For Nevermore Season 1

anyone, save for Finn, he still couldn’t read the man. Nor did he entirely trust him these days.
    William stepped inside his office, set his bag on the floor beside the door, removed his hat and hung it on the coat rack, then glanced at Dante without so much as a flinch of surprise to find him there waiting.
    “They told you to kill me?” Dante said, bluntly laying his cards on the table.
    “Yes,” William said, removing glasses and rubbing them with the untucked tail of his shirt before returning them to his face. “Did you come here to kill me?”
    Dante stood from the desk and was on the other side just inches from William a second later. “Should I?”
    William met his eyes. “It will do nothing to change their order,” William said. “Do as you must. You’ll find no argument from me.”
    Dante wasn’t sure if William were as world-weary as he seemed, or so lacking in emotional outbursts that even the threat of impending death couldn’t draw the panic from inside him.
    “So, are you going to kill me?” William asked again, as if he were trying to get a commitment for dinner.
    “No,” Dante said, sighing, and moving away from the desk and began to pace in front of it. “You know better than that. You’re practically a father to me.”
    William ignored the comment, edged past his intruder, then sat at his desk and looked up at Dante. “So, what are you going to do?”
    “I think that depends on what you’re planning. Are you going to give the order?”
    “I haven’t decided yet,” William said, his expression blank. “Tell me . . . how did you know?”
    Dante reported the previous evening’s events and told how the Queen had more or less said that the Elders had betrayed him.
    “It’s not betrayal. You serve at the pleasure of the elders,” William said. “If you go against their wishes, they will remove you — it’s a simple decision for them. You know how it is; how it must be.”
    “Do I?” Dante asked. “What if it doesn’t have to be that way? What if the Queen is right? What if the Elders are simply looking for a way to attack her, seeking vengeance for past sins?”
    William shook his head, “If that were the case, don’t you think they would’ve had you bring Noella over early on so they could influence her and win her over?”
    “I don’t know why they do half the things they do. They’re above reproach and don’t take anybody other than themselves into consideration.”
    “Watch your mouth!” William said, the first flush of emotion coloring his face and bleeding into his voice. “They’ve sacrificed more than any to protect our realm. They are the only thing that stopped the first invasion and held the Queen to the northern territories. If not for them, we’d all be living under the rule of Her Majesty right now. And I don’t know about you, but I’d rather die on the spot than live under her regime.”
    “So that’s it, then? We just accept their word as rule of law and do as they say no matter who it harms?”
    “You’re thinking with your heart instead of your head,” William said.
    “Well, isn’t it about time someone did?”
    “Not when the fate of the worlds is at stake. Lest you forget the prophecy, your emotional connection to Noella makes you weak. We can’t have weakness. The closer she comes to remembering, the more she attracts the growing darkness. You’ve saved her three times now. How many more times can you do it? How long can you keep the inevitable from happening?”
    “As many times as it takes. I love her.”
    William shook his head, obviously not wanting to get into the argument again over whether Dante’s bond could truly be called love. Is something forged by destiny and magic the same as love? To Dante, they were one and the same, and he was bound to Noella for eternity, despite not being able to touch her.
    “That’s not love; it’s a curse,” William said.
    “One and the same,” Dante said through gritted teeth. “So what do we do? Who are you going to have kill me? And you will have to have someone kill me, William, because I won’t stop otherwise. I will protect Noella with every ounce of everything I have.”
    William said nothing.
    “Carter? Briggs? Ferguson? Which one of the elders’ henchmen? I promise you right now — I’ll kill them all and send their bodies back in pieces.”
    “I know,” William said, setting his glasses on his desk and rubbing his eyes. “What would you propose,