"Keep your shoulders back and your back straight," Gladstone said. "Now walk evenly, like you're floating."

"Floating?" Lucas said, focusing more on trying to keep the pile of books on his head than anything else. "People don't exactly float."

"They do if they're royalty."

"Who was your great-grandmother?" Lena cut in.

"Elvira Duck."

"Better known as…?"

"Grandma Duck."

"And her grandfather was…?"

"Uhhh...Cornelius Coot, founder of Duckburg!" The books began sliding off of Lucas' head, so he ducked forward in a vain attempt to right them.

"No, no, no!" Gladstone said as they crashed to the ground. He helped Lucas pick them up. "The point is you're not supposed to move!"

"How am I supposed to float and not move at the same time?"

"Your posture!" Gladstone said. He used his hands to fix said posture before putting the books back on Lucas' head. "Again."

"How are you related to the king?"

"He's my great-uncle, on my mother's side…"

"Now onto the most important members of the royal family: your brothers," Lena said, turned around in her seat to face Lucas and Gladstone on the bus to Cape Suzette.

"They're the most important?" Lucas said in surprise.

"They certainly are to you!" Gladstone said, jabbing a finger into his chest. "A triplet who doesn't know anything about his brothers? Nobody would ever believe it!"

Lucas had been alone for just about as long as he could remember. He never had a family, never had anyone to look out for him. But once in a while, when, say, something really funny happened, he'd find himself turning to the side, all ready to exchange smiles and laughter with...who? Lucas had never had anyone to say a whole lot to, at least as far as he knew. And sometimes, when there was shouting, or gunshots, or a runaway carriage, Lucas found himself grabbing for somebody, an urgent feeling of "I have to save…" pressing down on his chest. He'd saved a little boy like that, once, younger than himself. His mother had been grateful, and had insisted on giving him a coin to say thank you.

Lucas swallowed, shaking the memories out of his head. "Right," he said. "What are their names again?"

"Huey and Dewey," Lena said. Gladstone held his face in his hand and groaned. They had a lot of work to do.

"You've got to quit eating like it's your last meal," Gladstone said. They had stopped off for lunch, and he'd decided it would be a good time to teach Lucas, as he put it, "manners."

"I do not eat like it's my last meal!" Lucas protested.

"You're so worried about your food escaping out of your mouth that you swallow it whole," Gladstone said. He yanked the napkin Lucas had tucked into his shirt. "And this belongs on your lap."

"But then my shirt'll get dirty!" Lucas complained.

"Not if you eat like a civilized member of society!" Gladstone put the fork and knife in Lucas' hands. "Try it."

"Sir Roast McDuck ate himself to death in the king's pantry," Lena read from her book. "Neat."

"Great. Thanks. That's really inspiring my appetite."

"No, no, no!" Gladstone said. "You don't cut up your food all at once! You cut it as you go!" He wrenched Lucas' plate over. "Like this. You cut a piece, then you eat it. Then you cut another piece, then you eat it."

Lucas threw his knife and fork down. "That's just stupid!"

"Otherwise your food gets cold!"

"Who cares if it gets cold? All that matters is that it gets in my stomach!"

Gladstone held the flatware back towards him. "Not if you want to be a prince."

Lucas growled in frustration, but he took it back all the same.

"Now, do what I do…"

Lucas scrubbed hard at his tin plate at the side of the little stream they had stopped by, humming absently.

Gladstone froze from where he was folding up the blanket they had used for their picnic. He slowly straightened, the blanket falling out of his hands, forgotten.

"What's that?" he asked.

"What's what?" Lucas said.

"That song you were humming."

Lucas thought a moment and then shrugged. "I don't know. Probably just something I heard somewhere."

"Where?" Gladstone demanded. His eyes were wide, and he was starting to look a little…crazy.

"I don't know!" Lucas said. He was starting to get just a little bit uneasy.

"Sing it again."

"Uh…" Lucas said. He wracked his brain, but he found that he couldn't remember the song. "I can't."

"What do you mean? You were just humming it a moment ago!"

"Yeah, well, you're making me nervous!" Lucas shot back.

"Fine," Gladstone said. He went back over to the picnic blanket. "I'll go back over here, and you keep doing what you were doing and see if the song comes back."

Lena snickered from over where she was studying maps and bus schedules.

"Ok," Lucas said, more to appease Gladstone than anything else. He went back to scrubbing his plate.

"Anything yet?" Gladstone asked after a few minutes.

"No," Lucas said.

"Try again."

Lucas rolled his eyes. "Whatever you say."

"When you're in an audience with the King, you first address him as 'Your Majesty,' and then after that, you call him 'sir.'"

"Did I really have to do that? Even though he's my uncle?"

"Eh." Gladstone waggled his hand back and forth. "You only really ever did it when you were in trouble. But until he recognizes you as Prince Louie, you have to follow royal protocol."

"Do I, though?" Lucas said. "Technically, he's not a king anymore."

"You absolutely do," Lena said. "Until he says you're the prince, you're no better than me. And if I'd ever addressed him as anything other than "Your Majesty," it would have been off with my head!"

"What?" Lucas squawked. His hands crept to his neck.

"Don't worry. Uncle Scrooge doesn't have the power to execute anybody anymore," Gladstone said. "Now, as princes, Donald and your brothers are to be addressed as 'Your Royal Highness' and then 'sir,' but…" Gladstone trailed off, looking thoughtful.

"Please don't tell me that Louie called his own brothers 'Your Royal Highness,'" Lucas said.

"Yeah, I think you can skip that. Chances are they haven't been using it, anyway," Gladstone said. "Donald, though…I think we'll just have to play it by ear."

"Ok," Lucas said. "So definitely call King Scrooge 'Your Royal Highness—'"

"'Your Majesty,'" Lena corrected.

"Fine. Definitely call King Scrooge 'Your Majesty,' but see how it goes with everyone else."

"Right."

"Did you tell him about the song?" Gladstone whispered to Lena as they got back on the bus.

"What song?" she whispered back.

"You know!" Gladstone whispered. "The lullaby!"

"I still don't know what you're talking about!"

"I take that as a 'no,' then?"

"Definitely a 'no.'"

"King Fergus and Queen Downy had Prince Scrooge, Princess Matilda, and Princess Hortense, in that order. Prince Scrooge and Princess Matilda never had any kids, but Princess Hortense married Fillmore—"

"Quackmore."

"—Quackmore Duck of Duckburg, and they had twins: Della, who was my…mother," the word still stuck in his throat, "and Donald, my uncle. Then Della had triplets: me, Huey, and Bluey—"

"Dewey!" Lena corrected, banging her head against her book. "If you're going to forget somebody's name, it can't be your brother's!"

"Sorry!" Lucas said. "But how else am I supposed to remember he's the blue one?"

Lena banged her head against the book a few more times.

"You said you were royalty," Lucas said, turning to Gladstone. "Where do you fit in?"

"Cousin to the Crown Twins on their father's side."

"Which makes us…"

"First cousins once-removed."

"And that makes you…"

Gladstone gave a grand bow. "The Duke of Albany, at your service."

"You're a duke?" Lucas asked.

"Well, don't look so surprised," Gladstone said, mildly offended. "You saw the portrait in the Money Bin."

"Well, yeah, but…"

"And it definitely helped me get into the Money Bin after the Revolution."

Lucas raised an eyebrow. "Your 'luck' wasn't good enough?"

Gladstone winked. "I knew where they hid the key!"

Lucas stared at him. "The royal family left the key to the Money Bin under the mat?"

"Well, it's a little more complicated than that, but yeah, pretty much." Gladstone stuck his hands in his pockets. "Knowing where all the booby traps were helped, too."

Lucas rolled his eyes. "Why do some guys get all the luck?"

"There's actually a funny story about that…"

Now it was Lena's turn to roll her eyes. "Not that again." She turned to Lucas. "Who was the king before Scrooge?"

"Fergus," Lucas said, distracted. He was thinking. "Are you actually related to the king?"

"Only through marriage."

"Then…" Lucas thought some more. "Are you a duke from the Scotland side or the Duckburg side?"

"Scotland. Duckburg doesn't really have much in the way of titles." Gladstone pulled the map out of his pocket. "Uncle Scrooge gave it to me when I came of age, being family and all that. Didn't come with any money or land, of course, but it makes things easier and more official, which means less headache for everyone involved. It also meant he had more clout to boss me around, which is probably the real reason he did it." He scrutinized the map, trying to figure out where they were. "I'm also a count from my father," he added as an afterthought. He handed the map over to Lena. "I can't make heads or tails of this."

Lena took the map. "We go two more blocks, turn right…" she turned the map, "and the pier should be another block from there." She handed the map back to Gladstone and opened her book back up. "What's the line of succession?"

"Why do I have to worry about the line of succession? There isn't one anymore!"

Lena glared at him. "The line of succession," she repeated.

Lucas sighed. "Scrooge is king until he kicks the bucket, then it was supposed to go to Della, and then…" Lucas wracked his brain. "Well, not me, that's for sure…"

"Oh, come on! You've got to know this by now!" Lena said.

"Uh, Huey?" he said. "And then B—Dewey, and then me, unless Huey has kids first, 'cause then they come before Dewey and me."

"Good," Lena said. "And who's after you?"

"After me?" Lucas' face scrunched up in confusion for a moment until he remembered. "Oh. Donald."

"Uncle Donald," Gladstone corrected. "You've gotta get used to calling him that."

Lucas shook his head. "It's still weird that we'd get the crown before him."

"That's how it works," Gladstone said. "If we had to go through everyone's kids before moving on to the next generation, it'd be a mess."

"I guess…" Lucas said thoughtfully. "But he'd have more experience, and know more people...wouldn't he be a better choice?"

Gladstone laughed. "Not with that temper of his."

Lucas remembered reading about that temper in the papers. "Just how bad was it? His temper, I mean?"

Gladstone smiled fondly. "Oh, it was bad. His face would get all red and he'd jump up and down and wave his fists, and boy, did he yell."

"Oh," Lucas said. He slipped his hand into his pocket and fingered the coin nestled safely in the bottom corner.

"You should have seen his parents. That temper ran in the family." Gladstone shook his head. "Scrooge had it, too, but he was never usually so…" Gladstone started hopping up and down and swinging his fists. "…fight-y."

"Did Donald ever…" Lucas swallowed. "Beat anybody up?"

Gladstone laughed again, this time loud and long. "Only when they deserved it, pipsqueak," he said. He ruffled the feathers on top of Lucas' head. "Don't worry. He'd never lay a hand on any of you."

Lucas nodded, but he wasn't convinced. Sure, Donald wouldn't hurt Louie, but what about Lucas?

He really hoped that this Donald guy believed that he was the lost prince.

"We're here!" Lena said as the bustling pier in front of the Sea Duck came into view. "Duckburg, here we come!"