The Princess Who Returned

Chapter Twenty One

Tristan

It was finally the day, the day I left with Lily. We had been at our preparations for weeks making potions and practicing the sleeping draught so there would be a guarantee of it working and making her fall asleep. Today was critical and we could not risk any mishaps. We worked really hard for these two weeks and were now finally leaving. We had mapped out a great plan but had back up plans as well but the more of these back up plans we made the harder they got. We both sincerely hoped that we wouldn't have to use either of those plans and could stick to our original plan but it didn't hurt to be prepared. I was not going to let today's expedition fail at any cost. That was all about our plans, The two weeks of our stay here however, had been weird. My mother had started behaving well with me and making me think that she actually cared. She spoilt us both rotten which she had never done before. I found that suspicious but Lily explained it by saying that my mother could sense that we were growing apart and was just trying to get me to stay and would revert to her previous behaviour once she had me trapped.

It made a lot of sense since this was something I had been on the receiving end of for sixteen years but this time it felt different. I could not quite place what the difference was but I knew there was a difference. Alongside her sudden niceness, there was this strange glint in my mother's eyes. It made me feel like she knew what we were up to and I hated that feeling. When I described it to Lily however, she said that it was the nerves and guilt talking. Frankly that explanation did make sense but whatever I tried I could not shake that weird feeling off and took measures to ensure our safety during the meetings like using code names, never saying Lily and using telepathy. Lily thought I was being paranoid but she still bore with me and agreed to my demands very quickly. I was truly grateful to have a friend like her and I was going to make sure this escape went well.

That morning I woke up early and decided to drop by the tree house to check on all the potions we had prepared. It was extremely early in the morning so I was pretty much the only person awake and thought that this was the perfect opportunity to stock up on more ingredients so I could still work in Yale. Working there was a necessity since I had to make the invisibility potion regularly in order to hide our wings. That aspect was the only one we had to change because in my case all I had to do was use contacts while in Lily's case all she had to do was remove her wig and contacts. Some ingredients could only be found here so it would be wise to stock up on them since it was highly likely that I wouldn't be able to step foot in here ever again but before I could start gathering I had to bring my containers to store the ingredients which was why I was heading to the tree house.

This need to gather more ingredients is what saved us in a way just as I neared the tree house, I caught sight of mother with a basket who was moving in the same direction so I called out, "Mother, what are you doing here so early in the morning?" my voice seemed to startle her because she dropped the basket she was holding and spiled the contents of the basket. As soon as she saw her goods fall, she descended to gather them and I joined her almost immediately. Hoping to find out what the basket held. My mother clearly did not want me to know since she desperately tried gathering everything up on her but she was not quick enough and I got my hands on one of the items. What I was holding was a vial full of a transparent solution but that did not help narrow down the options. I knew it was a potion but I couldn't tell what kind without touching it or smelling it. The entire time mom stared at me but I never realised because of how engaged I was with trying to figure the solution out.

"Could you give that back to me Tan?" that brought me back to Earth and I immediately handed over the vial to her while apologising, "I was just curious, mom." She smiled sweetly and said in an ominously sweet voice, "I know but I prefer keeping some things under wraps as well." She knew something, I just didn't know how much and that made me anxious. We had to be very careful. Nothing should go wrong after we had made it so far. We were so close and had gone through so much to get this close that if everything fell apart, we would not be able to pick ourselves up. I said to her, "Well I'll get going mom. I have something to do." After I said that I left her behind. Whatever she knew would not hamper our progress, I would make sure of this fact. We were going to escape and reach Yale and protect others from similar fates.

After I had gone back to the tree house, ensured that the potions hadn't been tampered with and gathering extra ingredients. I woke Lily up, it was earlier than I had planned but I had to tell her about possible negative developments that we had to prepare for and avoid. I hoped she wouldn't go on her rant about how I was being paranoid and had to relax. We did not have the time for any of that. So as soon as I woke her up before she could say anything I gave her the glass of potion which we usually only drank in the tree house but thankfully she did not resist and almost immediately downed the potion. She was confused but she listened.

"What happened Tristan?" she asked me telepathically and I answered, "I am almost certain she knows." "What makes you think that?" "I just have a feeling, today morning she tried to visit the tree house with a basket full of transparent potions. I couldn't tell which ones they were but some of the potions they could be are: désactiver siirup, mémoire Verlust and claochlú siirup. These are just a few of the potions that are transparent there are a million more but these seem like the ones that would hinder us most." She enquired, "What do they do?" I explained, "désactiver siirup deactivated the effects of any potions, mémoire Verlust is the memory loss potion which I used on your family and finally claochlú siirup which transforms a certain potion into a potion which has the opposite effect." And she enquired, "So now what is your plan?" and I said, "We leave today but we take extra precautions." "What kind of precautions?" "More weapons and using the invisibility potion we have on both of us. Other than that, not eating breakfast would be wise." "Alright, do we have enough potion?" I nodded.

I had nothing else to say and asked, "Are you going back to sleep?" she shook her head and I said, "That's good, we can have the morning diamonds." She looked up at me confused and I chuckled, "The fruits that grow on the tree that holds our treehouse are called morning diamonds and can only be eaten fresh off the tree around this time without dying and for once you have woken up early!" she retorted, " Hey! What do you mean by that?! I am always early." I just rolled my eyes and said, "Yeah sure. Now let's go!" After that I pulled her along with me towards the tree. Eating fruits from there would provide us with an excuse for not eating breakfast and would finally give Lily the chance to sample these fruits which only grow here. Trista was not one to wake up early and honestly never could wake up in time for eating these fruits so she missed out on them and so did Lily while she was under the spell.

I had stopped giving her the potion ever since we started working on our escape plan since she had more or less mastered acting like Trista but we never had the time before to sample them. I was glad I could finally share this fruit with her.