The Wish Granter (Ravenspire #2)(31)

Shoving those thoughts aside, he said, “I was checking to make sure you were all right.”

She raised a brow, and her voice was flat. “You were staring at my waist because you were concerned for my well-being. Really? That’s the best explanation you can come up with?”

“Yes. No! Not your waist. Your hips. I was staring at your hips.” Stars help him, he didn’t realize how terrible that would sound until it left his mouth.

“Well, I hope you liked what you saw, because I’m leaving.” She turned on her heel and started for the exit.

He was going to lose his job. His chance at freedom from Kosim Thalas. And he was going to lose the respect of the princess, which shouldn’t bother him but somehow did.

“Wait!” He took a step forward, and then stopped as she slowly turned to face him. His pulse was thunder in his ears at the sight of her angry expression. “After your run-in with Teague’s men, I promised to help you if you felt threatened in the palace. You haven’t come, but something is clearly wrong and has been for a while, and I worried that it meant . . . that you’d been hurt. I was looking at the way you were standing. If you’d been hit someplace where it wouldn’t show, you’d be compensating for the pain by putting your weight on the side of your body that hurt the least.”

Stars knew, he had experience in trying to find a way to absorb the red-hot agony of a beating while still moving about his everyday life.

Her expression softened.

“I meant no offense.” He realized his hands were fists and made himself unfurl them.

“I believe you,” she said simply, and he could see that it was true. “And as proof that our friendship can weather the occasional argument, I’ll even share my snack with you.”

She held up the wrapped bundle.

“You don’t need to do that.”

She blew a stray piece of hair out of her eyes and walked to his side. “Why do people say that? Of course I don’t need to do it, but if I say I’m going to, then that’s it. Decision made. Trying to give me a way out of it just slows things down.”

He had no response to that. She busied herself unwrapping a small loaf of bread that smelled like the bakery he’d passed each morning last winter on his way to mucking out the local livery stable. His stomach growled, suddenly unsatisfied with the slice of cheese and half an apple he’d eaten at dawn. He’d have to eat the bread or risk offending her. Somehow he didn’t think it was going to be a hardship.

“Cranberry orange bread with a cinnamon-sugar crust.” She broke it in half and handed him a piece as big as his hand. “I baked it myself. It’s better than Mama Eleni’s, but don’t tell her that.”

“Who is Mama Eleni?” he asked as he took a bite and savored the softness of the bread and the warm sugared-fruit flavor that tasted exactly as he’d always imagined something like this would taste.

“You know . . . Mama Eleni. The cook.” She shook her head. “You really should pay more attention to the name of the woman who cooks for you every day. She’s a good ally to have. You never know when you’re going to need an extra snack.”

He shrugged. “I don’t eat in the palace kitchen, so I’ve never met her.” He raised the bread to his mouth again, but stopped at the expression on her face.

“If you don’t eat the servants’ meals, what do you eat?”

“Bread, apples, and cheese.”

“That’s it?” She was staring at him with a mixture of horror and pity.

“That’s enough to get me through each day. Speaking of which, we should get started on your—”

“Food isn’t about getting through the day, Sebastian.” She waved her bread under his nose as if he didn’t already have his own piece just begging to be finished. “It’s about stopping and appreciating the moment. It’s about exploring new tastes and textures. It’s about giving yourself a little piece of comfort or joy and sharing that with others.”

“And here I thought it was simply to keep one’s body going,” he said, and finished off the rest of his bread quickly. Talking with the princess was easy—far easier than it should’ve been—and he was in danger of forgetting that he had a job to do, a job that didn’t include letting her think they were going to be friends. It was time to get started on her lesson and remember his place at the bottom of the society that she held in the palm of her hand.

“Come to the kitchens tonight. It’s dessert baking day, so there will be something special on the table.”

He dusted crumbs from his hands. “I’m fine. I don’t like the kitchens.”

She threw her hands into the air. “Why not?”

“Because there are people there.”

“Yes, but there’s also pie.”

His lips twitched upward. “I can live without pie.”

She grinned, but then froze as she looked past him to the arena’s doorway. A frown etched itself between her brows, and she clenched her hands into fists.

“What? What’s wrong?” He spun on his heel, but could see nothing in the darkness beyond the distant faint shadows of the trees that lined the drive. When he turned back to face the princess, she’d grabbed his cudgel from the table of weapons beside them and was running for the door.