Page 80 of A Fate Everlasting

“You’re in no position to be clever.”

“Neither are you. Thanks to your little gift.” I gestured toThe Fool Cardin my pocket. “I know what you and your father did. I know the binding is breaking. They can’t stay trapped forever.”

Dante’s smirk faded. I’d known his cruel indifference well. But this? This was something new. Dante was not untouchable, and the moment of vulnerability he showed when giving me the card would cost him. Suddenly, I was grateful for the Thread between us. My familiarity with him made me realize one thing. This cool certainty was just another mask, and masks could break.

“You don’t want to mess with things you don’t understand.”

The walls seemed to tighten around us, pressing inward. “I think I understand perfectly,” I said.

Dante hovered for a moment. I could see the battle in his gaze. The war between wanting to break me and wanting to?—

No.I wouldn’t let myself think it. Dante could not feelanything.But beneath all the rage, I was still tethered to him. I still felt that strange pull, that strange sense of familiarity.Trust that was never earned.

“You couldn’t possibly.” His gaze flickered lower, not to my lips, not to my throat. Lower. To my necklace, the Lumen. My hand closed around it.

“I do. In Elsewhere the Dowager warned me,” I said slowly. “She said the Twin Thrones were rising again. That you’d gone to see the High King. Yourfather.”

Dante’s jaw clenched, almost imperceptibly.

“But your father’s court fell, the Twin Thronesfell,because two rulers couldn’t hold the balance. So how did the High Kingmanage it? How did he rise again? And,” I glowered. “How areyouhere?”

Dante didn’t answer straight away, but when he did, something close to grief haunted his features. “My father has garnered quiet support in the shadows for years. The High Council of Archdaemons were the first to jump to his side. ”

“Okay, then.” I looked at him. “What is he planning? Is this all just to take back Elsewhere? And then the After?”The Afterworld.

His silence told me more than an answer could.

“He seems to want me alive.” My voice cracked. “He seems to want…me.But for what, Dante? What am I to him?”

My questioning was met with stark silence. Dread pooled like lead in my stomach. Dante’s brows only furrowed in confliction, like he wanted to speak and couldn’t. Like if he did, I’d never look at him the same again. “You’re not ready for that answer.”

“Then make me ready. I want to understand what’s going on.”

He had no response to that, but his nostrils flared, eyes burning.

I swallowed against the tightness in my throat. “You pretend you’re noble. But everything you’ve done, binding the Archangels, obeying your father, it’s allselfishas far as I can tell.”

Dante’s voice dropped. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.No idea.”

“I thought maybe you weren’t like them,” I said, voice rising. “That maybe you’d want to do the right thing. Before it’s too late.”

“The right thing? Do you think they were simply locked away for the sake of cruelty? You don’t know why they werebound. You don’t know what they want.” His fingers tightened, a warning. “The Archangels were sealed for a good reason.”

My pulse climbed. “And you believe that? Truly believe that?”

“If you free them,” Dante said, jaw ticking as his grip shifted just enough to brush his thumb over my cheek. “This isn’t just about power. You don’t know what you will unleash.”

I forced a breath through my teeth. “Let me guess. You do?”

“I know enough,” he whispered. “Enough to know that you will get yourself killed.”

The words should have scared me. Instead, I let my lips curl. “Maybe I don’t care, anymore.”

Dante let out a breath like he had expected my answer, like it disappointed him. “You are rash,” He chided, something almost contemplative threading through the edges of his next words. “You always have been.”

“Well, you are cruel,” I shot back. He hesitated at that, something in his gaze dimming like the words struck him straight between the ribs.

“But you were never reckless…before.” His voice dipped, almost too soft to hear. “Not until me.”

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