Regulus panted, hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath. A look at the other two showed him that they weren't doing any better. Only after a minute, he managed to take a look at his surroundings, realising they were standing in the back of the shop where they were probably not allowed to be.

"What was that?" he asked, his eyes landing on Sirius. The boy straightened up and looked at Regulus as if he'd told him the toilets exploded for no reason.

"That was charmspeak," the older boy said easily, now taking his spear and folding it back into a hand mirror. "I've never used it like that, but it seemed to have worked anyways. Not as good as usual, though."

For a second, Regulus just stared at him. He'd heard of charmespeak before, but no descendant of Venus he knew had ever had the ability to, so he just assumed it was a myth. But here he was, standing in front of his older brother who could do it. Of fucking course he could. "Whatever," he huffed, turning to James, who was now sticking his axe back into his rucksack.

"What next?" the leader of their quest asked. He then seemed to realise that too, because he cleared his throat. "I mean, of course I know what to do now! I'm in charge, after all. First, we should get out of the staff part of this shop 'cause otherwise we'll just get more problems." Sirius nodded and Regulus agreed as well.

When they stood in some back aisle in the Seven Eleven, right next to rows of pet food, James addressed their problem of a missing plan or way to get to Camp Jupiter. "Obviously, we can't use the airport. The blemmyaes are going to come back eventually. We can't risk that. Anyone got any ideas?" the boy asked, fixing his glasses on his face and running an anxious hand through his hair.

Silence settled among the group. A plane had been their only idea, but maybe they should've realised that a quest wasn't going to be this easy. "What if we get a cab?" Regulus finally suggested, but then sighed. "We don't have enough money to afford it..."

Pursing his lips, the oldest of them said, "I might have an idea."

...

The three boys sneaked up to the airport again, doing their best to avoid blemmyaes, but they seemed to all have returned back inside. They hid behind a yellow cab, but when they tried looking inside, a couple was fastening their seat belts. So that wasn't their ride. It took them a while to find a taxi that was still empty. The driver inside was too busy scrolling through his phone to pay attention to the teenagers climbing onto his back- and front passenger seats.

Sirius obviously tried his best to put on some cute puppy dog eyes and asked the lanky guy in the driver's seat, "I'm so sorry to bother you with this, but we really need a car to get back to our parents. They live all the way in San Francisco and Regulus is scared of planes, so we can't take one. Can you please, please lend us this car and your keys?"

At the first few words, the driver looked annoyed at him, but then his eyes glazed over, a sign the charmspeak worked, and he nodded. He actually left the car, so Sirius quickly jumped to the driver's side and Regulus could hear him muttering some prayers to Aphrodite that he was going to be able to start the car and drive away fast enough before they got in trouble. Of course, Sirius would get in trouble either way, because Regulus was not scared of planes. How could he say that?

"Remind me again why we only needed the car and not the driver?" Sirius asked as they left the parking spot – through a wonder – without crashing a car. He seemed to struggle quite a bit with gas and clutch, which Reg watched with a bit of satisfaction. The other part of him just wanted to get away as quickly as possible, but the older one seemed to not be able to go any faster.

"Because we didn't want him to get in trouble with any monsters! He's a poor innocent man," James reasoned, then started giving him instructions on how to drive, because apparently, he'd driven his mum's car a few times already.

"Why did we not let James drive?" Regulus demanded, when his older brother finally managed to drive like someone that had barely scraped by in their driver's licence exam.

"Because we decided it would be more effective if Sirius would get in on the passenger seat and then slide over to the driver's seat," the walnut-skinned boy explained.

"Plus I didn't expect how hard this would be," Sirius threw in, swerving hard to follow a curve he'd almost missed. Quickly, Regulus held on to the first thing he could grab, which was James' shirt.

"Fucking hell! Pay attention to where you're driving, branleur!" he cursed when they were driving straight ahead again, letting go of the bright orange shirt with a burning face.

"Don't call me a branleur, tas de merde!" Sirius complained, glaring into the rearview mirror, where he knew Regulus could see him.

"Eyes. On. The. Fucking. Road."

The older boy mumbled, "casse-toi", but he did in fact turn to pay attention to the road again, because the car had started to stutter and James quickly told him to depress the clutch and change into a lower gear, to which Sirius stepped down on the clutch, but couldn't help but mumble, "you're a disappointment" to it as he did so. Regulus had to stifle a laugh.

They drove for a while on the highway, until Sirius finally asked, "Guys, where are we even going?"

"Oh gods," James sighed, while Regulus facepalmed himself. They really were idiots. "Pull in at the next gas station." When Sirius had parked the car – diagonally over two parking spots – James got up from his seat, crawling into the passenger seat to check for any maps or navigation systems. He seemed to have found a map, because he unfolded one and disappeared behind the large paper. "Reg, what did you say, where exactly was that entrance to that camp?"

Surprised at the nickname coming from James, the curly-head blinked hard, feeling the tips of his ears heat up. "Uhm, I never really- well, it's in... I can show!" he stammered, yanking as softly as possible on the map to get a better look at what James was looking at. It took a moment for him to find San Francisco, and even longer until he spotted what he meant to show the Indian boy, but then his finger hit a tiny space on the map labelled as "Oakland Hills".

"That's a long way," the older boy judged, looking over at his best friend. "Maybe I should take the wheel, I at least know what I'm doing."

"I'll gladly make space!" Sirius immediately offered, already exiting the driver's seat. He opened the door to the back row and Regulus immediately knew he did not want to spend hours sitting beside this little asshole. Quickly, he shuffled to leave the car on the other side and waited for James to free the passenger seat for him.

If James thought he was acting weird around Sirius, he didn't mention it. Instead, he handed him the map. "Here. Make sure we don't go the wrong way." His smile was so warm and trusting, Regulus almost melted right then and there.

"Sure," he uttered, almost tripping his way into the car. James confidently walked to the driver's side and that man managed to drive out of the parking spot and back on the highway so smoothly, Regulus was close to swooning. While James continued tearing up the road like it was nothing, his passenger tried to find their current spot on the map he was holding. "Did any of you pack a pen?" he wondered, because drawing in their path sounded like a smart decision.

Sirius sighed, thinking about it and then shook his head. Then, "Wait. Does eyeliner work, too?"

Deciding not to question why he would pack eyeliner – but no pen – for a quest, Regulus replied, "If it's a liquid eyeliner and you won't be mad if I ruin it, then yeah." The boy didn't even hesitate. He started rummaging through his rucksack until he held two(!!) liquid eyeliners in his hand.

"That one's almost empty, anyway. It should be just enough for you."

The youngest took the eyeliner and started drawing their way into the map, adding an arrow pointing at the Caldecott Tunnel. Their destination. His home. A happy feeling spread in his chest as he thought about Camp Jupiter. Finally, they were steadily nearing it, even if they had a long journey ahead of them.

For the next hour or so, they drove in silence, except for James' humming. Regulus wondered how he could be so relaxed when he was literally driving without a driver's licence, he'd be going nuts trying not to summon a police car that would stop them and ask for one. Luckily, no one seemed to notice that the yellow taxi passing them by was driven by a teenager and not by a usual taxi driver – who all were at least thirty.

"What was the prophecy again?" Sirius asked, leaning forward to stick his head in between the front seats.

Not very excited to hold a conversation, but hoping to shut him up, Regulus answered,

"The lost ones shall find their buried and burned once more.

Three shall go in the other's direction to find the one that has been missing.

Two children of the opposite will be on the way to stop the family from decaying.

Not one shall spot the mistake until it's already too late.

The brothers shall decide over the preventable or unstoppable.

Only when the light has gone out will the family be together."

But to his disappointment, the boy did not shut up. "Well, the second line is obvious. The three are we and the one that is missing is this Remus guy. But I have no idea about the rest. Who are the lost ones? Maybe Remus and someone else?"

"That could be. But who would be the brothers? I don't understand that line. Or what mistake? It's all so cryptic," James threw in, brows knitting together.

"I suggest we just wait and see. Right now there's not much we can do, anyways." Regulus leaned back, eyes closed. He just wanted silence.

Without having to look, he knew James nodded. "I suppose that's the best option. Besides, the prophecy is going to fulfil itself either way, so what does it matter now to overanalyze everything?"

"But I'm bored," Sirius protested.

"Sleep."

"Boring," the older said, the pout loud and clear in his voice.

Regulus sighed deeply. "Not my problem. Find something to entertain yourself with, but don't annoy me."

Immediately, Sirius groaned. "What do you have against me, anyway? You're acting all pissed as if I did something seriously wrong. Which I didn't!"

The youngest boy's eyes snapped open, his heart clenching painfully. He looked at James for a second, who was frowning at the car in front of him that had just overtaken him so dangerously, he had to slow down drastically. "Of course you did something," the curly-head said. "You said the Roman gods were cheap copies."

"That's not an excuse to hate me," his brother who didn't remember him said.

"It is," Regulus said, trying to swallow all the reproaches that wanted to escape together with a loud sob he really didn't want to let loose. That would be embarrassing.

"No," Sirius said.

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes,"

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Ye-,"

"I usually don't say this, but can you fucking stop?" James said, his voice strained. And only then Regulus looked forward again and noticed the traffic jam right in front of them.

"Only if-," the idiot from the back row started, but Reg sent him a deathly glare, having realised that their driver was obviously stressed, and recalled that this probably also was his first drive on a real road.

The sound in the car died down and Regulus tried to be a good passenger, checking the map and keeping an eye out for cars that were about to do stupid decisions like changing lanes unnecessarily. Once, they almost missed a motorcycle, to which Sirius offered helping spot any. Though, if he still was any little bit similar to his child self, Regulus guessed he just wanted to look at "super cool" motorcycles and if he saw one he could just as well warn James about it.

As they did their best trying to survive the traffic jam, the sky darkened through dark grey clouds and soon, big splotches of water followed. James struggled a little to find the windscreen wiper lever, but then they sprang on and he breathed through in relief when he could finally see again. Regulus couldn't help but stare at him in awe as he handled the very slowly dispersing jam with double concentration in the rain.

When the traffic finally went back to running smoothly, hours had passed and it was only slightly drizzling anymore. James' shoulders visibly relaxed at the sight of more free streets, but he looked super exhausted. "We should take a break at the next gas station, maybe have some afternoon snack since we didn't have lunch," Regulus suggested, making sure to pay extra attention to their surroundings in case James' concentration was already starting to give out.

"Oh yeah I'm super hungry," Sirius said and the walnut-skinned boy nodded in agreement.

"I could really use a break," James added, yawning and gripping the steering wheel tighter than necessary.

And so they left the highway at the next exit, to some city named Harrisburg. Considering they were all hungry and tired, they weren't picky with what restaurant they would go with, Regulus just told James to park by the very first food-selling building they saw, which was very soon after they passed a "Welcome to Harrisburg" sign, luckily. When they stopped, James slumped back in his seat, rubbing a hand over his face.

Deciding to let him have a moment, the curly-head started packing his rucksack with a few maps from the glove compartment and the eyeliner Sirius had given him, while said boy started talking about what kind of food he really wanted to eat right now. Though everything seemed calm, Regulus couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. As if his subconsciousness wanted to tell him something. But because he was exhausted, he just ignored it and opened the car door, stepping out into the slightly gay, uhh- sultry air. The clouds still hadn't broken up and he was sure more rain would be pouring down soon enough.

They went inside the small restaurant they had parked at, ordering their food – James decided for chilli and Sirius picked some noodle dish that Regulus also went with, because it sounded delicious. While they all dug into their food, the youngest of the three took a look around, glancing at the wooden benches and tables with the wine red pillows to sit on. The walls had wood panelling and basically the whole restaurant consisted of wood. Even in the bathroom, the main elements were made of wood. He couldn't decide whether to find the design overwhelming or cosy. Because of the dark weather outside, the old-fashioned lamps put up on the walls were already turned on, dipping the whole room into weird orange light, despite it being four in the evening in summer.

A smell of James' chilli and noodles lingered in the air, together with some air refresher scent he couldn't quite place. Since there weren't many guests at this hour, the only sounds were coming from the kitchen and their plates colliding with cutlery, together with soft murmuring coming from other tables and the TV that hung right by the entrance – to which Regulus had perfect view. Right now, a man finished presenting the weather, followed by some news logo flashing in. The picture changed to a news woman standing next to a picture of a yellow cab car that looked exactly like the one they had stolen. Regulus didn't even need to hear what she was saying to know the car they had taken had been reported as stolen. A collection of numbers and letters popped up big on the screen and it was clear that it was the number on their number plate. He may not have looked at it, but it must be a big coincidence if some other kids had also stolen a taxi car – because that's what it read in the subtitles.

"Guys," the curly-head mumbled, subtly nodding towards the screen. James lifted his head just as they showed an interview with the driver they had stolen the car from.

"Finish your plates," he announced, to which Sirius also finally realised something was happening around him. At least his plate was empty already. It didn't take long for them to finish up and place enough dollars on the table to pay for their meal, before they went to the door. But when James opened it, he slammed it close again immediately. "I need to pee."

Then he ran for the bathroom. Now definitely very confused, the curly-heads followed him quickly. When they arrived in the small and not very pleasantly smelling room, James was already waiting for them.

"We have a problem," he said, talking quietly as if there was someone who could hear them. But there was only a single toilet for men and they were all standing in it together. "The cops found the car."