Forever lost

4

December 2nd.

"Do we have everything?" the king asks, his three eldest sons and his wife exchange glances. It's the third time Robert has asked that question in the last half-hour. The entire family is in the foyer of their home, waiting for the head of security to inform them that everything is ready for their departure.

December 3rd.

For Lilly, today has not started in the best way. She woke up feeling as if a herd of elephants had trampled over her. The fact that the orphanage's central heating has broken, leaving the entire building at a very low temperature, didn't help. To top it off, she overslept and missed breakfast.

Currently, Lilly is lying on her bed, covered with all the blankets she could find, surrounded by what feels like hundreds of used tissues.

"Hello, are you okay?" Adella's voice makes Lilly open her eyes and turn them heavily towards the door, where the girl is standing.

"What do you want?" Lilly asks, closing her eyes again and shifting among the blankets to find a comfortable position.

Adella takes Lilly's question as an invitation to enter the room and sits on the bed next to Lilly.

"I have a friend," Adella comments casually.

"Congratulations," Lilly responds ironically.

"No, listen, I have a friend who lives nearby, in a house with heating and everything," Adella explains.

"Okay, good for him."

"What I mean is, we can go. Clearly, you're sick, and being here won't make you better."

This makes Lilly open her eyes and look directly at Adella. "How far is it?"

Not that she's thrilled about going to a stranger's house, but here without heating, she feels too close to freezing.

"Just about 10 minutes, maybe less if we take the subway."

-

The ten-minute walk Adella promised is turning into much more, as for some strange reason, many of the streets they should take are closed to traffic and crowded with people. Lilly is on the verge of freezing, and her cold seems to be getting worse by the moment. Despite that, she let herself be dragged by Adella into the crowd gathered around the doors of a hotel.

Thanks to a few elbows, Lilly and Adella managed to slip into the front row to see what was happening. However, the reality couldn't be more disappointing. Nothing, absolutely nothing. The barriers only formed a corridor leading straight to the hotel door, but apart from a security guard, there was no one.

Lilly was about to tell Adella to leave when shouts stopped her. Suddenly, everyone around her started screaming and taking photos with their phones.

Next to Lilly was a man with what seemed to be a high-quality camera, so Lilly assumed he would know what was going on. "Excuse me, what's happening?"

The man looked at Lilly before answering. "The royal family of England is on their way." Suddenly, a large number of cars appeared out of nowhere, and only one of them stopped at the entrance. A dozen security guards emerged from it, standing on both sides of the barriers to contain the people and ensure security. Seconds later, that car was replaced by another, from which both the kings and their children emerged. The screams of the crowd flooded Lilly's ears, who almost had to cover them with her hands. Interestingly, seeing this family, Lilly's body reacted in a very strange way-her arm hairs stood on end, and her heart began to beat faster.

The first thing Lilly could observe about this family is that there were two identical boys. One of them briefly greeted the public before disappearing behind the hotel doors, but the other had no problem stopping to greet the people shouting his name. Thanks to those shouts, Lilly guessed that the boy's name must be Apollo. On the other hand, the photographer she had asked before was shouting the name Alexander, which attracted the one she assumed was the eldest. The young man approached the barrier and began shaking hands with everyone in the front row.