Page 51 of The False Prince (Ascendance 1)

Mott gently put a hand on Imogen’s shoulder. “You may go, girl.”

Imogen didn’t look at me as she left the room. And I didn’t stop glaring at Tobias’s servant.

“He’s not welcome in this room anymore,” I said to Mott. “He shouldn’t work for Conner another minute after what I just saw.”

“You may go as well,” Mott told the servant, who tripped over his own feet in his hurry to leave the room. Mott stared at his knife a moment, then wiped the blade with his shirt as if I’d dirtied it. “Your mother was kitchen staff, I believe.”

“Barmaid.”

“Same thing. Obviously, you have some sympathy for Imogen.”

“It has nothing to do with that. She didn’t do anything wrong and he threw a book at her!”

“And do you think you helped her just now? Do you think that made anything better for her?”

I kicked at the floor, angry with myself, and angry with Mott too, though for no clear reason. Maybe because I hated it when he was right.

“She’s well treated here,” Mott continued. “Tobias’s servant will be disciplined, and you should be on your knees thanking me for not reporting this to Conner. What I want to know is why you took my knife.”

“I told you, I can’t cut the meat without one.”

“Do you feel you’re in danger here?”

hesitated a moment, then said, “When the servants feel one of them has been singled out or favored, they tend to get jealous. That can become dangerous.”

I pondered that. “So you’re saying when I look at Imogen, it makes things worse for her?”

“It could, yes.”

Which left a horrible feeling inside me. I’d only looked at her to understand the cause of her fear, when in fact the cause of her fear was me looking at her.

As we neared the stables several minutes later, Mott said, “We were in a debate over whether you really can ride.”

“Oh?”

“Conner said he thought you could. He figured you had goaded Cregan into letting you have a horse so you could ride to your freedom. We weren’t sure we’d see you again after tonight.”

I chuckled lightly. “Yeah, that would’ve been a good plan.”

“So can you ride?” Mott asked. “Or are you really so stupid as to have gotten on a horse that was bucking like that?”

My soft laughter widened, then I grabbed my chest. “It hurts to laugh. I must’ve bruised a rib. If you want me to tell you I’m that stupid, I will. The evidence is there.”

Mott shook his head. “You don’t have to say it, Sage. But you do have to get yourself under control. These two weeks are going to pass fast, and you’re far behind the others.”

The aromas of spiced meat and fresh-baked bread were inescapable as Mott and I entered Farthenwood through a back entrance. The kitchen wasn’t far away.

“I’m getting dinner, right?” I asked.

“Someone will bring it to your room — after your bath.”

“Tell me, Mott, is it true that the wealthy smell worse than the poor?”

Mott arched an eyebrow. “Why do you say that?”

“It seems since joining Conner’s household that I’ve needed to bathe much more often. My fleas have all but abandoned me.”

“Let’s hope so,” Mott said with a chuckle. Then he handed me off to Errol for another scrubbing in a bath that had been set up in a corner of our bedroom.