As the cargo carrier became smaller and smaller in the horizon, Tamaris returned to the car, picked up her communicator and input a familiar number sequence.

"I can't commit to your plan any more," she only said. "Princess Mrei jumped aboard with them at last minute."

"Do I need to remind you that if I tell what you did to her mother, it will be your downfall?"

Of course. She would have never agreed to this all to begin with if not for that one piece of information she didn't want revealed under any circumstances. And that bastard didn't hesitate to remind her at every turn. "The king will start asking questions soon. She visits him every day."

"Stall for time. Three or four days should be enough for them to make it to the Skyfall territory. Once they're at the borderlands, communications between towns are limited at best."

That was true. Communicators worked well in cities and even smallest towns had at least one base station to strengthen the signal and enable the devices to work, but the network between them only covered the central parts of the kingdom - not the borderlands.

She forced her voice to remain level, "As you say."

~*~*~

Although Lucas wanted to stay at the deck for the view of the city, soon enough all three went to the cargo hold, both because it got cold with the air rushing past them and because someone might notice them.

It was only partially filled with sturdy crates, leaving them plenty of room to lounge around. The only downside was that both the crates and the floor were hard, and especially Mrei found it extremely difficult to locate even remotely comfortable spot. Finally she settled for sitting on one of the smaller crates.

"How long does it take to get to Ravona?" she asked Lucas.

"I don't know," Lucas had to admit. He knew the place by name and its general location on the map, but not exactly how far it was from Delavia or how fast their transport vessel was moving.

"Four hours," Kress said. "It was in newspapers a few years ago."

"Wow, you have good memory," Mrei beamed.

Kress shrugged. "I spent years locked in that room. The only thing to do was reading."

Now Mrei gave him a dubious look. She hadn't had the time to think about it earlier, but she had really only planned to get Lucas out. This other boy had come completely as a surprise. "Who are you anyway?"

"What does that matter to you? Nobody asked you to come along."

"You're so mean!"

Lucas moved a little so he was between them. "Mrei, this is Kress. Kress, this is Mrei." He smiled. "There, introductions done. Now we can all be friends, right?"

Well, Kress had helped her get Lucas out, that was true. She hopped down from the crate and held out her hand to the boy. "Friends?"

Kress hesitated for a moment, then took her hand. "Alright. Sorry about being mean. I'm still not feeling very well."

"That's alright. Um...if you want to sleep, you can use my lap as a pillow."

Kress chuckled. "You're a weird little girl. Thanks, but no thanks. I'll be fine."

In the end it was Mrei who fell asleep against Lucas's shoulder, the exhaustion from the night prior catching up to her with the gentle movement of the water hitting against the hull of the cargo carrier and making it sway ever so slightly.

Once the carrier stopped and they could hear the metallic sound of the docking system attaching itself to their vessel and pulling it to the side of the waterway, they carefully sneaked out before people would come to take the cargo. An adult might have gotten away with a warning that the cargo carriers were not meant for transporting people, but as they were all underage, someone might want to know where their parents were and in the worst case send them to the guard station to wait for a relative or legal guardian to come fetch them.

They cleared the cargo handling area and made it to the streets of the city without problems, but now they had another in their hands. None of them had any money or identification papers, so just how were they going to proceed from here?

"Maybe we could just try hitchhiking?" Lucas suggested. "Don't lots of cargo trucks go to the Skyfall territory from here?"

"Chances are we'd have to explain who we are and why we're going there. You could just say you're going back home, but that won't go through with me and Mrei," Kress countered.

"Well, we have to try something. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?"

"What if they alert the guards?"

"Then what do you suggest? Walking? We wouldn't last a day."

Mrei didn't know what she could add to that argument, so she remained quiet. And then she noticed a big cerro approaching them in half-run, tail wagging wildly from side to side.

Cerros were furry, four-legged animals in variety of sizes and common as pets. She'd once had a very small one, with large round eyes and ridiculously big ears. A female with soft rust-colored fur and white-tipped tail and wings. But one day she had flown away and Mrei hadn't seen her ever since.

This one was much larger, almost as high at shoulder as she was tall. It had fur the color of light caramel, a bushy tail and large ears, but no wings to speak of - only tiny stubs near its shoulders. That was quite common with larger breeds kept as pets. She had read in school that there were still wild cerros somewhere out there that were both large and could fly.

The animal stopped in front of her, tail still wagging and tongue lolling out of its mouth in greeting.

"Hello there!" Mrei smiled and ruffled the animal's long collar fur. "Where did you come from?"

She turned to the bickering boys. "Look! He likes me!"

"A stray cerro?" Kress asked.

"Nah, he has a collar." A little difficult to see with the heavy fur around it, but she could feel it under her fingers.

"He's mine! Thanks for stopping him!" a dark-skinned, muscular woman called out as she walked up to them. The cerro instantly dashed to her side. "His name is Kavo."

"It was no trouble at all," Mrei said, still smiling. The woman was dressed in regular clothes, but she had similar triangular, bronze earrings as Lucas wore. "I'm Mrei. These are Kress and Lucas."

"Nice to meet you. I'm Ena." Then she cast another look at Lucas. "Wait...Lucas, son of Aidan and Romi?"

Lucas nodded. "Yes."

Ena smiled widely. "My, you've grown a lot. Don't you remember me? I used to live almost next door before I moved here with my husband Asher."

Lucas had to rack his memory for that.

"I had a solar bike I was always tuning - still do, in fact. Sometimes I'd take you and Leyla for a spin."

Now that rang a bell. That was before his mother and sister were taken .He couldn't have been much more than 5 years old. "I do remember. How have you been?"

"Just great. I transport cargo between here and Skyfall towns. Lonely times on the road with only Kavo for company, but the pay is good. Asher works in the cargo sorting, loading and unloading carriers and trucks."

"Do you have children?" Mrei asked.

Ena shook her head. "No. I'd love to have a little girl like you, but with the mommy out on the road more than half the time, Asher and I agreed it would have been too difficult for any little ones."

"I...I'm sorry to hear that." That sounded really sad.

"Don't be." Ena patted her head. "I volunteer at the local kindergarten or elementary school when I'm home and the mommy mood strikes." She addressed also the boys, "Why don't you all three come eat lunch at my house and we catch up? It's been forever since I last saw you, Lucas."

"Sure," Lucas nodded and promptly grabbed the other's hand. "Let's go, Kress."

~*~*~

Asher also remembered Lucas, although Lucas couldn't really remember him that well either. But he pretended he did for politeness's sake.

The food was delicious, probably also partially because the boys hadn't eaten anything since last night.

"So...what are you three doing here?" Ena asked. "This is a strange place for children to be."

"We were looking for my mother and sister at the capital," Lucas explained. Well, it was mostly true. "But uh...we sort of lost all our money..."

"Sort of lost all your money?" Asher couldn't help smiling. Considering that Lucas was...what, 12? and had probably never been in the capital before, he had most likely spent it all.

Lucas gave him a sheepish smile. "Yeah."

"How did you get here?" Ena asked.

"Caught a ride on the cargo carrier boat."

"I see. Well, Lucas, you're certainly in luck. Or should I say favored by the Sky spirits just like your father? I'll be leaving for the Skyfall territory tomorrow morning, and my destination just happens to be your hometown. Delivering some tools and bringing back a metal shipment." She stopped for a moment to let her words sink in properly. "Would you three like to come along?"

"Can we discuss it for a moment in private?" Kress asked.

"Of course."

Kress ushered the other two into another room. "We might not have time to wait till tomorrow."

"They can't know where we went," Mrei disagreed.

"What if that woman told on us?"

"Tamaris wouldn't do that!"

"Probably not for Lucas and me, but I bet she wants you back very badly. I don't-" He was interrupted by a coughing fit. "Damn it..."

"It looks to me like you aren't traveling anywhere today in any case," Lucas put in. "We'll be okay. I trust Asher and Ena will hide us even if someone comes looking for us."

Kress wasn't feeling so trusting, but it didn't look like they had many options right now. Finally he nodded. "I hope you're right."

They stayed the afternoon indoors, Kress resting and Lucas and Mrei listening to Ena recounting silly stories from Lucas's early childhood. Asher had to go back to work after the lunch. Once he returned, they ate supper and watched some drama series on TV, and the night they slept on the couch and a makeshift bed on the floor in the living room.

Early - very early - in the morning Ena woke them up. "Get washed up and eat something. There's cereals on the table and everything in the fridge is free for taking. I have to go oversee the loading of the truck, but I'll come pick you up once we're good to go."

Lucas yawned and rubbed his eyes. It was still dark outside. He was willing to bet even farmers didn't wake this early. "Okay..."

An hour later Ena came back and led them to a huge truck parked not 100 yards from the house. It was comprised of the cargo part and actually quite roomy driver's cabin. There was the wide seat for the driver and one passenger, of course, but also a small "room" at the back with a bed, a small fridge and a heating plate. Kavo immediately hopped to the back and settled on the rug in the middle of the floor.

Ena smiled as the children marveled at the insides of the cabin. "The treks can take days, especially if weather gets bad." Solar cars had batteries for cloudy weather, but they didn't last infinitely - sometimes you just had to wait for the sun to come out again. That was why urgent deliveries and those that spoiled quickly should the cooling system fail were made with airships. And personally she never drove when visibility dropped below certain point. No cargo was worth risking your own life for. "Hop in. The sun is about to rise, so we better get moving."

The three hastened to obey. "Hey, not all to the back. If I take passengers, I want someone to talk to."

Lucas exchanged one look with the others and raised his hand.

"If you start feeling carsick or need to go to the bathroom, there's a toilet behind that door," Ena gave the last instructions. "Don't turn the heating plate on while I'm driving. And stay seated. I don't want anyone falling over because I have to stop." That should be enough. She could still see and hear them over the back of the driver's seat during the journey. "All set to go?"

Both Mrei and Kress nodded.

"Alright, let's get going then." She closed the door to the back of the cabin, helped Lucas up to the seat at front and climbed behind the wheel through the other door.

Ena waited until the other two fell asleep again on the bed before dropping the small talk with Lucas and asking the question that had been bothering her since the boy told her why he had been in the capital. "Lucas, what happened to Romi and Leyla? You said you were searching for them."

Lucas averted his eyes for a brief moment. "They were taken by the king's soldiers years ago. I thought I'd finally be grown-up enough to leave home and find them, but I couldn't find as much as a clue where they might be."

"I see. I'm sorry." She nodded towards the back. "Are your friends helping you search for them?"

"Sort of."

"Sort of?"

"Sort of," Lucas repeated.

"It's not something you can tell me?"

The boy shook his head.

"If you say so. You are going to tell your father everything, right?"

"Yes, I will."

Ena smiled. "Then it's alright."