Only Chance

20.

"Adelphia!" Interlaced with excitement and triumph, Ozanne's voice thrummed from inside her tent. It was the next day; a pleasant morning greeted me. The two of us just finished breakfast, before Ozanne rushed back into her tent to continue on creating her potion. And now, about five minutes later...

I felt my heart beat faster and stronger with excitement. The morning mist wove through my body and cleared my mind with fresh air as I dashed towards Ozanne's tent, having finished cleaning up for breakfast.

After I'd whisked into the tent, I spotted Ozanne at the edge of her table. Her eyes were wide and shining with excitement; her hands held a crystal-clear solution. It was a sort of homey kind of blue, mixed with strands of lavender here and there, and small bubbles resurfaced at the top of the potion, before they collided with the oxygen in the air and popped themselves.

"Yes?" I queried, hoping with all my heart that she'd say the words I'd wanted her to.

And Ozanne did. "It's done," she declared, holding up the shining potion to my eyes.

I was supremely taken aback. "Already?" I gasped. I had expected it would've taken much longer. "If it was that easy, why didn't you make it before?"

Ozanne, instead of instantly turning sour, kept her happy mask. "I needed self-confidence, that's what," she smiled. "I thought we could just-poison your mother or something, but now I see what such a person she is. Horrible and merciless. If it's anyone who deserves to be put to sleep in a trap of their everlasting memories, then it's her." Ozanne beamed, and I couldn't help grinning back.

But suddenly, the morning excitement vanished.

Outside the tent, I heard a faint murmur and a rustle of the evergreen bushes.

My heartbeat sped up.

"Who do you think it is?" I whispered urgently to Ozanne. "It can't be a guard, right?"

Ozanne scoffed. "It's probably a squirrel," she explained. "I was sure that this place would be well hidden. There's no way the empress' dim-witted cantaloupe guards with no sense of humanity can get here."

I gave a nervous laugh.

Ozanne rolled her eyes. "Listen Adelphia, there's nothing to worry about. The potion is complete, we can overtake the queen now! In fact, I'm hungry. You should go slim that squirrel."

I gave a hasty laugh. "What happened to you, Ozanne?" I muttered wistfully under my breath so she couldn't overhear me.

To escape, I left the tent deftly and quietly; my heart was still twinged with curiosity of who the footsteps belonged to.

Ozanne was still in the middle of packing her potion into small bottles.

"Tomorrow," she called out after me. "We go raid the castle and pour the potions onto the empress. And Arius. Especially Arius."

I cracked a small smile, recognizing the old Ozanne back. Phew. "Okay," I smiled. Then I slipped out of the tent, the pale ivory drapes of the tent sliding across my shoulders, and was instantly plunged into the daytime.

The footsteps were still there-they'd gone from pitter-patters to full-out marching. I felt my breath suck inwards sharply-no squirrels' footsteps were that loud.

But.

It had to be a squirrel. Ozanne was making the most important potion of her life in the tent, and we were fugitives in two kingdoms, and...

But no. It wasn't a squirrel.

The ground rustled louder than ever, and the leaves reluctantly parted to give away the realization that there was more than one person. Seven, actually.