It didn't take that long to verify that most of everything was as it was. Goldie had not taken anything besides the Templar texts and a few candlesticks. It was far from her most disruptive visit, Scrooge reflected. Perhaps she was mellowing out a bit.

Or perhaps she felt that taking the texts was a sufficient enough way to annoy him.

As he was wandering through the halls, he heard the sound of the front door open and close, signalling the arrival of one of the kids. Scrooge walked into the main hall, seeing Dewey striding across the room, a spring in his step. A cunning idea formed in his head, and he quickly acted upon it.

"Ah, lad!" Scrooge greeted him, walking down the stairs toward him. "How was school?"

"Hey, Uncle Scrooge!" Dewey replied happily. "School was awesome for once!"

"Glad to hear it!" Scrooge strode over to him, throwing an arm around his shoulder. "Now, I didn't want to rush you kids, but I was talkin' to the other adults, and we were thinkin' that we should decide where we're goin' tonight. Just so we have plenty of preparation for the trip."

"Yeah?"

"Aye. Which expedition had taken your fancy, incidentally? Obviously, mine was the best, but I was havin' another gander at Donald and Daisy's trip, and I have to say, it looks like it might be right up your alley! Delvin' into-"

"Oh, the Templar Temple?" Dewey piped up. "We've already decided on that one.'

"Eh- what?"

"Yeah, we've all been texting each other all day." Dewey explained, holding up his phone. "May and June really liked the idea of it, and we figured that since, you know, they've been feeling left out for so long, that we should do something that they wanted to do. So, we all decided on that one. We were actually gonna tell you guys at dinner!"

"…Oh." Scrooge replied blankly. "Well… good."

"What?"

A loud thump echoed through the trophy room as Della leapt up and banged her head against the shelf of the cabinet she'd been inspecting. Huey winced as Della moved back, then stood up, rubbing her head and hissing, "God, fffffff… frazzle-dazzle-razzle… um…" She turned to him, peering through the pain and asking, "Sorry, what was that, sweetie?"

"Uh… I was just telling you that I think I'm gonna… skip out on this adventure." Huey mumbled quietly, trying not to look at her.

"…Just this adventure?"

"Yeah, yeah. Just this one."

"Okay, okay, good." Della sighed. "I misheard you before, thought… whatever. Um, how come?" She asked, concerned now. "Is everything alright?"

"Yeah, everything's fine. I've just got… homework to do."

Della raised an eyebrow. "…Homework?"

"Yeah." Huey scratched the back of his head. "I, uh… kinda left it too late, and I don't want to be… heh, tardy, I suppose, so…" He chuckled. "So, I- I'll just be staying back this time to finish it up. It's fine, really. I don't have to adventure all the time."

"…Okay." Della said slowly. "And this is definitely about homework?"

Huey took a deep breath and lied, "Yep."

"It has nothing to do with what happened back in Paris?"

Huey felt cold dread flash up his spine, and he froze in place.

"Wh- huh? N-no, no, this isn't about Paris!" Huey replied too quickly, laughing nervously. "No, this- this is about… about school. Homework. That's all."

"…Uh… huh." Della nodded, frowning worriedly. Still rubbing her head, she told him, "Well, that's fine, Huey. You don't have to go if you don't want to."

"Okay! Thanks, mom, I'll, um…" Huey stammered. "I'll just go get started on that homework then!"

"Alright, sweetie."

With that, Huey spun around, quickly making his way back to his room.

She didn't know what June had done, he told himself. Paris had been a disaster on all accounts, and she was just concerned that it was about the overall experience. That was all.

As he walked, he heard a voice behind him, causing him to jump. "Huey?"

He turned around, muttering, "Ah-! Oh, oh… h-hey, June."

June stared at him silently, wringing her hands with anxiety written across her face. She approached nervously, asking, "Um… you're not going on the next adventure?"

"Uh… no." Huey replied, guessing that she'd overheard him. "No, I'm going to stay behind to… to catch up on homework."

June looked around, checking if anyone was listening, then she turned back to him and asked softly, "It's because of what I did, isn't it?"

Huey didn't say anything. He couldn't. She'd see through any lie he could stammer out.

"…Do you hate me now?" She asked, her voice barely a whisper.

"N-no. No." Huey reassured her, shaking his head. "Of course not."

"…Are you scared of me?"

That, he couldn't give an honest answer to.

Huey stood uncertainly for a moment, his beak half-open as he tried to formulate a reply. After a moment, he said hesitantly, "…I just… need a bit of time to think about it. That's all."

"…Okay." June replied unhappily.

Huey stood there for a bit longer. Then, he awkwardly turned around and kept on walking down the hallway, leaving his cousin behind him.

The adventuring party departed for Portugal early on Friday morning, at Scrooge's insistence. Apparently, the house had been robbed by Goldie yesterday, and Scrooge had decided to accelerate their plans, lest she 'swindle him out of another hard-earned treasure'. The adults had rolled their eyes, but the kids didn't mind. They were well used to sudden excursions at this point.

The other kids boarded the plane with their usual eagerness, though to their surprise, Della had decided not to go this time either. In her place, Launchpad had taken back his role as the pilot, under stern instruction from Della to 'crash less' this time.

To Huey's further surprise, Donald announced that he would be accompanying the troupe to Portugal. He'd said that it was because they needed at least one responsible adult on the trip, and neither Launchpad nor Scrooge counted, but Huey suspected it was more so because he wanted to make sure that the other kids were safe. After Paris, he didn't blame him.

Huey saw them off as they were boarding the plane, waving and smiling as the plane took off, and then rushing off to school one it wasn't much more than a red dot in the sky.

The bus stop was dishearteningly lonely without the others.

School went on as it normally did. Home Economics proved to be peaceful as usual, since it was basically just a cooking class, while English proved to be slow in the aggravating way. They had moved onto studying a play now, a format that Huey had never enjoyed studying. What was the point, he had asked, of trying to pull thematic elements from a manuscript instead of studying the actual performance of the play?

To which Mr Puglesi's reply had been, "It was either this or we do Shakespeare for the umpteenth time."

The collective groan of the class had put any chance of a change of text to bed.

After English came the lunch hour. Huey scarfed his food down quickly, then darted to the library for his usual study routine. He was joined by Violet in the lower section of the library, where the two of them began going over their notes for Mathematics – a habit they had picked up after being caught out by an unexpected pop quiz.

They sat on opposite sides of a table, a notebook and a study guide in front of each of them. After a few minutes of silence, Huey looked up from his books to ask, "So, um… do you know how it went yesterday? With… Webby and Lena?"

"She didn't tell you?" Violet murmured, without looking up from her book.

"She just kind of said that it 'went okay'." Huey explained. "Which… usually means that it didn't."

Vi tapped the end of her pen against her book a couple of times before replying, "It went about as well as it could have gone."

"…Hm." Huey frowned, not quite sure how to interpret that answer.

From the maze of books that surrounded them, another student emerged, marching towards the two of them. The student was a bulldog boy, dressed in a black jacket and rubbing his eyes tiredly. Huey recognised him – Oscar Pits, one of the friends Huey had made outside the family. He'd met him a few years ago in 9th-grade History, and they'd been friends ever since.

"Hey." Oscar greeted the two of them, his voice a deep, gravelly British accent. "Sorry I'm late."

"Oscar." Violet nodded curtly in his direction. "It's quite alright."

"I didn't see you at lunch." Huey remarked with a frown. "What took you?"

"Got into an argument with Brandon Smears after class." Oscar replied, referring to another student in his class. He sat down beside Violet, continuing, "We'd somehow started talkin' about Chris Columbus, and he was insisting that the man discovered North America, like everyone else in this bloody country."

"…Oh, good grief." Huey muttered, rubbing his eyes in realisation.

"So, I decided to inform him that Columbus actually landed in the Caribbean, and that he never did so much as set foot in North America. I told him that the honour actually went to Leif Erikkson, a Viking from five-hundred years before Columbus, and that Columbus was an idiot who got imprisoned by the king of Spain for tyranny and incompetence, and he kept saying – to his dying day – that he had 'discovered' the Far East."

"And that he forced the natives of the Indies to dig for gold on an island that had no gold." Violet added nonchalantly, not looking up from her notes.

"That too!" Oscar snapped his finger at Violet. Looking back at Huey's unimpressed expression, he shrunk a bit as he explained, "Eh… so, that turned into like, a fifteen, maybe twenty-minute debate after class, so… yeah."

"…You need to stop getting into arguments like that." Huey told him concernedly.

"I do, it's a problem." Oscar muttered, rubbing his eyes again.

When he lowered his hand, he frowned, as if he was looking at Huey for the first time. "Uh…" He cocked his head to the side, then pointed at him, saying, "…You're here."

"…Yeah…?" Huey replied confusedly.

Oscar pointed out the window, saying, "…And your family's out adventuring?"

Huey blinked. "Wh-? How did you know?"

Oscar snorted amusedly. "'Cause I saw your uncle's giant red cargo plane fly out over Duckburg, same as everyone else in town? And your brothers and sister aren't here?"

"…Webby's my cousin, actually."

"It is rather conspicuous." Violet agreed, finally looking up from her book towards Huey. "I was going to bring it up, but I wasn't sure how."

Huey hesitated under the combined gazes of his friends. He sighed, saying, "Okay, yes. I chose to stay behind this time. I somehow forgot to do my homework for Physics – completely slipped my mind. So, I decided to stay behind this time so I could finish it."

Violet raised an eyebrow. "…That's all?"

"…Yeah."

"Come off it." Oscar said with a snort. "Mr Baxter sucks, but the work can't be that bad."

"It's not the work that's the problem, it's the time." Huey explained. "You don't have a moment to breathe when you're on an adventure. You're constantly running from traps, or following clues, or… anything, really. I wouldn't have time to sit down and study, the- the only time I'd have to finish it is on the plane! And it isn't just Physics, I have to do exercises for Advanced Maths, a mini-essay for Modern History, and I have to read through our text for English, I… I just can't fit an adventure in between all that."

His two friends were silent for a moment.

"…Nah, I call bull." Oscar said confidently.

"I don't believe it either." Violet agreed.

"Mate," Oscar spoke up before Huey got a chance to protest. "I once saw you crank out a week's worth of work in a day without breaking a sweat. There's no way that this is freaking you out, there's somethin' else goin' on here."

"I-"

"Are you having an argument with your family?" Violet asked inquisitively, leaning over the table to peer at him. "I've noticed all four of you have been acting abnormally since Paris. Did you have a disagreement with them?"

"What? No!" Huey cried. "Nothing like that!"

"Is it the 'danger' aspect of things?" Oscar asked. "I know I'd want a break if I was putting myself in danger every week."

"Perhaps you've had enough?" Violet suggested before Huey could speak. "You've been adventuring for years, constantly putting yourself in harms way. Perhaps you're finally done with it?"

"I'm not quitting, I'm- I'm just taking a break!" Huey snapped angrily. "Now please, just drop it!"

They stopped, taken aback by the outburst. Huey knew he'd given the game away at this point, but he didn't care. At least now, he knew that they'd stop.

"…Alright mate." Oscar sighed. "We'll drop it."

"Thank you." Huey muttered, picking up his pencil and going back to his study book.

"…Hm." Violet sat back down. Before returning to her book, she told him, "We will come back to this, Hubert. If Lena and Webby's situation has taught me anything, it's that hiding things just leads to problems later down the line."

Huey gave her an annoyed look, then returned back to his studies, trying to return his thoughts to thermodynamics.

If she dies now, it's because you failed to act.

Please don't tell her. Please, I- I'll never do anything like that again!

The crackle of the school speakers suddenly lifted him out from his thoughts. He and his friends looked up as an electronic voice spoke across the entire school.

"Huey Duck, please report to the front desk. That's Huey Duck, to the front desk."

Huey's eyes widened in alarm. He looked at his friends, stuttering, "I- I-!"

Violet and Oscar frowned, but they didn't look as panicked as Huey felt. Oscar shrugged and said, "It's alright, mate. It's the front desk, not the principal's office."

"It's still not a good thing." Huey murmured, feeling himself start to sweat.

"Do you know what it's about?" Violet asked.

"No, I- I don't know what this could be about, I-!" Huey gulped, then stood up, hurriedly packing his things. "I- I'll see you guys later."

He quickly put everything in his bag, then slung it over his shoulder. He left his friends and started to walk out of the library, trying to ignore his pounding, anxious heartbeats.

"Alright!" Scrooge declared, waving his cane in the air as he paced back and forth across the airplane base. "Listen up, everyone! We'll be landing in the town of Galinha come morning, which sits at the base of Mt. Alto, which in turn forms the base of Castelo de Cristo – the last castle of the Knights Templar! It was this castle that was said to have been the site of terrible occult rituals committed by the knights in the service of a craven deity known only as Baphomet – the hellish Beast of Blasphemies!

"Now, in today's more enlightened era, we've rather safely assumed that these accusations are nonsenses crafted by those who stood to gain from the Order's dissolution. But, to the bafflement of modern scholars, the inquisitions against the Templars actually found a silver idol of what they assumed to be this 'Baphomet' – which was promptly stolen by a group of clandestine infiltrators! The origins of this idol, as well as its whereabouts, have remained a mystery… yet today, we have at least solved one of them! The idol resides somewhere in this forgotten castle, no doubt guarded by traps, monsters, or worse!

"Our mission – get into the keep and find that idol before Goldie does!" Scrooge declared determinedly. "I've got no idea what she could want with it, but it doesn't matter! She's stolen from me, and we cannae let that slide! We have to be on our guard at all times. Goldie's tricky to anticipate at the best of times, and somethin' tells she'll be pullin' out all the stops this time! Understand?"

He turned towards the kids, slamming his cane into the ground to accentuate the seriousness of the situation.

What he got was five confused stares, one from each of the kids present.

"…Uh… who's Goldie again?" May asked confusedly.

"Scrooge's girlfriend." Dewey replied instantly.

"…And she's stealing from him?"

"Eh, she's done worse." Dewey said with a shrug. "She used to consistently double cross him whenever they teamed up on an adventure and leave him for dead."

May slowly turned to look back at Scrooge, perturbed.

"It's not as bad as it sounds." Scrooge told her irritably.

"I'd hope so." May muttered.

Donald approached the group, his hands on his hips as he declared, "Now, while we're in the town, you can explore a bit so long as you stick in a group and with an adult, but while we're in the ruins, we have to stick together! No wandering off, no side adventures, and no needless risks!"

"Yes, Uncle Donald." Dewey and Louie said in exasperated unison.

"Ok, mister Donald." June said obediently.

"Kay, Dad." May replied.

Webby made a vague sound of acknowledgement.

"And remember, if any of you want to stop and go home, just say so and we'll go back. Adventures should be thrilling, but not unsafe. Okay?"

The kids answered in agreement. Donald's eyes lingered on Louie a little longer before he relaxed. "Okay…"

"Um…" June spoke up. "So, if Miss Goldie already has the notes that Donald and Daisy made on this place, and if she's ahead of us… doesn't that mean that she might already have the idol?"

"I doubt it." Scrooge replied. "It's all a game to Goldie. To her, there's no point in stealin' somethin' that I want unless she's doin' it in plain view of me."

May cocked her head, asking, "…Wouldn't that mean that the way to defeat her is to ignore her? Not give her the satisfaction of beating you?"

"No, no. Because that just tells her that she can come over whenever she pleases!"

"…Isn't that what you want your girlfriend to do?"

"It's complicated." Scrooge told her crossly. "Bottom line is that we're between a rock and a hard place, and we've no choice but to play along with her game. And until we've figured out the rules, we have to be cautious and be vigilant! Everyone understand?"

The kids murmured back their responses, with varying degrees of non-commitment.

"…Alright." Scrooge replied with a frown, adjusting his hat. "We'll be landing early in the mornin'. Remember – vigilance!"

With that, he spun around and marched off to the upper deck of the plane, leaving the kids to their own devices. Donald turned to follow him, though not before saying emphatically to the kids, "Remember – Tripwires, Runes, Arrowheads and Pressure Plates!"

Once they were gone, May commented concernedly, "This 'Goldie' person doesn't sound like a very good girlfriend."

The plane landed in an open grassy field about a mile from the actual town of Galinha. The rest of the journey they made in the jeep, Lauchpad driving with Scrooge in the front seat and everyone else crammed in the back. The plane was left closed and locked, but otherwise unguarded. It didn't need to be, really – nobody out here was fool enough to mess with Scrooge McDuck's cargo plane.

The town itself was a condensed sprawl of cobblestone streets and cobblestone buildings, all topped with orange tile roofs. They parked the jeep on the town outskirts, then walked through the town streets to the hotel they were staying at, getting all kinds of curious looks from passers-by as they made their way, each of them carrying a rucksack on their shoulders.

As they walked, Dewey walked up beside Webby, who had been staring off into space for most of the journey so far. He nudged her with his elbow, asking gently, "Hey. You okay?"

"Huh?" Webby blinked, looking back at him. "Yeah, I- I'm good."

"Did, uh… the thing with Lena go okay? You haven't really talked about it."

Webby opened her beak to try and say something, but hesitated at Dewey's concerned stare. Deflating a bit, she admitted, "I don't know… I think we're good, but I'm still… processing some stuff." She looked down at the ground as they walked, muttering, "…She has a girlfriend."

"…Oh." Dewey blinked. "Oh. That… yeah. That's rough." Cautiously, he asked her, "Um… who is she?"

"Someone called Helen. I don't really know who she is, I think she goes to another school." Webby replied. "I'm not mad, she can see whoever she wants, it's… it's not my choice… I just wish I'd known that before I tried to kiss her."

She heard the bitter edge to her voice as the last sentence escaped her beak. Feeling an awkward silence descending on the hangar, she straightened herself and forced a smile. "But it's fine. It's behind us now."

"Yeah… that's good." Dewey said with a nod.

"Yeah… it is." Webby agreed quietly. "Uh… how, um, how did your day go? You met up with that… Trent guy, right?"

"Oh, yeah!" Dewey's eyes lit up. "Yeah, that was awesome, like- he was awesome! Turns out that he was at the game looking for people to join his baseball team! And he picked us!"

"…He has a baseball team?"

"Well, it's his college team. And apparently they've got some lame players that they wanna replace or something, so he's talent scouting for them."

"…And he went to a high school baseball game to find it?" Webby asked, frowning.

"Hey, the talent's where it is. And my team's super talented. He said so himself!"

"…Right."

Louie suddenly spoke up from behind him, saying slowly, "Did you get the name of the guy who framed him for the drug stuff?"

"Nah, just that he was a friend of his." Dewey replied. "Why?"

"No reason." Louie said quietly, staring straight ahead with a strange, intense look on his face.

Dewey stared back at him, a slow smile spreading across his beak. "Wait… you believe me?"

Louie shook his head. "I'm not saying-"

"No, the way you said that was different! You believe me now, don't you?"

"I am considering the possibility that it isn't complete horse shit."

"Yes!" Dewey pumped his fist in the air. "Finally, someone agrees with me! And it's the family sceptic!" He looked at Louie gratefully, asking, "What made you change your mind?"

"I dunno, I guess you were just that convincing." Louie replied casually, straightening up with a frown on his beak. Slowly, it developed into a smile as Louie said, "…Do you guys hear that?"

"…Hear what?" June asked.

"Silence!" Louie laughed. "I said the word 'shit' and no-one gave me any of that 'language' crap! I can swear as much as I want!"

"Oh, no, dude-" Dewey groaned.

"Like, fuck!" Louie declared joyously. "I can say fuck!"

"Okay." Webby said sternly, though there was a hint of a smile on her beak.

"I can say crap, I can say ballsacks, I can say…"

Dewey tried not to laugh at the juvenile vernacular on display, though he didn't manage to stave it off. Webby, however, had to force herself to laugh along with him, because she'd noticed something that had distracted her from the humour of it.

She had noticed that Louie had deflected the question. And suddenly, she felt like getting to the bottom of it.

June hung back from the rest of the group, trailing behind as they walked down the street. Her head was bowed and her expression downcast, watching forlornly as Webby and the boys laughed up ahead.

She noticed her sister had slowed down to join her, and she quickly looked away, trying in vain to avoid the conversation that was about to happen.

"It's not going to happen again, June." May told her quietly.

June didn't answer her.

"You're scared that it's going to happen again and that Dad's gonna see it, right?" May guessed. "Well, it won't happen again. And he isn't going to find out, okay?"

"He wouldn't have come if he didn't suspect something was wrong." June replied quietly.

"He's just concerned because of what happened in Paris. He doesn't know anything, and neither does Mom. We're going to be fine."

"…Huey's scared of me."

"What?"

"That's why he's not here. I asked him the day before we left, and he- he didn't say no."

June looked up at her sister, her eyes beginning to water. "Do… do you think the others are scared of me too?"

May looked up nervously towards the front of the party, where Scrooge and Donald were leading. Once she was confident that they weren't going to be overheard, she looked at June in the eye and told her, "Listen to me. You weren't the one who stabbed that merc. That was the twisted version of yourself that she wanted you to be. You aren't that person. You aren't her."

"…I know." June replied softly. She looked up at the rest of her family up ahead, murmuring sadly, "I just hope they know that as well."