A Promised Prophecy

Chapter Seventeen

I arrived about a quarter mile from the potion shop. I walked through a quiet part of town. It was unusually quiet, at least from what I remembered. Something seemed off. When people saw me, they ran inside and hid. But with my hood on, no one should've known it was me unless they were close enough to see my face and even then, I didn't know what my face looked like to others right now. It didn't seem like they were worried about Rhea from Deadly Witches. They were worried about anyone walking by. I guessed people were taking the emergency alert seriously. I wondered if James had closed the borders like I recommended and, if he did, were these people still this concerned? I picked up my step and walked a little faster to La Voisin to avoid any unexpected company on my walk.

When I got to the potion shop, the doors were locked. I tried to look through the cracks of the closed wooden windows but couldn't see anything. La Voisin was on the other side of the room, across from the entrance, behind the counter, through the door, and down a set of stairs that are only revealed when you push aside a stack of extra frog legs. With the door closed, there was no way to get to La Voisin. Unless I broke open the windows.

Nothing was getting in the way of me, food, and some answers. But mostly the food. I could live without the answers as long as I could bring food back to the Vault and hide out until this blows over. I jiggled the window a little bit. On one of the wooden shutters there was a hole where a knot in the wood had been. It was big enough that my hands could fit through it. With one hand securely in the hole and the other on the side of the building, I pulled until the window popped off. I felt like a burglar as I crept through the empty potion shop and pushed the frog legs to the side. A passageway appeared with stairs leading down to La Voisin. I took the stairs quietly, not sure what to expect. As I was about halfway down the stairs, all the sound I had heard coming up from the bar quieted. I turned a tight corner and found a room full of people staring at me.

"She's here," someone yelled. Almost as immediately a ball of fire about the size of a tennis ball came shooting toward me. It hit my shoulder and I was pushed to the ground. The robe I was wearing to cover myself, given to me by Celeste, caught fire. I pulled it off quickly and patted the flames away, leaving me with a singed cloak, and looked up to see a sword pointed at me. From what I could see past the pointed metal shoved in my face, everyone in the room was armed against me, with physical weapons or their arms outstretched ready to hit me with some magic.