Page 38 of Break Her Heart
The long table was covered in tomes and scraps of parchment, the battered journal lying open like a wound at its center. August stood at one end, arms crossed, and I took the farthest chair from him that I could.
The silence stretched as August stared at me.
“Where are we stuck?” Benedict asked, finally moving toward the table.
August gestured to the journal and rested his hands on the back of a chair. “Everywhere.”
Benedict slid into a chair beside me without waiting for permission.
August’s hands flexed.
“I was around when some of the old tongues were still spoken, and I’ve studied the others,” Benedict said to me. “August thought I might be of some use.”
August gave a grunt that could have meant anything.
I offered him a small, guarded smile, still uneasy with how different Benedict was acting from the silent observer I thought I knew.
He began scanning August’s notes.
“Close enough,” he muttered. He flipped the page and looked closer.
Time passed slowly.
I sat for a while, watching Benedict’s face tighten in concentration, his fingers tracing the faded script. Every so often he’d grunt or mutter something under his breath. It was clear this would take hours.
My attention drifted. I glanced at August again—only to find him already looking at me. There was something unreadable in his expression, something almost soft, and that unnerved me more than any glare ever had. I looked away.
I stood and began to move quietly around the room. Shelves lined the walls, cluttered with relics from centuries past—tarnished crowns, weapons too fragile to wield, boxes inscribed with runes that pulsed faintly. The air near some of them hummed, like the magic inside hadn’t settled, or didn’t want to. There were more magical objects in this room than I expected a vampire that persecuted witches to have, which only worried me. If I was right about the ritual using a magical object, how could I figure out which one was what we were looking for?
I trailed my fingers along a blade with a split hilt and immediately recoiled—the energy that burst through my skin was wrong. Not dark like Carrow’s, not consuming like August’s. Just… off. Like the echo of a scream caught in metal.
Other objects felt different. A pendant throbbed with heat when I brushed it. A scroll crumbled at the edges but still hummed with purpose. It was as if the room remembered what it was meant to protect.
And I wasn’t sure if I was meant to be here at all.
I jumped when August slammed his fist against the table, the sharp crack of it breaking through the stillness. Benedict had just said, “You had most of the translations right and the ones you didn’t weren’t important,” and I didn’t even have time to process the words before August snapped.
“So there is nothing in there? I’ve spent years looking for this and it’s useless?”
Benedict shook his head, fingers drumming the edge of the journal. “There are plenty of things in the archives that may be of use. More journals. Logs of all the artifacts Carrow has collected.”
August ran his hand through his hair as he glanced at me. “Tell him what you think.”
I hesitated, choosing my words carefully, not wanting to sound foolish but knowing I had to say something. “Since vampires don’t have magic and can’t perform a spell, it has to be an object that brings forth Carrow. A blade maybe. ”
“Do you think Carrow’s soul is already in Augustus and a blade brings him forward?”
I glanced at August. It would explaina lot. “Maybe.”
Benedict leaned forward slightly, eyes gleaming with a spark of curiosity and unease. “Maybe there’s documentation of a blade that can do such a thing.”
Behind him, August whispered something under his breath—too soft to catch, but it didn’t sound like words meant for us. I turned toward him, but his gaze was blank, distant. He didn’t even seem to realize he’d spoken. A chill threaded through me.
It would explainthat.
August took a breath, rubbing a hand across his mouth. “Start with that, Benedict.”
“We aren’t helping?”
