The sheriff shook his head, his hands on his hips. "I'm sorry, young lady. We haven't had anyone come by with any child of that description."

I chewed on my lips, wringing my hand. Rosa put a hand on my arm, and we exchanged a worried glance. "Then how about a smaller girl, wearing pink?" I asked, turning back to the Midelus sheriff.

He shook his head again, and my shoulders deflated. 

From next to me, Roly tugged on my sleeve. "Filian, where's Ryan?"

I sighed, reaching out to her. "We don't know. We've been looking for him too."

Rosa was talking to the sheriff now, asking him if we could stay here while we waited to hear any news about her missing siblings. "We'll be very quiet, no ruckus whatsoever," she promised.

A few knights brought over a spare bench. We didn't have enough space for everyone, so I sat Roly down on my lap, and Mother Lily got her own chair. 

We'd barely awakened Mother Lily up and walked all the way to the sheriff's station, about five minutes away; we had explained to her what had happened in the time she'd fallen asleep, and she'd been on the edge ever since. She calmed down a bit in the presence of the sheriffs, though even now the crease between her eyebrows showed no sign of ending.

I looked around, playing absentmindedly with Roly's hair and trying to distract myself. The tent was the same blue as our Minstia sheriff's one, though this tent was much bigger. Knights bustled in and out of the tent, and I could spot about three sheriffs altogether inside the tent. There must be much more walking around outside.

An idea popped up in my head. I heaved listless Roly up and placed her on Rosa's lap and stood up, tapping a nearby knight on the shoulder. He turned around, a question in his eyes. I gave him my best smile, though it was probably wobbly under all the stress I was in. "Could I ask you for some paper and something to write with?"

"Sure."

I returned to my seat, bringing Roly back over my lap and meeting Rosa's questioning glance with a wan smile. "Just wait," I whispered. Roly remained slumped on my lap, leaning into me. I looked down at her face and felt my smile drop off my face. She seemed so much smaller, so much weaker without her ever-present twin with her. I wrapped my arm around her and hugged her as hard as I could, even though she was still unresponsive. "Don't worry, Roly, we'll find them."

She didn't answer.

The knight came by with a few pieces of parchment paper and a brush pen. "We usually use these for signatures," he said apologetically, "so we don't have any more."

I stretched my tired facial muscles into a smile. "Thank you anyways," I said, taking the objects. I peeked at Roly, who was now watching the knight and my interaction blankly. My heart ached a little more, but I swallowed the lump forming in my throat and turned to Mother Lily. "Mother Lily, could you draw Ruth and Poly with these?"

Everyone looked up, and Mother Lily stopped fidgeting with her fingers with weak surprise. "Draw?" she repeated.

I nodded. "I was thinking. We can go around telling food vendor people to keep an eye out for them and direct them to the sheriff's station if they ever see them. And maybe put some up in spots so people can see."

Next to Mother Lily, Rebecca brightened a bit. "That's a good idea!" she said, and she cast a hopeful glance towards her mom. "Mom?"

Her lips quirked into a small smile, and she wordlessly reached for the parchments and brush in my hands. She ordered Rebecca to turn around, then used her back as a flat surface. Rosa perked up, too, and began planning out loud.

Roly watched them with unblinking eyes, breathing softly. I ran my fingers down her hair, and tilted my head around to make eye contact with her. After a moment's hesitation, I asked, "Would you like to be the one to tell the people?" When she blinked at me, I added, "I think they'll find your sisters better if they see you, too."

Even though Roly and Poly weren't identical twins, they still had a similar air, and all the siblings shared some facial features, like their nose or the way they laughed. In fact, Ruth looked pretty similar to Roly, and Poly looked a bit more like Ryan. 

Which reminded me. Where in the world was Ryan? Did we have to make a poster for him too? He was old enough to know how not to get lost. 14 years old! I held back a frustrated sigh.

"Will it really?" Roly blurted out, craning her neck up to look at me. I snapped back to reality. Her eyes were wide and fearful, with the slightest touch of hope inside them, and I smiled down at her.

"Of course it will. You share the same nose as both of them," I said, bopping her nose with my finger. "And Ruth looks a lot like you, you know."

"Too bad Ryan's not here," added Rosa, who'd stopped talking for a moment long enough to hear us. "He looks a lot like Poly."

"Maybe we'll find him when we're going around," Rebecca piped up.

"Becca don't move."

"Yes, mom," she said meekly. I managed a chuckle.

Rosa clapped her hand twice. "Okay, listen up. I have a plan. We have four parchments. We'll put up two as we go around and use two to ask people. We don't want to lose anyone else, so even if it takes a bit longer we're all going to be moving together. Filly and Roly, you will act as one team, showing one poster to the right side of the streets we'll be on. I will go around with Becca on the left side, and Mother Lily will keep an eye on both teams."

"What about with Ryan?" Becca asked.

Rosa thought for a second. "We could ask about Ryan, too," she decided. "And keep looking for any of them on our way around."

Mother Lily straightened up at that moment, holding her brush pen up with triumph. "Done!" she announced, and she flipped the parchment around to show us. "We're ready to go."

My eyebrows shot up my forehead. I'd known since I was young that Mother Lily was renowned as a really good painter (she'd painted murals outside some of the buildings in Minstia. She was only out of work because the government had suddenly privatized all paints with the Artistic License Act, which meant that only those registered in an Arts guild could have access to paint material, and only noble classes could register in a fine arts guild. In other words, screw you, government). But it had been too long: I'd forgotten just how good she was.

"They look exactly like Poly and Ruth!" Roly cried out, lurching forward.

Mother Lily smiled, her face flushed and eyes sparkling. I felt a pang-- I hadn't seen her this lively for too long. "Thank you, Poly," she said, bobbing her head into a small bow. "It's been a long time since I've drawn something with this much concentration."

Rosa reached over Becca to squeeze Mother Lily's arm. "Guess the talent doesn't go anywhere, huh?" she said, with a small smile.

Mother Lily chuckled. "Guess not."

What a heartfelt moment between the two. I sighed happily, then sighed again, this time with worry. "Now then, should we get started?"

And then we were off, after explaining our plan to who seemed like the head sheriff. "Good plan," he'd said, nodding, and then we were out.

Roly did a great job of using her smallness and cute face to entice sympathy into the hearts of her listeners. One "Could you please look for my sisters?" and a couple seconds of wide, unblinking eyes did the trick-- and then I'd step up and show them the poster, explain a few things, and they'd give Roly something small to eat. 

Muahaha. Perfect. This had precisely been the plan, though the eating part I had not expected. Once she was pretty full, she gave some of the food to one of us. Muahaha. Even better. Rebecca began using the same method after she saw how much Roly was getting, and then we had double the amount. 

I looked behind us, squinting. I could just barely see the blue tent of the sheriff's station we'd started out from in the distance, peeking out above a row of food stands. "We've come pretty far, haven't we. But aren't there more food stands on the other side of the sheriff's?"

Mother Lily, who had happened to be near us, swallowed her morsel of eggplant she'd received from Roly (who disliked eggplants) and turned back, too. "Perhaps we should have gone opposite directions?"

Rosa popped up out of nowhere, a tired grin on her face. "Not to worry! The Midelus festival is bigger than ours back in Minstia, so the planners put all the food stands into a giant circle with the parade straight through the middle. We'll end up back where we started if we keep going forward."

"Oh, that's nice," I said, nodding. "How long will that take us?"

She seemed to consider this. "At the rate that we're going, which is about 150 meters per 10 minutes, I'd say... approximately 3 hours and 20 minutes."

Roly gasped, and Becca made a strangled sound and slumped down.

I sighed as well. "Then we'd better get going."

We trudged along for an hour more, Roly's eyes now three times as more pleading than before. We got so much food, then, that none of us were hungry anymore. More importantly, Mother Lily and the little ones were tired. 

"I'm so tired," Roly complained, precisely as I was thinking she looked quite tired. "Can we rest a little?"

I squeezed her hand that I'd been holding and called out to Rosa. "We might need to stop for a second, Roly's tired."

Rosa, who'd been talking to a food stand owner, gave me a nod from over the street and held up a hand to tell us to wait. Mother Lily found a barrel to sit on and placed Roly on her lap as we waited.

We watched her in silence, the two of them way too exhausted for any conversation. Roly yawned, one hand clutching onto a few skewers we'd gotten and a closed cup of stew. I yawned, too, and blinked at her. "Eat your stew, Roly. It's going to get cold."

She shook her head.

"Are you full? Would you like us to eat it for you?"

She recoiled instantly and pulled her hands away from me, giving me a suspicious look. I held up my hands and chuckled. "I won't take it by force, Roly."

She gave me another long stare before she yawned again, and Mother Lily smoothed out her hair.

At that moment, Becca rushed to us, eyes wide. She also had skewers in her hand, along with a crepe. "Guys!" she hollered as she ran. "The food vendor said he saw them!"

I stared. "What? Really?"

"Yeah! Rosa's asking him more about it!"

When Rosa came back, she looked conflicted, and we held our breath.

"So?" I asked impatiently. "What did he say?"

"He did see them," she said slowly, "but it might not be good news." She swallowed, her worried eyes meeting ours one by one. "He saw Poly, but she was going down an alley with two boys."

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A/N: It's been a week.

...

But don't worry! I'll be back to updating regularly again!!! Ahaha (and all the readers hiss "she lies")