Selfish Is the Heart Read online

  “What is that?”

  “One of the five principles.”

  Jacquin’s smile stretched thin. “One you’ve not yet managed to follow, then.”

  “You’re thinking of yourself as well,” Annalise said wearily. A dull throbbing had begun behind her eyes. She wanted him to go. She wanted this all to go.

  “I make no claims at a calling. Ask yourself what would be the best course here, sweetheart. That’s all I want you to do. Think about it. I plead your mercy,” he added, a hand over his heart and sounding sincere. “I’ve spoken out of turn and with anger, and that was never my intent.”

  She nodded, unwilling to forget all he’d said but unable to replace the affection of years with contempt, now. “I will think about what you said.”

  “Then I suppose that’s all I can ask.” He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed it formally. “Good-bye, Annalise. I’ll write to you. Don’t let another month pass without doing the same.”

  “I won’t.”

  Then, with another look back at her, Jacquin headed toward the stables. Annalise waited a few minutes to gather her composure before making her way toward the Motherhouse. She was in sore need of some quiet to think.

  Her feet led her there as though she’d been tied to a ribbon being pulled by an unseen hand. Step by step, through familiar halls and past dark rooms, down some stairs, until she got to his room.

  She sought peace, but found Cassian instead.

  Chapter 20

  He was unsurprised to find her at his door. When she pushed past him and into his room, Cassian shut the door behind her and left it unlocked. It seemed likely Annalise would be leaving as swiftly as she’d entered.

  She stalked to his dresser, helped herself to a glass of worm. Quaffed it. Wiped the back of her hand across her mouth. Turned.

  “Your betrothed has taken his horse from the stables and gone away. And here you are. Is he sending a carriage for you, later?” Cassian formed the words carefully yet didn’t manage to keep his tone as neutral as he’d planned.

  Annalise’s head snapped up, her gaze stormy and mouth grimly set. “No, he’s not, no matter how that might please you.”

  He bristled at once, she ever the oil to his water. “Don’t presume you know my mind well enough to speak it for me.”

  She drew a sharp, hitching breath and turned her back. “I presume naught, sir, but speak my mind as freely as I ever have. If I presume, it’s because you yourself have led me to make such a guess as to your thoughts.”

  “So you’re not leaving, then?”

  Her shoulders slumped. “Should I?”

  He’d thought for sure she’d be gone already. That she seemed hesitant should’ve set him a bit more at ease, but for the fact that Cassian had long ago ceased to understand the feeling of ease. It was better that way.

  “I wouldn’t presume to make your decision for you.”

  In her cheeks, two bright pink spots burned. “No? You have ever made your opinions clear on all else. Yet this time, when I come to you with a clear request for your thoughts, you . . . you . . .”

  “Why is this even a question?” Cassian asked, hoping to fend off her tears.

  “Why?” Annalise tossed up her hands and shook her head until her braid swung. “This is my life we’re discussing, not some random happenstance. My life!”

  “Your life,” he pointed out. He doubted in that moment she’d have noticed any quaver in his voice, but he did his best to keep it calm anyway. “Your choices.”

  When she buried her face in her hands, he thought for sure she wept. Yet the tears but glinted in her gaze; they hadn’t yet escaped her eyes. She blinked and turned her face up to the ceiling. She drew in a breath. When she looked at him again, it was steadily.

  “I have choices?”

  “One always has choices, Annalise.”

  She gave a short bark of laughter and lifted her glass, this time to drain it. She settled it carefully on the dresser and ran her fingertip around the rim of, then licked it. She looked at him.

  “When I came here, I honestly didn’t believe I’d ever finish the training, take the vows. I didn’t think I’d ever find whatever the others have inside them that allows them to serve. Absolute solace?” she scoffed. “How on earth could I possibly lead anyone toward what I’ve never known, myself? What I don’t believe exists?”

  “You needn’t have experienced it to provide it to another.”

  “Pretty words from a pretty mouth.” She licked her lips, gaze bright, hectic color still dotting her cheeks. “But it’s a lie, Cassian. Tell me it’s not.”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “You won’t tell me. That doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

  She made to pour herself another glass, but he strode across the room and took the bottle from her. He corked it. Then he opened the dresser’s top drawer and placed the bottle carefully inside and closed it, locked it with the small key jutting from the lock, and tucked the key into his pocket.

  “I thought we were friends,” she said, “yet you’d be so stingy with your drink, I cannot believe it.”

  “You’ve had enough. Come, Annalise,” he said softly. “You should go to your room until this passes.”

  She shrugged off his grip. “Until what passes?”

  “This melancholy.”

  She gaped, then shook her head and backed away from him. “Melancholy? You think this is something as light as melancholy, Cassian?”

  “You’re intoxicated on worm.”

  “I’m not,” she protested, “for you’ve stolen it away before I could possibly have drunk enough.”

  She stared at him defiantly, then dropped her gaze and squared her shoulders. “Never mind. I thought I could come to you with my worries. I see I was wrong.”

  “If ever I gave you the impression otherwise, I plead your mercy,” he told her, uncertain if she meant to leave or shame him further with her accusations. He rather expected the latter. He wasn’t certain he didn’t deserve to be so shamed.

  “You can’t have it.”

  “Annalise.” He sighed. “What would you have me do?”

  “Be my friend!” She advanced upon him. “Such as you said you wished to be! Such as I’ve tried to be to you these past weeks, at no small cost to myself, I might add.”

  “Nobody asked it of you. I didn’t ask it of you!”

  “Why is it that every time it seems as though you and I are about to make some manner of progress in this, you make sure to push me away? For every brick I take down between us you add two more, Cassian.” She gazed at him from wet, bleak eyes he couldn’t bear. “Why?”

  He had a handful of answers, all of which refused to leap from his tongue. She took two faltering steps toward him and stopped. He wanted to move closer. He wanted to move away.

  He didn’t move.

  “Should I stay and become a Handmaiden, Cassian, or should I leave and marry Jacquin, as he wishes?”

  The sound of the other man’s name grated in his ears. “If I told you what to do in this matter, Annalise, and I pushed you toward the wrong path, you would ever blame me for so encouraging you.”

  “And if it was the right path?”

  “You would ever blame me for not allowing you to be the one who made the choice at taking it.”

  She blinked.

  “I know you,” he told her. “You may not believe it of me, Annalise, but I do. You would ever resent me for being the one who decided for you. And I . . . I find the idea of you resenting me forever unpalatable.”

  A smile flickered briefly before vanishing. “You would have me stay here? In the Order? With . . . you?”

  With me, he thought, but didn’t say. “In the Order, working toward the taking of your vows. After which, as you well know, you’d be required to begin taking patrons.”

  She blinked again. “I know it.”

  He turned to study the glass she set upon his dresser. He could see the faint mark of her