, because of course she’d say that. “Someone has to.”
“Not always,” she said. “Sometimes you just have to feel.”
Her hand reached across the space between them, fingertips brushing his. The touch was so light it could have been imagined. Still, his pulse answered as though it had been waiting years.
Before he could respond, the world around them blurred — light bending, fading — and her voice gentled into something else.
“Wake up.”
He blinked. The library ceiling came back into focus, rain whispering against the windows.
“Isaac.”
Larissa’s real voice, quiet but close. She stood over him, her expression somewhere between amusement and concern. “You fell asleep,” she said. “You look exhausted. I’d ask if Gomez has kicked you from the room but since they’re currently taking up mine, I’d say you’re just overdoing it with the studies.”
He sat up too quickly, the warmth of the dream dissolving under the sharp light. “Just thinking.”
“About what?”
He hesitated, the honest answer caught behind his teeth. About you.
Instead, he said, “Everything.”
She smiled faintly, the same one from his dream, only real now. “Try thinking a little less, for once. I might come out on top for once.”
She turned and walked away, the scent of old paper and rain following her. He watched her go, pulse still echoing faintly in his throat, the remnants of a dream he knew he should let go of but was already wanting a continuation of.
The library had long since gone still by the time Larissa made it back to her hall. Rain slid down the high windows in uneven rivulets, tracing patterns that caught the dim corridor lights. She was slightly wet, hopeful that she’d be able to finally climb into her own bed.
Her door was locked.
The small paper sign hanging from the knob read Do Not Disturb. As if she would have dared. She sighed at the realization that she might not get to see her bed at all.
From inside, she could hear faint laughter — Morticia’s low and melodic, Gomez’s exuberant and unashamed. The rhythm of it made the walls seem to breathe. She pressed her lips together, a quiet, practiced smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
They already had each other, there was no reason they needed the room as well.
She should have been used to it by now, used to being displaced, used to pretending it didn’t sting. Still, the humiliation prickled beneath her skin.
She turned away before the sound could become unbearable.
The common area of Ophelia Hall was empty, save for the embers of the dying fireplace. Larissa sank into one of the armchairs, posture still impeccable, though her body ached from holding itself together all day.
She should have felt worse about Gareth Gates. She knew that. A normal person would have been heartbroken, shaken and devastated. But mostly, she felt… nothing. Just a hollow confusion and a faint, guilty relief. She had liked the idea of him, not the reality. That was the part she couldn’t say aloud.
Her fingers toyed absently with the edge of her sleeve. Somewhere between exhaustion and thought, her mind wandered to Isaac. To the way he’d looked at her earlier in the library — sharp and assessing, but softened around the edges like he wasn’t sure whether to scold or protect her.
The same man who’d cleaned blood from her hands without a word.
She felt the warmth rise unbidden in her chest and immediately shoved it down. He was Isaac Night — brilliant, complicated and infuriating. The kind of person who didn’t need distraction, least of all her. Whatever existed between them was better left unnamed. Safer that way.
“Brooding doesn’t suit you, you know.”
Larissa startled. Francoise Night stood at the end of the hall, a book under one arm, curls escaping her braid. She looked half amused, half genuinely concerned.
“I wasn’t brooding,” Larissa said automatically.
Francoise’s grin widened. “You’re sitting alone in the dark, staring into a dead fireplace. If that’s not brooding, it’s at least its cousin.”
Larissa sighed, smoothing her skirt. “I’m locked out. Morticia and Gomez have… commandeered my quarters.”
“Again?” Francoise rolled her eyes. “Romantics are the worst. Isaac says love is a chemical imbalance, but honestly, I think he’s just bitter.”
Larissa almost smiled. “That sounds like him.”
Francoise dropped into the chair opposite her, propping her chin in her hands. “You know, he’s been driving himself mad lately. Hardly sleeps. I thought about throwing water on him just to make sure he’s alive.”
“I’m aware,” Larissa said, maybe too quickly.
Francoise’s brows lifted. “Are you?”
Larissa looked back at the fire. “He’ll burn himself out if he’s not careful.”
Francoise’s voice softened. “Maybe he’d listen if you told him that.”
Larissa gave a short, humorless laugh. “He doesn’t take advice from me.”
“Oh, he does,” Francoise said lightly, “just not the kind you realize you’re giving.”
There was an ease to the girl’s words that Larissa envied, a confidence she’d never been able to master. There was a reason that she’d liked her from the first day she’d met her.
The rain outside began to ease, the sound fading into gentle taps along the windows.
Francoise stood, tugging at her shawl. “You can stay in my room tonight, if you want. My roommate won’t mind.”
Larissa hesitated. “That’s kind of you, but unnecessary. I’ll wait.”
“Suit yourself,” Francoise said, already halfway down the hall. Then she paused and looked back, a spark of mischief in her eyes. “For what it’s worth, my brother doesn’t invest a lot of time in other people’s opinions of him but he does care about yours.”
Larissa didn’t answer.
When the girl’s footsteps disappeared, she turned back toward the fire and watched the last of the embers fade to gray.
By morning, the storm had broken. Mist hung low over the courtyard, the world washed pale and sharp as glass.
Larissa arrived to class early, as always. The lecture hall still hummed with that sleepy, pre-lecture quiet. She claimed her usual seat in the front row, pulling out her notes more for habit than focus.
Sleep had been elusive. She’d spent most of the night watching the rain die out, thinking about everything she wasn’t supposed to think about — Gareth, Morticia and Isaac.
When the door opened, she didn’t have to look up to know who it was. Isaac had a presence that bent the room’s gravity.
The professor gestured vaguely toward the empty seat beside her. “Mr. Night, there. You’ll assist Miss Weems today.”
She gave a polite nod. “Of course.”
He slid into the chair next to hers, the faint scent of solder and coffee clinging to his coat. His eyes were shadowed but alert, the kind of tired that came from refusing to stop.
The lecture began. Equations bloomed across the board; pencils scratched. Larissa tried to listen, but her gaze drifted sideways. Isaac wasn’t writing notes at all — he was sketching.
Not doodling, not idly scribbling. Designing.
Lines curved with mechanical precision, forming coils and conductors, each angle annotated with numbers too deliberate to be meaningless. She recognized just enough notation to follow the concept: calibrated pulses, current modulation, and synaptic interference.
He was building something: a machine.
Without thinking, she leaned a fraction closer, eyes tracing the graceful logic of his design. “Neurological interference mapping,” she murmured before she could stop herself.
Isaac’s pencil stilled. He didn’t look up, but the faintest hint of amusement crossed his mouth. “You’re quick.”
She sat back immediately. “You left your notes in plain sight.”
He smiled, barely. “You wouldn’t understand the math anyway.”
It was said lightly, but she heard the tease underneath.
“I think you underestimate me,” she replied, tone cool, eyes forward again.
“I think,” he said evenly, “that understanding and owning are two different things.”
For a long moment, they worked in silence.
When she glanced over again, he had returned to his sketches, lost in the rhythm of graphite and thought. The diagram was stunning, terrifying in its precision and its ambition. A device to channel electric current directly through the neural pathways of an Outcasts condition, forcing dormancy. A creation that could either heal or destroy depending on the hands that wielded it.
Larissa looked away, suddenly aware she’d been holding her breath.
Whatever this was, it was far beyond her reach and for once, she didn’t resent that. It was enough to see it. To see him — the intensity, the purpose, the thing that drove him past reason.
The professor’s voice broke the spell. “Miss Weems? Mr. Night? Any thoughts on the stability factors of controlled current?”
Larissa blinked, steadying herself. “Only that the threshold depends on the operator,” she said smoothly.
Isaac’s pencil paused, just for a second.
When class ended, he packed up quickly, slipping the sketchbook beneath his arm without a word. He didn’t look at her as he left, but she caught the faintest trace of a smile ghosting across his face — the kind that said you noticed, and I don’t mind that you did.
She stayed behind a moment longer, staring at the empty seat he’d left behind.
She would remember the day she realized the line between genius and ruin was much thinner than anyone wanted to admit.
The lab was never truly silent.
Even in the dead hours, it breathed — the soft hum of dormant machines, the faint tick of cooling metal. To Isaac, it was the sound of peace. Order. The only place where thought could expand without interruption.
He shed his coat across a stool and rolled up his sleeves, the faint scent of fire and metal already clinging to the air. The diagram he’d started in class lay open on the workbench, graphite lines smudged at the edges.
He should have been tired, but his mind refused rest. The moment replayed itself without his consent: the way Larissa had leaned slightly forward, her voice low and certain — Neurological interference mapping.
She’d understood. Not completely, but enough.
That was the part that unsettled him. Not that she’d noticed, but that she’d seen.
He’d spent years cultivating distance — the arrogance, the wit and the careful detachment that made people assume he didn’t feel things as others did. It kept him untouchable and unassailable.
And yet all it took was one sentence from her to dismantle it.
Isaac stared down at the sketch. The coils, the regulators, the delicate circuit of his own making — all perfectly measured, all precise. But for the first time, the lines didn’t feel impersonal. They felt exposed.
He thought of her eyes, sharp and impossibly calm.
He thought of the way she hadn’t asked to see more.
She’d simply known when to look away.
That restraint, it unnerved him.
Most people either dismissed his work or demanded to understand it. Larissa did neither. She’d read between the lines and left him his silence, as if she already grasped the price of knowledge too great to share.
A flicker of electricity pulsed through the test coil before him, a blue spark leaping between contacts. Isaac adjusted the current with a steady hand, watching the light pulse, fade, return. Controlled. Predictable. Safe.
It should have calmed him. It didn’t.
He caught his reflection in the glass panel of the generator — pale, hollow-eyed, and faintly smiling.
Somewhere beneath the hum of the machines, he could almost hear her voice again: Sometimes you just have to feel.
He exhaled through a tight laugh, half in disbelief. “That’s not how science works, Larissa.”
The spark flared brighter, as if disagreeing with him.
Isaac turned the dial down carefully, the machine settling into its measured rhythm. His creation. His alone. The thing that would give his sister the life she chose.
Still, the whisper of her name lingered in the current, a static trace he couldn’t scrub from his mind.
By the time the announcement reached Ophelia Hall, the story had already taken on the sheen of legend.
Isaac Night’s machine had worked.
The prototype, officially classified as a “neural resonance stabilizer,” had successfully suppressed a test subject’s Hyde transformation under controlled conditions. For the first time in recorded study, the violent shift had been reversed without permanent harm. The administration was calling it a “milestone in parascientific history.”
To the world, it was nothing short of miraculous. To Larissa, it was inevitable.
The halls buzzed with it — students clutching copies of the announcement flyer, professors debating implications in excited tones. Every corridor she passed seemed to echo with his name. Night did it. Night actually built it.
Outcasts wouldn’t have to live in fear of circumstances they couldn’t control. They would have a choice.
She found him in the quad after her last class, surrounded by faculty and curious students. Isaac had never been one for crowds, yet he stood there, composed and faintly amused, as if this attention were an experiment of its own.
His hair was wind-tousled, his tie crooked, his hands still ink-stained from the lab. He looked tired, but alive in a way she hadn’t seen before, his exhaustion alight with purpose.
Someone handed him a sheet of parchment Nevermore’s official commendation, stamped in crimson wax. He accepted it with that same distant courtesy that always made him seem older than his years.
Larissa lingered on the edge of the crowd, content to stay unseen. There was no jealousy in her, not really. Only a deep, quiet pride that she would never voice aloud.
He’d done it. He’d really done it.
Morticia slipped beside her, a soft rustle of silk. “You’re very quiet for someone witnessing history,” she said.
Larissa glanced at her, caught off guard. “He deserves it,” she said simply.
“Oh, I didn’t mean him.” Morticia’s smile was faint, feline. “I meant you. You’ve been watching him with that expression for nearly five minutes.”
Larissa straightened. “It’s called professional respect.”
“Mm.” Morticia tilted her head, studying Isaac where he stood. “Respect, admiration, the beginnings of devotion — the lines do blur, don’t they?”
“Don’t start,” Larissa muttered, turning back toward the fountain.
Morticia chuckled, all languid amusement. “I’m only observing, cara mia. You’ve always preferred intellect to charm, and I must admit — he has both, though he hides one better than the other. Plus Gomez thinks highly of him. Helped him with his machine after all.”
Larissa said nothing.
Morticia’s gaze softened, for once free of mischief. “Be careful, my dear. Brilliant men have a way of forgetting the rest of the world exists until someone reminds them.”
“I’m not trying to remind him of anything,” Larissa replied quietly.
Morticia smiled, almost kindly. “That’s precisely what makes it dangerous. Borrowed time has a way of running out.”
Across the quad, Professor Stonehearst clapped Isaac on the shoulder. The small crowd broke into polite applause. Isaac accepted it with a modest dip of his head, his expression inscrutable.
For a fleeting second, though, his eyes found Larissa through the press of students, as if drawn there by instinct. The corner of his mouth lifted in the faintest, genuine smile.
Larissa felt something tighten behind her ribs. She returned the smile, small, measured, but real.
And then the moment was gone. He was swept away by congratulatory hands, by promises of publications and funding, by the noise of the world finally catching up to him.
Morticia’s voice, low and amused, carried beside her. “Ah. So he does notice you.”
Larissa ignored the comment, though her pulse betrayed her. “He notices everything.”
“Not quite,” Morticia murmured. “But perhaps that’s starting to change.”
When the crowd finally dispersed, Larissa remained where she was, watching the fading trail of his coat through the archway.
She was proud of him, quietly, fiercely proud, even if this victory wasn’t hers to share. He’d built something extraordinary.
Caliban Hall was still humming with noise when Isaac returned.
Students had been celebrating since the announcement. Laughter, music, the occasional chorus of “To Night!” echoed down the corridor like the aftermath of a festival. Someone had hung a crude banner outside the door that read Our Very Own Genius, painted in uneven gold ink.
Isaac ripped it down on his way in.
Inside, the room was dim except for the lamplight spilling across Gomez’s cluttered desk. His roommate was sprawled across his bed, tie undone, still wearing half his uniform. A bottle of sparkling cider sat open.
“About time you came back, compañero,” Gomez said, grinning. “I was starting to think they’d carried you off to a laboratory throne somewhere.”
“Something like that,” Isaac muttered.
Gomez propped himself on an elbow. “You should’ve seen the crowd. Professors tripping over themselves to shake your hand. Morticia says Professor Stonehearst nearly cried.”
Isaac smirked faintly. “Doubtful. He doesn’t cry; it would suggest humanity.”
Gomez laughed, tossing a pillow at him. “You’ve just saved half the outcast population from spontaneous dismemberment, and you can’t even enjoy it for one night?”
“It wasn’t for them,” Isaac said quietly.
Gomez grin faltered but he nodded. He knew the truth because he’d offered the spark. He’s seen Francoise. There were some things friends had to do for each other and keep secrets was one of them.
“You know, Morticia thinks you’re the most brilliant thing to happen to Nevermore since electricity.”
Isaac rolled his eyes. “Morticia thinks everything is brilliant when she’s bored.”
Gomez chuckled. “You’re modest. It’s annoying.”
“I’m practical,” Isaac corrected. “What I built worked with your extra help. That’s all that matters.”
Isaac’s tone carried no pride — only exhaustion.
He should have felt triumphant. Nevermore was already drafting press releases; investors were inquiring about patents. But none of them knew the truth. None of them knew that this machine hadn’t been built for theory or advancement — it had been built for Francoise.
He could still see her after her first transformation, eyes wild with terror, her body convulsing when she couldn’t control it. The way she’d whispered, Don’t tell them. The way he’d promised he never would.
Now, the machine worked. It had worked because it had to. Because failure wasn’t an option when the person you loved most was running out of time.
Gomez exhaled low, misreading the silence. “You really don’t care, do you? About all this attention?”
Isaac closed the case gently, the click of the lock final. “Attention is irrelevant.”
Gomez grinned again, trying to lighten the mood. “You sound like Morticia when she says she doesn’t care what people think. Between the two of you, we could bottle indifference and sell it.”
Isaac almost smiled. “You should get some sleep, Gomez.”
“And you should celebrate. You earned it.”
Gomez rolled onto his side, the faint sound of snoring starting not long after. Isaac remained where he was, seated at the edge of his bed, elbows on his knees.
The dorm was quiet now — the kind of quiet that left no room to hide from your thoughts. He stared at the case beside him, at the faint blue pulse that escaped through the vents. A perfect rhythm. Controlled. Predictable. Safe.
He’d saved his sister. He’d rewritten the laws of biology. He’d given outcasts hope.
And yet all he could think about was the way Larissa had looked at him across the crowd — that quiet, unspoken respect that no award could match.
He told himself it didn’t matter. He told himself he’d built this for Francoise alone.
He couldn’t shake the feeling that something inside him had changed along with it — something he couldn’t measure, repair or control.
For the first time in years, he finally felt… free.
The campus had quieted.
The celebrations had faded into memory, the flyers had been taken down, and the whispers about Isaac Night’s brilliance had been replaced by the more practical talk of exams and graduation. Nevermore, for the first time in months, had returned to its usual rhythm — steady, measured, deceptively calm.
Larissa found him by accident.
The sun was setting over the green, the light slanting gold across the old stone walls. She had gone to return a book to the science library, only to see him sitting on the steps outside Caliban Hall, coat unbuttoned.
“Planning your next big innovation?” she asked.
Isaac looked up, half-smiling. “Just cataloguing the old one.”
She stepped closer, noticing the faint shadows under his eyes. “You should be proud, you know. The entire school’s still talking about it.”
“I’m aware,” he said dryly. “Stonehearst stopped me twice this morning to remind me how proud he is of my ‘contribution to history.’ I think he likes the sound of his own voice more than the machine.”
Larissa laughed softly. “You’d better get used to it. You’ll be a celebrity in Burlington.”
He blinked, glancing up at her. “How did you—”
“I got my acceptance letter yesterday,” she interrupted. “Different department but when I spoke to someone they asked if I happened to be friends with the infamous genius of Nevermore. I would have been insulted if they were talking about anyone but you.”
Something passed between them, a flicker of surprise giving way to something warmer, quieter.
“So we’ll be rivals again,” Isaac said, the corner of his mouth curving.
Larissa lifted her chin. “Naturally. Someone has to keep you humble.”
“Good luck with that.”
She sat beside him on the steps, careful to leave a deliberate inch of space between them. From here, the lake was visible, the surface painted in orange and violet, reflecting the evening sky. Students were crossing the quad in twos and threes, their laughter carried faintly on the wind.
For a long time, neither of them spoke. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable. It was charged in a way that made it hard to breathe.
Isaac rested his forearms on his knees, staring straight ahead. “I heard Morticia say you defended me to Orloff.”
“She exaggerated,” Larissa said.
“She said you told him I wasn’t trying to play god. That I knew what I was doing.”
“Did I lie?”
He turned toward her, the question hanging between them. The light caught the side of his face, tired, yes, but softened by something unguarded. “Maybe,” he said quietly. “But I appreciated it anyway.”
Her pulse stumbled. “Someone had to say it.”
He nodded once, then looked away. “You could have said it to me.”
That caught her off guard. “You didn’t need me to.”
“Maybe not then,” he said. “Maybe now.”
The words sat heavy in the air, too intimate, too honest.
Larissa’s breath caught. For the briefest moment, the space between them seemed to dissolve, his shoulder brushing hers, her hand close enough that she could feel the heat radiating from his skin. He looked at her, and she looked back, and the world narrowed to the sound of his clockwork heart.
It would have been so easy.
One step closer, one breath braver, and everything could have changed.
But Larissa was Larissa, all composure and restraint, her life built on the discipline of not reaching for what she wanted. And Isaac, for all his genius, had never been good at surrender.
The moment broke with the soft clang of the tower bells.
She stood first, smoothing her skirt. “You should get some rest. University will need you at full strength.”
He looked up at her, eyes unreadable. “And you?”
“I’ll manage.”
“Of course you will.”
She hesitated, then added, almost as an afterthought, “I’m glad we’ll be there together.”
He gave a small, genuine smile. “Me too.”
Larissa turned to leave, but halfway down the steps she glanced back. He was still watching her, the sunset bleeding gold through his dark curls, his expression thoughtful — the look of a man already memorizing what he wasn’t ready to lose.
They would both deny it later, deny that the air had shifted, that a single moment had nearly become something else. But they would remember.
And years from now, when the orchestra played and the restraint finally shattered, they would both know it had started long before the crescendo of music, on the steps of Nevermore.