He looks at the guard's face. 

He looks in the direction of Mother Gothel's tower. 

"Try checking under Mackenzie's window, she drops letters sometimes. If they aren't written in purple they're a fake written by Gothel. And I'm in." 

A look of relief crosses his face. "Good! That's-- good. Do you have any more questions?"

It's kind of a long shot, but, "Can you tell me who the family I'll be staying with is?" 

"Princess Charlotte La Bouff, daughter of Big Daddy La Bouff, and her husband Prince Ralph of Maldonia."

....there has got to be a story behind that name and he is going to find out what it is. 

"Thank you. Is there any place in particular I should be so you can find me?" 

He gives directions to a place with a good view of Auradon City.

Thaaaaaat's pretty firmly in Mal's territory but if Carlos is one of the people being selected she'll know what's going on and probably it won't be a thing.

He elects not to explain this to the random Auradonian who wouldn't get it anyway and instead nods and agrees to be there. 

Great! That was easy!

With any luck he will only have to put up with a small disappointed face.

The royal guard retreats back to Auradon City and takes an extremely long shower.

He tells his gang. They aren't happy about it, but Queenie tells him to give Auradon hell for them and nobody voices any objections after that.

He eats a black banana and a piece of bread so hard you could use it as a projectile weapon for dinner and sleeps curled up against Nico and is in the place he was told to be the next day. 

So are Claudine, Mackenzie, and Carlos!

The royal guard is in the driver's seat of a limousine. 

Weird. 

He nods to the other three but doesn't say anything if they don't. 

Frollo is saying something to Claudine in some language that isn't English. His voice is contemptuous. He makes hand gestures over her: a sharp line down, then a line across.

Cruella De Vil is openly weeping, unsure how she could possibly survive without her Carlos to massage her feet and clean her windows and wash her furs.

"It'll be fine, mom--" Carlos says.

Cruella slaps him. "Don't you dare say I'll be fine without you! Useless boy."

Gothel, too, is sobbing, imploring how Mackenzie could do this to her. 

(Mackenzie looks like she might cry too. She isn't doing it yet, though.) 

He's so, so grateful his parents don't talk to him. 

The royal guard wishes he had a different job.

"Okay, everybody, into the limo," he says. "We have a tight schedule today."

Mackenzie looks intensely grateful to be pulled away. 

The limo is more than big enough for four people. And there's food — and Mackenzie grew up on stories of people who offer entire houses made of candy to lure in trusting children, but — it's bright and shiny and it smells like fruit that hasn't gone sour and she takes a handful before she can stop herself. 

The candy is sweet.

(They have had black bananas, and rotten fruit, and sugarless gum, but food made from processed sugar never makes it to the Isle.)

Oh. 

Oh it's sweet. It's — it tastes like what he imagines fruit might be supposed to taste like, or what gum that isn't marked SUGARLESS would be supposed to taste like, or — he doesn't know what but if this is common enough in Auradon that they just give it away —

Carlos takes one look at the candy and immediately shoves as much of it as he can into his bag.

Shoving as much candy as you can into your bag is the sin of gluttony.

No, Carlos is right. 

Carlos is definitely right. 

"...Please don't fistfight each other over candy," the guard says, "I am going to have to explain this to King Ben, I promise you can all have as much candy as you want once we get to Auradon."

Claudine guiltily reaches out to take a single piece.