The pungent smells of the city—horses, factory smoke, too many people—were overtaken by the smell of the ocean, salty and refreshing. It was strangely familiar, almost, but something inside him told him that it should be...warmer, somehow. Warmer...and more solid. Lucas shook the thought out of his head and hurried after Gladstone and Lena, who were already on the gangplank.

Lena handed the tickets to the ticket-taker, and they found their stateroom. It was pretty nice, all things considered. A window, a sink with a mirror, a small dresser, a night table, and more than enough room to turn around in.

And only two beds.

"I call the top bunk!" Lena said, swinging her bag up to claim it.

Lucas looked at Gladstone, wondering if they had another room somewhere with a third bed.

Gladstone turned to Lucas and raised an eyebrow. "Well? Do you want the other bed or not?"

"Your 'luck' wasn't good enough to get us a room with enough beds?" Lucas asked, putting his bag on the bottom bunk.

"Eh, you win some, you lose some," Gladstone said. He started going through the dresser, pulled out some blankets and pillows, and started arranging them in the corner on the floor. "It got me some nice blankets, though."

"I like it up here. It's almost like being up at the old Money Bin again," Lena said, poking her head over the edge of her bunk.

"I'll bet you can't see nearly as far," Gladstone teased.

"I wonder how far you can see at Scrooge's new Money Bin," Lena said. She climbed back down the bunk beds and went over to the window. "You know, I think I can see Duckburg from here!"

"Really?" asked Lucas.

"Yeah, right. And I can see all the way to Russia," Gladstone said. He stood up and admired his work. "There. Done."

"You sure you want to sleep on the floor?" Lucas said, eying the makeshift bed.

"Don't worry about it, kid," Gladstone said, waving him off. "I've had worse."

"You?" Lucas said, incredulous.

Gladstone looked at him. "I'm a member of a deposed royal family who's lived in a deserted royal palace for the last 6 years. Sometimes, my luck can only do so much."

Lucas paused. "Good point."

"One, two, three; one, two, three; one, two, three—ugh, no, Lena, you're leading again!"

"Sorry."

"From the top. One, two, three; one, two, three…"

"This is the worst," Lucas complained, his face bright red underneath his ivory feathers.

"You can't keep staring at your feet! Look up at your partner!"

"Then I'll step on her feet."

"Try it anyway! Don't think too hard; let your feet do the work. Somewhere, deep down, I'm sure they still remember how to waltz."

"Are you trying to kill me?" Lena said.

"Indulge me. Just for a few minutes. Then Luke can go back to watching his feet."

Lucas took a deep breath and raised his eyes to Lena's scowl.

"Ready?" Gladstone began to count. "One, two, three; one—"

"Ow!"

"Sorry!"

"Ow—get off!"

"Sorry!"

Lena pushed Lucas away and turned to Gladstone. "You dance with him! My feet didn't do anything to deserve this!"

"Sorry! We won't try that again."

Lena crossed her arms at him.

"I promise."

Lena resumed her position with only a little grumbling.

"One, two, three; one, two, three; one, two—Lena, don't—!"

"Ow!"

Lena gave Lucas a smug look. "Whoops. Sorry," she said.

"What gives? I didn't step on you on purpose!"

Lena shrugged. "I guess my injury left me a tad bit clumsy."

Gladstone sighed, holding his forehead in his hand. "From the top," he said. "One, two, three; one, two, three…"

"The family history, I get. The table manners, I get. I even get the floating thing. But why do I have to learn how to dance?" Lucas said, concentrating hard on his footwork.

"I'm preparing you for court life. One, two, three—

Lucas threw Lena's arms down. "'Court life'?! What kind of a court life does Scrooge McDuck have anymore? He doesn't have a court! He's a businessman!"

"I'm sure deposed kings have to take part in some sort of public life—"

"Well, I don't care!" Lucas snapped. "I'm not becoming an entirely new person just to prove who I am. If King Scrooge doesn't believe I'm the prince because I can't dance, I don't want to be the prince anyway!"

Gladstone considered him for a minute, hours of dance lessons drawn out by similar arguments echoing in his memory. "Yeah," he said. "I think we can be done with dancing."

"Are you sure you're ok with sleeping on the floor?" Lucas asked once more as he, Lena, and Gladstone got ready for bed.

"I told you, Green Bean, I'm fine." Gladstone tucked himself into his corner.

"Yeah, but you're not used to sleeping—"

"I'm used to sleeping wherever I need to, kid."

The ship lurched, and Lucas' stomach followed suit. "But—it's not fair—"

"Get into bed before you get sick."

Lucas stumbled across the swaying floor and gratefully fell into the lower bunk.

Lena came in from the restroom down the hall and climbed up to her bunk, completely unaffected by the boat's rocking.

"Looks like there's an angry storm brewing out there," she said. "Cloudkicker says it looks like it'll last all night."

"Great," Lucas grumbled. "Why couldn't that 'luck' of yours have gotten us smooth sailing?"

"I told you, it can only do so much. We're lucky it even got us a ship," Gladstone said. He turned down the flame of the small lamp casting a weak light over the room. "Night."

"G'night," Lucas and Lena both responded.

Magica laughed as she tossed bursts of magic into her swirling cauldron. "This should do just the trick," she cackled. Smoke from the cauldron drifted up, taking the vague shape of Magica herself, silhouetted and grinning wickedly. The shadow echoed Magica's laughter as it flew out the window and to the west. Magica turned to her crystal ball and watched as the shadow traveled at impossible speeds towards the lost prince.

Lucas found himself standing in a lush, green field outside of the woods. A sparkle caught his eye—a gold coin gleamed at him on the ground. Lucas picked it up and found that there was another just up ahead. And another. And another. He followed the trail, slipping each coin into his pockets, all the while trying to calculate how to keep the coins for himself or, at the very least, extract some sort of a finder's fee if he ran into their previous owner.

Something thumped, and Gladstone cracked open an eye to see what it was just in time to catch a glimpse of young Lucas disappearing through the stateroom door.

Lucas couldn't help but laugh as he followed the trail of coins. They would feed him for weeks. He couldn't remember ever being so happy and care-free before. It was wonderful.

"Lucas!" Gladstone shouted. He ran after him, crashing into the walls of the corridor as the ship tossed from side to side. But the kid didn't seem to hear him.

The grass seemed to end up ahead, and as he got closer, Lucas could see that the ground dropped off in a cliff. Lucas followed the coins to the edge.

"Come on in! The money's fine!" an older duck said, swimming around in a massive sea of shining gold coins. His face looked like that of King Scrooge, but Lucas had never thought of him in a red and black striped swimsuit before.

A pair of ducklings popped up next to him. Lucas knew they were his echoed the sentiment, smiling and laughing and beckoning Lucas in.

Lucas laughed, savoring the moment. He hadn't felt so safe and complete in a long time. All he had to do was jump in and—

"Lucas! Stop!" Thunder crashed over the ocean as Gladstone emerged on the deck. He could barely see through the sheets of rain drenching the ship, but it didn't take long to spot the kid, balancing precariously on the edge of the ship.

Lucas still didn't seem to hear him. He swayed back and forth, like he was about to jump overboard. There was no time—

Suddenly, the scene changed. King Scrooge's face was replaced by another, one that belonged to an evil-looking woman with green feathers and black hair. The clear, blue sky turned putrid and green, and the sea of money turned to fire and death.

"Yes!" she said. "Jump! Jump, you stupid duckling! Jump in and finish the curse!"

Lucas had never felt such terror. A golden shark that looked to be made of the very coins it swam in surfaced right where Lucas would have landed had he jumped in, its glowing red maw open wide to catch him. The ducklings, his brothers, morphed and changed into bird-like demons with shining black feathers. Lucas backed away as they came toward him, tearing at his clothes to try to pull him into Hell. He screamed and tried to fight them off, but they were too big and too strong.

Lucas turned to run back the way he'd come, but the cliff had turned into a pillar of rock, an island cut off from escape.

Gladstone reached up and grabbed one of the ropes that was attached to the rigging. He gave it a quick tug to make sure it was secure and then swung across the deck. He grabbed the kid, who immediately started squirming and fighting even as his eyes were shut tightly in sleep.

"Whoa, whoa, hey, calm down, Green Bean, you're fine. Wake up," Gladstone said, all but wrestling him off the ledge.

"No, no, get off—" Lucas said, and then his eyes popped open, wide with fear. He looked around, his heart racing, unable to catch his breath. His eyes filled with tears.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," Gladstone said.

Lucas didn't seem to hear him. "The curse! The curse…" he said.

Gladstone patted his head. "There, there, Luke. You're fine. It was all a bad dream."

To Gladstone's surprise, Lucas launched himself at him, wrapping his arms around Gladstone's middle and squeezing tight.

Gladstone felt his own arms return the hug, his mind going back to times back at the Money Bin when he'd been the first to run into one of the triplets after a bad dream (he had been a bit of a night owl back in those days). It wasn't something he liked to think about much, for, well, for a lot of reasons, but somehow, right now…it didn't feel so bad.

Magica shrieked in anger. Poe hid in the hollow skull on her table. She started throwing things—bottles and potions and foof bombs that all broke and unleashed explosions and foul odors. She only stopped once she was out of things to throw. She took a deep breath and smoothed out her hair.

"Ok. It's ok. Everything's ok," she said. "I see what I have to do now."

Poe cautiously poked his head out of the eye of the skull and cawed cautiously.

"It's time for Plan B." She consulted her book on astronomy. "This has taken far too long. I'll just have to go to Duckburg and get the dime myself."

"How? How?" Poe said with a caw. "You've been exiled! Expelled! Powerless! They won't let you in!"

"Idiot! I'll take my broom!" Magica grabbed it from its spot in the corner and blew off some of the dust. "They won't be able to keep me out even if they see me coming!"

"Sorry about that, back there," Lucas said, rubbing the back of his head as they walked back to their stateroom.

"What's to be sorry for? Everybody has nightmares sometimes."

"Yeah, well. They're usually not that bad," Lucas said. He couldn't ever remember having sleepwalked before. Then again, come to think of it, nobody ever paid him much attention at night. Maybe he was a sleepwalker and just didn't know it.

"You said you dream about the past sometimes. Are they usually nightmares?"

Lucas shrugged. "Sometimes."

"What about?"

Now that was the question, wasn't it?

Lucas shook his head. "I don't know what they're about. I can never remember them when I wake up." He didn't mention the love; or the terror; or the feelings of safety and belonging; or the vague, barely-formed impressions of memories that they left him with.

Gladstone hummed thoughtfully. "I guess dreaming about grand balls in the Old Money Bin would be too easy, huh?"

Lucas forced a smile. "Yeah."

"Still," Gladstone said. "If you ever do remember anything…no matter how small…"

Lucas nodded. He climbed back into his bunk, but it was a long while before he fell asleep.