I made a mock bow to Cybil, a gesture of childish defiance that felt surprisingly good, before turning to Levi. I clasped my arm into his before he even had a chance to offer it. His pace was noticeably faster than before, almost a determined march, but I thought he had every right to leave that oppressive place as swiftly as possible. As we stood in front of the mansion, waiting for the chopper, the staff who clearly disliked Levi, or perhaps feared his mother, did not even bother to escort him out.

"You okay?" I asked, breaking the silence. Levi gazed up at the sky and the shifting clouds for a moment, his eyes distant.

"I don't really feel anything right now," he replied, his voice calm, "but I enjoyed your little rebel against my mother. I would have enjoyed it even if you went a little overboard."

"You didn't even tell me what to do. No, scratch that. You were married? And you had a sister? Why didn't you tell me any of this?"

Levi's eyes remained fixated on the clouds, as if seeking answers there. "It wouldn't have mattered toward your role," he stated, his voice flat. "I knew your frustration with me was inevitable; I just wanted it to be directed at my mother instead."

I felt a bitter tang in my mouth, realizing how easily I had fallen for his calculated ploy. The urge to punch something, anything, surged through me. Levi finally stopped looking at the sky and started walking towards a cobbled path, pulling me along with him.

We didn't talk during our stride. I honestly didn't have anything to say to him other than a string of cuss words, which I kept firmly to myself. After what felt like an eternity, the cobbled path finally led to a halt. He pointed towards a vast, plain expanse, fenced with tall, weathered iron bars.

"This is where I wanted to take you, Raphael," he said. He pulled his arm out of mine, and approached the iron gate. With a simple push, he opened the gate and stepped inside, the faint creak of the hinges echoing in the quiet.

He began speaking, his voice carrying clearly in the open air. "This is the biggest cemetery used by nobles."

He had brought me to a cemetery for our first date. I couldn't help but admire his particular flair for romanticism.

"Nobles do not typically favor the concept of a shared cemetery. However, approximately a century ago, a significant economic collapse occurred, rendering even the noble families unable to afford proper burial services. The monarch at that time employed a certain deception to establish this place as sacred. Thus, nobles, preserving their dignity through this falsehood, were interred here. Even after the economy recovered, they continued to use this site due to tradition." he explained.

"Why... why are you telling me all of this?" I asked, my voice a little breathless, cutting through the morbid history lesson.

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He pointed his index finger to the left side of the cemetery, towards a section of pristine, empty burial sites. "There is a very small noble population remaining capable of holding succession or siring an heir. This is where they will be interred upon their demise. My objective is to prevent anyone from ever being buried here again."

"How are you going to do that? By… ensuring they don't die?" My voice was tinged with bewildered disbelief.

A soft chuckle escaped Levi, a low, unnerving sound in the quiet cemetery.

"No, Raphael," he said, a faint, unsettling smile touching his lips. "I will dissolve nobility."

Fucking nutjob.

He wasn't joking.

"But… why?" My voice was barely a whisper.

Levi looked at my face for a moment, his gaze unreadable. "The answer would be rather grotesque," he replied, his tone chillingly level.

"Because nobles simply… suck? Is that your profound reasoning, Levi?" I challenged, a nervous laugh escaping me.

Levi took some steps towards a line of ancient, weather-beaten headstones. I followed him, my eyes scanning the names etched into the stone. He gently brushed the dust off of the first headstone. "This is my sister's grave, next to my father's. In the near future, there will be a grave for my mother here as well."

I wasn't expecting his sister to be dead. I placed my hand on his back, my heart sinking under the sudden, immense weight of his words. "I'm so sorry, Levi," I whispered, feeling the raw gravity of his loss resonate in the pit of my stomach.

"My sister passed away from a drug-resistant cold virus. She was born with immunodeficiency. Nobles marry nobles; even if they have a lover, they cannot pass legitimacy down to children born out of wedlock."

"So, we’re talking about centuries of cousins marrying cousins, leading to all these… profound genetic problems, right?"

"Yes, Raphael. I am glad you did not shame me by articulating it explicitly. Everyone buried here has their gene pool interconnected. It is also one of the primary reasons the noble population diminished over the last centuries. Whether male or female, most of them were infertile."

"But… you are not," I stated, the words catching in my throat. "You said so when we were at the hotel."

"Unfortunately, I am not sterile. My mother and her noble associates expect me to sire multiple heirs and then arrange for their adoption into other noble families, so that the lineage may persist for at least another generation." he said, the words delivered with the same detached precision.

"This is…" I stammered, the horror of what I was hearing gripping me, struggling to grasp the grotesque gravity of it all. "This is so wrong, so profoundly, painfully wrong. I don't even know how to begin to respond."

"I am glad to see you share my sentiments, Raphael," he replied, a melancholic smile tugging at his lips. I had no words, no comforting platitudes to offer, no way to lighten the mood. Levi let out an audible sigh, a sound of profound weariness. "I require a drink," he said quietly, his voice a low rumble.

"And something sweet to pair it with?" I asked, a spark of almost desperate, defiant gleefulness in my voice, a tiny beacon in the gloom. He returned a small, bittersweet smile, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly. "Yes, Raphael. That would be quite lovely." he said.