Not anymore.
She was fighting for herself now.
Japeth had made this personal.
But how to find him?
All she knew is that he and Kei had set course for this birdbox yesterday. Hoping to track them, Sophie had stolen one of Camelot’s horses and made it to Gillikin, where she’d caught a fairy flight from the market.
Wedged on the sea between Kyrgios and Glass Mountain, Putsi was less a kingdom and more a port of entry, managed by cantankerous goose guards with shiny green hats, who registered new ships at the docks and patrolled the crowded streets, stopping and frisking passersby. (“Foreigners on the rise!” a goose squawked. “Can’t trust anyone!”) From what Sophie could glean, these “foreigners” were arriving via ships, from lands far, far away: a different side of the Endless Woods, beyond the mapped realms, with names like Harajuku and Mount Batten and Tsitsipas.
“Name. Kingdom. Business,” a goose blared at each new body coming off a boat.
“Bao of Vasanta Vale,” said a muscled boy with a pet griffin. “Here on royal business for the Sugar Queen.”
The goose cuffed Bao in a metal collar. “Sugar Queen has no power here. King Rhian is ruler of these Woods. You’re restricted to Putsi’s borders until your hearing. Attempts to cross into other kingdoms will activate your collar, causing instant death.”
“When’s my hearing?” Bao asked.
“A hearing will determine when your hearing is,” the goose said. “Next!”
The dusty port was packed with these collared immigrants, seeking clearance into the Woods, along with sour natives, resentful of sharing their city. Word of the tournament had spread here too, with merchants selling cheap Lion crowns for Rhian supporters and Snake crowns for Tedros’. No one was buying the latter. It’d been like this in Gillikin too, Sophie thought. Arthur’s will taken seriously. Rhian the presumed winner. They had no idea, of course, that Rhian wasn’t Rhian. That the real Snake was their king. A traitor to everything Arthur stood for.
Sophie combed the streets, hunting for Japeth. But there were neither signs of his or Kei’s horses, nor a royal palace, where he’d have been received—
A trumpet of squawks erupted overhead, as hundreds of geese flew towards the docks from all over the kingdom, awaiting an incoming ship.
No, not a ship, Sophie saw, milling closer.
A palace, floating in from offshore, mint-green with gold minarets, scorched in places as if it had been recently attacked. Goose guards kept patrol on the balconies.
The doors flung open and down the dock came Empress Vaisilla, crystal crown askew, swaddled in a goose-feather stole. She paraded past the goose captain, who hustled to keep up, his army of winged guards waddling behind, the Empress throwing shaded looks at anyone with a monitoring collar.
“Good-for-nothings,” the Empress murmured as Sophie eavesdropped. “Kingdom Council votes to let them in, because they don’t have to deal with them. ‘Vaisilla’s problem! Let them overrun her land like pests!’” Her shoes squashed through goose dung. “Perhaps King Rhian will have sense to ignore the Council and close our borders once and for all—”
She turned sharply and barreled straight into Sophie.
“Idiot,” Empress Vaisilla hissed, shoving past her and sidling closer to her captain. “Rhian is riding to the bank. We’ll meet him at Albemarle’s office. Listen to this: I’ve heard from my spies in Camelot that Sophie’s gone missing from the castle and might be joining the rebels . . . Seems she’s up to her old tricks. Send our scouts into the Woods. If we catch her, we’ll arrange a trade to Rhian for a seal on our borders—”
Her eyes widened. She stopped cold and whirled to the idiot she’d bumped into . . .
But all she found was feathers and dust.
ALBEMARLE.
Sophie knew that name.
Tedros had a business card with it: Albemarle, Bank Manager. He’d found the card with a bank ledger for “Camelot Beautiful” amongst Lady Gremlaine’s letters to King Arthur.
Now Sophie just needed to find this bank manager and wait for Japeth to arrive . . .
The Bank of Putsi imposed against the sunset, a circular, jade-green fortress, crowned with flags from around the Woods. Carved into the face of the bank was a gold inscription:
BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL
LIES
TRUST AND TRADITION
Here, there were no goonish geese or chaotic mobs; the streets were clean and lined with sword-armed men, their chainmail branded with crests from an array of kingdoms, as if the area around the bank was a protected zone, like the Four Point.
As she darted up the steps, Sophie glanced over the rail at a fenced-in plot, where visitors to the bank had secured their horses, magic carpets, and other transports. Still no sign of Rhian’s or Kei’s horses. Squawks echoed and she turned to see the Empress and her goose caravan nearing the bank. Sophie barreled up the last steps, flashing a flirty smile at a guard with a flip of her new red hair, then scooted through the doors before he could get a better look.
The interior of the bank was a jade temple, rising in a cylindrical hollow to three different levels rimmed by floor-to-ceiling glass, each glass panel stenciled with lettering. The first level up: BRONZE BANKING, packed with patrons in line; the second level: SILVER BANKING, with neon-haired nymphs serving rose water to customers on couches; and the top level, almost higher than Sophie could see, DIAMOND BANKING, obscured by tinted glass. Meanwhile, the bank’s atrium, rising all the way to the ceiling, held three statues of gold phoenixes, frozen midair in different poses, like a pretentious art installation.
A bank manager would be somewhere up there, Sophie thought. But there were no staircases on the lobby level. No receptionists or concierge. Down here, the marble was completely bare, except for a quick-moving line of customers waiting for something. Sophie cut to the front, spotting three white circles on the floor. One of these circles started glowing, words materializing inside: NEXT CUSTOMER.
The first woman in line, an elegant dowager, stepped into the circle—
Instantly one of the phoenixes came alive, swooping down and seizing her so fast Sophie almost missed it. The statue flew the woman up to the Silver Level and deposited her through the opening in the glass, before the bird refroze in the atrium, the other two phoenixes already plunging for their next customers.
Not an art installation, after all.
Down in the lobby, Sophie inched closer to the circles, noticing the other customers shooting her threatening looks: humans, mogrifs, elves, ogres alike . . .
The next circle glowed.
“Sorry, darling,” Sophie chimed, cutting off a troll.
A phoenix dove and swept her into gold-metal wings, glaring hard at her with fire-colored eyes.
“Bank manager, please,” Sophie ordered.
The phoenix threw her onto the Bronze floor, where she landed in front of a desk, manned by a smelly, single-browed hag. Sophie noticed her name tag:
Goosha G.
NEW ACCOUNTS
“Poor, Rich, or Filthy Rich?” Goosha inquired, tapping on her desk, a magical tablet Sophie couldn’t quite see.
“I’d like to speak with Albemarle,” Sophie replied.
“Albemarle handles Diamond accounts only,” Goosha snipped.
“Camelot Beautiful,” Sophie said. “That’s my account.”