“Never been readier.” I looked at her more closely, suddenly suspicious. “How are you so chipper?” She was usually a night owl like me—or at least, I’d thought so.
She scoffed and waved a hand. “Oh, I’m used to no sleep. I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” She winked.
Daisy bared her teeth at Madeline and growled. She’s so loud. Should I bite her?
I considered it, then let out a low woof that was muffled by the noise of the crowd and the caw of seagulls circling overhead. Good thought, but nah. We need her.
Daisy, ears flat, plunked her tawny haunches down on the soft grass, barely able to keep her eyes open. Peter leaned over and ruffled the fur on her head. She didn’t even respond.
I sighed and scrubbed the side of my face, then glared at the frantic activity in the baking tent. Already yeasty smells wafted my way. “Are we really that late? When did this start?”
Madeline turned and stood beside me, all four of us watching the aproned competitors bustling about.
“About twenty minutes ago.” Madeline shrugged. “Unless you mean the whole thing? This is day three of the competition—we’ve got two more to go until they announce the winners.”
I recognized the two celebrity judges—Francis, a vampire, and Rhonda the Seer—moving about among the bakers. They were popular figures in the kingdoms—the last vampire and his charismatic psychic girlfriend. Rhonda sported overalls and stopped to peek under a towel at one station, then stuck her finger in a pot of jam and sneaked a taste.
Her boyfriend, Francis, floated beside her, his toes dangling above the ground. Tall, thin, and pale, the vampire looked morose beside the bright-eyed, skipping Rhonda. I felt a kinship with the creature of the night.
A servant in blue-and-gold palace livery moved among the contestants with a tea pot and a stack of teacups magically hovering beside him. He stopped at one station to pour out a cup of tea while a couple of cubes of sugar magically lifted out of the bowl beside him and dropped into the cup with a little splash.
The servant moved on to the next table, and I took another sip of my bitter coffee, then crossed my arms, trying to warm myself in the chilly fall air. “Didn’t they do this whole thing like a year ago?”
Madeline nodded, her eyes still fixed intently on the activity in the tent. “Pretty much. But the bakers, including Princess Imogen and Prince Hank, have since opened their own bakery in the Badlands. Oop.” She winced and corrected herself. “Not the correct term anymore—on Kusuri Island. The staff Queen Edith brought in to replace them turned out to be racist sea slugs who wouldn’t work with shifters.” She shrugged. “So they’ve all been canned.”
She grinned. “With Sam Snakeman campaigning for shifter rights, royalty figured it’d be fitting to find their replacements with another competition.”
I took another sip of coffee. One woman with long blue hair frantically kneaded a ball of dough, while a trio argued over the proper way to knead. At least I guessed that was what all the raised voices and slapping the dough on the table was about.
“So are all these people shifters?” It surprised me that they’d be so open about it. While I liked the changes Sam Snakeman was pushing for, acceptance of shifters still felt a long way off.
Madeline snorted. “We’re not that far along, honey. But I believe they’ve all made statements supporting the rights of shifters to work in their kitchens. Since the palace bakery needs a whole new staff, this time the competition involves teams of three.” She flashed her eyes at me, grinning. “So who knows? Maybe there are a few shifters among them.”
I pulled my lips to the side. That would be the sea’s knees, but I wasn’t going to hold my breath. I blew out a sigh, then turned to face the bleachers. There had to be hundreds of people gathered to watch the competition. Madeline and Peter turned with me, and the journalist pointed to the top of the gold risers. “That’s Princess Imogen with the red hair.”
I recognized the bun and the bangs from the tabloids—including Madeline’s articles—with the photos that caught the princess making unflattering expressions and pondered if she’d been eating too many of her own rum balls. I was sure the princess just loved that. I glanced at the reporter and wondered if her friendship with the royals was as tight as she claimed.
“Beside her is Prince Harry, of course.”
The two held hands and chatted with their heads close together. The handsome prince smirked, and his princess threw her head back and laughed. I guessed that was her famous baking fire burning in the lantern that sat beside her hip. The little flame munched on a stick and spat out ashes onto the head of the lady who sat in front of him.
Madeline waved her hand. “A bunch of their friends are up there, but that guy, with the glasses and no chin—”
I followed her finger and spotted Sam Snakeman.
“That’s Sam.” She tipped her head side to side. “He’s shy though, so I’m going to introduce you to Imogen first.”
I raised a brow at that. Imogen, huh? No “princess”? I sighed and nodded. I sure hoped Madeline wasn’t just full of hot air. We were counting on her making the introduction so Peter and I could tell them all about Ludolf Caterwaul. We were hoping they’d believe us about the underground shifter population that lived in the sewers and about Ludolf, who bullied our community like a true mob boss.
He’d been masterful for decades at carrying out his dastardly deeds in secrecy, distancing himself from his crimes by having layers of underlings who would take the fall for him. We’d finally managed to find a crime we could pin on him, but we needed the royals’ help.
Peter, Daisy, and I had recently freed a bunch of shifters trapped in their animal forms from a zoo.
