Gomez stood at the window of his townhouse, watching Wednesday cross the street below. She moved with precision, but without purpose — a blade in a drawer instead of a hand. He'd spent three months cataloging every flattened edge of her, every moment she went dull. He adjusted the telescope mounted at the sill and aimed it at the storefront across the way. Someone had set up a display overnight — string lights, cardboard cutouts, handwritten signs that read "DARE" and "WAKE" and "BECOME." In the center, suspended on wire, hung a necklace with a black stone the size of a crow's heart. Whoever arranged this knew exactly where Wednesday walked each morning. They knew her route better than the school did. Gomez lowered the telescope and checked his watch. Wednesday would see it in forty seconds. The question wasn't whether she'd notice — she noticed everything, even when she pretended not to. The question was whether she'd want what they offered. Whether this stranger promising to make her extraordinary understood that Wednesday didn't need to become anything. She needed to stop being buried. The display flickered as Wednesday stopped in front of it. Through the telescope, Gomez watched her tilt her head. Her hand lifted toward the glass. Then she pulled it back, turned, and kept walking. But her shoulders were different. Tighter. Alert. Gomez wrote in his notebook: "First refusal. Interest confirmed." He would know this stranger's name by nightfall.