That night, Lucas waltzed through dreams of dimes and the stars and the sea. It wasn't the most restful sleep, but it would have to do. After a quick breakfast from a place up the street, the trio returned to their hotel room to change into their new clothes. The silence made Louie feel claustrophobic. He buttoned up his jacket with trembling fingers.

"Who is your grandmother?" Lena asked.

"Hortense Duck, born McDuck."

"Grandfather?"

"Quackmore Duck."

"And he's from…?"

"Here. Duckburg."

"Name all of your great aunts."

"Matilda, Daphne…oh, and Lulubelle, by marriage."

"And your great uncles?"

"King Scrooge, Eider, and Goosetave, by marriage."

"And how are you related to Gladstone?"

"Uh, he's my uncle? No, cousin."

"First cousin once-removed, but close enough."

"See? You're ready for this!" Gladstone said, tying Lucas' tie.

"Did I know how to tie ties?" Lucas asked. "You know, before?"

"Sure," Gladstone said.

"Do you think Mrs. Beakley's going to quiz me on that?

"If she does, then we're up the creek without a paddle, aren't we?" Gladstone said. He tightened the tie and smoothed it into place. "I think she'll understand if you haven't retained that particular skill."

Lucas crossed his arms. "She'll forgive the tie but not knowing every detail of my family tree?"

"Sounds about right!" Gladstone said cheerfully. He pushed Lucas' arms down. "You're going to wrinkle your suit."

"Is my bowtie straight?" Lena asked, peering into the tiny mirror in the hotel bathroom.

"It looks fine," Gladstone said.

"Are you sure?" she asked. "What if—"

Gladstone laughed. "Don't worry, Lena. Everything will be fine."

"But—" Even from the side, Lucas couldn't miss the anxious look Lena gave her reflection. "But what if—?"

Gladstone walked over and put his arm around her. "You forget who you're with, kid. Like I told you—everything will be fine."

Lena smiled.

But Lucas didn't feel reassured. Tears sprang into his eyes. He wished it could be that easy for him, too.

He blinked his eyes clear and slipped his coin from his old jacket pocket into his new one.

He took a deep breath. "I guess I'm as ready as I'll ever be."

"Then let's get going!"

Lucas looked up at the new Money Bin. Its white walls gleamed and the golden dollar sign that adorned its entire front sparkled. It was like a weird mirror version of the one back in Scotland, but that one was cracked and grimy and had a giant pound sign on the front instead of the dollar sign. Lucas wondered how King Scrooge kept this one so clean.

"And how are you related to Mrs. Beakley?" Gladstone asked.

"What? I'm not related to Mrs. Beakley!" Lucas paused. "Am I?"

Gladstone grinned. "You'll do fine."

Gladstone strolled past Lucas, walked right up to the door, and rang the bell.

"Wait!" Lucas said.

"There's no time like the present!" Gladstone said.

Nobody answered.

"Maybe nobody's home," Lucas said hopefully. He turned to go. "I guess we'll have to come back later."

"Give it a minute, Green Bean. The Bin's big enough that it's gonna take whoever's answering the door a little bit of time to get there."

Lucas made a sour face. "He's the king. Can't he afford to hire someone to camp out near the door?"

"Ha!" Gladstone said. "As if Uncle Scrooge would shell out for something like that. And don't forget—he's not king anymore."

"Whatever."

"Don't worry. You're still royalty," Lena said.

"Yeah. The royal mess, maybe," Lucas said derisively.

"That's the spirit!" Gladstone said, slapping him on the back.

Something made a noise behind the door, and Lucas ducked behind Gladstone. It seemed to take ages for the door to open—the heavy thud of no less than three deadbolts being thrown back, the clatter of a chain being slid aside, the rattle of the doorknob. And then the door itself finally swung forward.

"Gladstone!" The woman's eyebrows shot up above her glasses, which was no small feat given their size. She was tall and broad, her grey hair pulled back into a bun. Lucas had a feeling that she was normally a lot more stoic than this—someone who was clearly built to be King Scrooge's bodyguard was surely not someone who was quick to show emotion.

Lucas felt Lena shift beside him. The woman's eyes landed on her, and her beak pressed into a thin line.

"Mrs. Beakley!" Gladstone exclaimed. He stepped forward and gave her hand a hearty shake. "It's so good to see you! You remember Lena, surely. She used to work in the bin," Gladstone added with an oddly pointed easiness.

"Yes, I do," Mrs. Beakley said disapprovingly.

"And there's one more kid I'd like to introduce you to," Gladstone said. He stepped aside, leaving Lucas exposed. "Allow me to present His Royal Highness, Prince Llewellyn Rebel Duck!"

Lucas did not know what to do, so he waved. "Hi."

Mrs. Beakley frowned. "I think you'd better come in," she said.

Mrs. Beakley led them up an elevator and into an anteroom. It was decorated more plainly than the old Money Bin had been—no fancy china displayed on shelves, fewer portraits on the walls. Lucas breathed in the smell of…well, Lucas couldn't quite put his finger on what the Money Bin smelled like, but somehow, it smelled like home. Not Lucas' apartment back in Edinburgh—that had smelled like unwashed bodies and musty bedsheets. But…home, that elusive thing that Lucas had been searching for for the last six years, maybe even longer.

"Start at the beginning," Mrs. Beakley said, sitting down in one of the plush chairs. "How do you know that this boy is the lost prince?"

"How do I know?" Gladstone asked.

Lucas could hear him slipping into the same salesman mode he'd shown back when they'd met and barely resisted the urge to slap his hand to his face.

"Look at him! He's the spitting image of Louie! The ivory feathers, Della's beak, the triplets' tail—"

"Mhm," Mrs. Beakley said. She didn't sound convinced. She turned to Lucas. "And where have you been the last six years?"

"E-Edinburgh."

"Doing what?"

Picking pockets and sweeping the street. Lucas was going to have to say picking pockets and sweeping the street. He tried to think of a way to word it so that it sounded less awful, but under Mrs. Beakley's severe gaze, he couldn't think of anything. He swallowed. "Picking pockets and sweeping the street."

"I see," Mrs. Beakley said. "And what makes you think that you are Prince Louie?"

"Uh…" Lucas could feel sweat rolling down his back. He was going to mess up his new clothes.

"Let's start at the beginning," Mrs. Beakley said. "Where were you born?"

The words "I don't know" were at the tip of Lucas' tongue before he realized she meant Louie, not him. "In the Money Bin. The old Money Bin."

"What was your birth order?"

"I was third to hatch after two brothers."

"How long did it take for you to hatch after they did?"

"48 minutes," Lucas said. "51 minutes after the first one."

Mrs. Beakley looked mildly impressed. "How do you take your tea?"

Lucas made a face. "I don't like tea."

"How does the King take his tea?"

Lucas scrunched up his beak. "He uses the same nutmeg tea bag for months…"

"I have one last question for you," Mrs. Beakley said. "How did you get out of the Money Bin that night?"

Behind Mrs. Beakley, Gladstone smacked his hand to his face and turned around to let out his frustration into the wall. Lucas didn't blame him. The Revolution itself had never come up in any of his lessons; it wasn't exactly a topic that people wanted to talk about.

But…

"There was smoke…and explosions…" Lucas squinted, as if trying to see the memory better through his mind's eye. "I was with my brothers and my mom, and D-Uncle Donald…we ran into Uncle Scrooge, and then we all split up…" Lucas' hand drifted to his pocket. "Then the walls started caving in…" He blinked back tears. "I never saw them again."

Everybody was quiet until Mrs. Beakley finally broke the silence.

"Well," she said. "You certainly know your stuff."

"Yeah?" Lena said.

"Unfortunately, that means nothing," Mrs. Beakley said. "Plenty of phony 'Prince Louies' have passed through these halls knowing the same. You would have been able to memorize all of that in a week."

Lucas' beak dropped open. He opened and closed it a few times before he found his voice again. "Then why'd you make me answer all those questions?" he snapped. Then he immediately clamped his beak shut with both hands before he could say any more.

A strange look flickered over Mrs. Beakley's face, but before Lucas could try to decipher it, it was gone.

"It took a little longer than that to get here," Lena offered, and then shrank into her seat when Mrs. Beakley shot her a glare.

Mrs. Beakley continued. "If you hadn't done the bare minimum, that would have ruled you out entirely."

"Bare mini—"

"Are you saying…we still have a chance?" Lena asked.

After a moment, Mrs. Beakley shook her head. "No," she said. "You're too late."

"Wha—" Gladstone sputtered. Lucas had never seen him like this. His face was growing flushed, and he ran a hand through his head feathers, messing up his perfect curl. "We can't be too late! That's—that's impossible!"

"Unfortunately, it is possible, even for you," Mrs. Beakley said. "The King has declared that he will not see any more boys claiming to be Prince Louie, and frankly, I don't blame him."

Lucas' eyes darted around the room, trying to find something he could use to talk his way out of this one. Or, rather, into this one. His eyes landed on an empty dome-covered pillow sitting on a pedestal at the other end of the room, and curiosity took over. There was something about it…

"Of course, we still have something here worth celebrating, and this young man, er, what is your name?" Mrs. Beakley was saying. "Your real name?"

"What's that?" Lucas asked, pointing.

"What's what?"

"That. Over there." Lucas stood up from his chair and walked over to it.

"Ah," Mrs. Beakley said. "That used to hold the King's Number One Dime. Please don't touch it."

Lucas perked up. "His…what?"

"His Number One Dime," Mrs. Beakley repeated. "Th—"

"The first coin he ever earned," Lena cut in. "It was his most prized possession."

"He lost it during the Revolution," Gladstone added. "It's a wonder that he's been able to be this successful without it."

Lucas' mind was racing.

"Magica De Spell was after it," Mrs. Beakley continued. If Lucas didn't know any better, he'd have said she'd glared as Lena as she said it. "Her greed was what caused the whole Revolution. She thought the King owed it to her for her services to the royal family. We don't think she ever got hold of it, though we can't be certain."

"What did she want with a dime?" Lucas asked.

"She wanted to use it to complete some spell," Gladstone said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Something to make her rich and powerful. As if that was worth all of this."

Lucas swallowed. "What did it look like?"

"Like the oldest dime you ever saw," Gladstone said. "Scrooge has gotta be about a hundred years old, and he didn't waste any time starting his first business. It's got a Lady Liberty on one side and says '10 cents' on the other."

Lucas' hand slipped into his pocket. His heart felt like it was about to burst out of his chest. He took a deep breath and pulled out his coin. "Like this?"

Mrs. Beakley, Gladstone, and Lena all gasped.

"Where—where did you—" Mrs. Beakley didn't even finish the question before taking it from him. She peered at it closely, and then took a jeweler's loupe out of her apron pocket for an even closer look. "Oh, my goodness. This is it."

"You had the Number One Dime this whole time?" Gladstone asked.

"I guess?"

"Why didn't you tell us?" Lena said.

"It's just a dime. I didn't think it was an important dime."

"Where did you get this?" Mrs. Beakley finally finished her earlier question.

"I don't know. I've always had it," he said.

Mrs. Beakley shook her head. "This is incredible," she said. "I'll go get the King."

She stood up to go, taking the dime with her.

Lucas' heart seized in his chest.

"Wait!"

Mrs. Beakley turned around and raised an eyebrow.

Lucas could feel his face heat up. "Can I…have the dime back?"

Mrs. Beakley looked at him, then at the dime, then at him again. "I suppose, if you've kept it safe all these years, a few more minutes won't do any harm." She placed the dime in Lucas' open hand and then left to go see the King.