Selfish is the Heart by Megan Hart

constant use would make it difficult for anyone to have attempted their upkeep.”
    Though he ought to have done, was the unspoken but understood end of her sentence. And again, she was right. The books they used here weren’t sacred by any means, but they were copies of the sacred texts, of the Book itself, and though they’d not been anointed, they were due respect nonetheless.
    Moreover, it was his duty to do so, and he’d ignored it for a long time. Not because he hadn’t been aware of the task, but because nobody else had ever seemed to know, and because he simply hadn’t cared. Now he looked at her. She didn’t shrink from him.
    “You might choose your own copy,” he told her. “And set those aside you deem . . . unacceptable.”
    Her mouth looked soft, especially when she smiled. “You would trust my judgment?”
    “It would seem you know enough for that to be sensible.”
    She shifted, titled her head, cast a look up at him from lash-shaded eyes. She was flirting with him. The sight of it set him back a step, against the shelf where the sharp edge of a book dug between his shoulder blades.
    “By calling me ‘sensible,’ sir, you prove you don’t know me overwell.”
    “I don’t know you at all.”
    One sleek brow lifted. “Yet of all the people I’ve met here at the Order, you seem to be the one with whom I’ve had the most interaction.”
    “That will change.”
    “Will it?” She studied the stacks of texts and ran a finger down their spines, then met his gaze again. “Now that I find myself compelled to attend your tutelage, sir, I believe we will but spend all the more time with one another.”
    “You will have other instruction,” Cassian said. “And I, many other students.”
    At this, her eyes narrowed. “Indeed.”
    She gave him her back and made as though to choose a text. Cassian, released from the snare of her pale eyes, relaxed. He knew, now, how to keep her at a distance from him.
    She would not ever be the same as all the others, but he must make her believe he thought her so.
     
     
    F or a fortnight, Annalise did as she was told. Go here, sit there, eat now, and sleep then. It was easier than she’d expected, to bend to the instruction of others. To obey.
    Not that the Mothers or Sisters-in-Service ruled the Order with fists of rock. Not at all. Unlike many of the other religious orders or guilds, the Order of Solace didn’t indenture its novitiates. Though a few, such as Tansy, had families who contributed to their keep, the Order ran solely on the proceeds of the fees it charged patrons for the service of its Handmaidens. Sisters who wished to leave were free to do so at any time, and return if it so suited them. Novitiates not yet entered into the Order were required to attend appropriate instruction and work toward the time when the Mothers above them determined them ready to Serve—but Annalise could discover no time limit as to how long this could take.
    “How do the Mothers-in-Service decide when a novitiate is ready to become a Sister? And how long past that time does she take a patron?” Annalise asked the question into darkness from her narrow bed, with Tansy across the room and the third bed yet empty between them.
    “The Mothers know best.” Tansy didn’t sound sleepy, though the tenchime had just sounded and the fivechime would wake them even before the sun. “They always do.”
    “But how do they know?”
    Tansy shuffled in her blankets before answering. “I don’t know how, Annalise. They just do. It’s their purpose to know, as it will be ours to serve when they decide we are ready.”
    “Purpose and place.” Annalise mouthed the words she’d heard so often since her arrival. “And pleasure. But what of the pleasure, Tansy? I’ve yet heard little of that part of it.”
    “Do you not gain pleasure from the learning? Each new skill I master brings me great pleasure!”
    That wasn’t what Annalise had meant. She shifted, too, down deep into