Tell me about it and I'm not doing a very good job of even indicating the proper scale here. The Queen has people to look over the more distant parts of her kingdom. She visits them, of course, but they don't exactly have instant communication between areas. So it's very possible that the Circle was spread out among any of these areas.

[If they are even in this part of the ocean. Maes has to hope they are at least within the kingdom of Akvos, since that IS where Astoria said they were needed.]