Page 101 of Break Her Heart
The one that controls the dead.
“Where is it?” August asked Benedict.
He shook his head. “I thought it was still in Alentara.”
We all turned to Halston. Even through the pain, he smiled.
“This isn’t working,” Benedict snapped.
August turned to him, blood splattered across his face, and smiled like a demon himself. “I knew it wouldn’t. It was fun, though.”
Benedict took a half-step backward, then stopped, his discomfort obvious now. “Well? What are you going to do? The name of the blade means nothing if we don’t know where it is.”
Before August answered, I spoke.
“We could get Adar to bring truth serum.”
Benedict looked at me like I had just said the most absurd thing imaginable. “Truthserum?”
“Yes, truth serum.”
“No. That won’t work,” August mumbled as he stared at Halston.
“Why not? It worked on you.”
That made him pause. He finally turned to face me, the fire dimming slightly in his gaze. “No, Winnie. It didn’t.”
The words hit me harder than I expected.
“You lied,” I whispered.
He lied back then—when I thought I was watching his truth spill out under the serum’s influence. When I believed, even for a second, that he had no choice in what he told us.
But he did. He’d let us think the drug worked. He’d played along. Perfectly.
And now I had no idea what part of that night had been real, or if any of it had. I should have been furious. But instead, I felt that familiar, unwelcome thrill spread through my chest like wildfire. Because it wasn’t just that he had fooled all of us—it was that he had chosen to. Controlled it. Played the game better than anyone else in the room.
“No, I told you the truth, but I knew if I told you it didn’t work, you wouldn’t have believed me.”
That only made it worse. Or better. I couldn’t tell. I didn’t know which part of me was louder anymore—the girl who had once wanted to be good, or the woman who couldn’t stop being drawn to the monster.
“You manipulate everything.” I couldn’t help but smile as I shook my head. “Even when you’re bleeding out, even when you’re caged, you’re still pulling strings.”
His gaze flickered with amusement. “And you like it.”
“You don’t know what I like.”
“Don’t I?”
We were standing too close now. The room seemed to tilt around us, heat and blood and magic threading the air between us like wire. It was too much. But before I could say another word, Halston let out a low groan from behind him. A twitch of life he hadn’t earned.
August’s jaw tensed. He stepped back, the moment shattered. “Right,” he said. “Back to work.”
He leaned forward, his wild eyes locked on Halston’s as he gripped the arms of the chair. “Last chance to tell me where it is,” he said.
Halston spat in August’s face.
August didn’t flinch. He just smiled, slow and cold, and wiped the blood and spit from his cheek with the back of his hand. He stood and walked out of the room. I glanced at Benedict, searching for some hint of where August had gone. He only shrugged.
