Darklight by Jill Myles Read Free Book Online

goddess of spring so she could
    stay here in the underworld and accept what he offered her.
    But she slid from his lap and picked up her discarded shawl. “I should bathe.”

Chapter Five
    Rose was sleeping on her couch when she heard her name called.
    “Rose! Rose! Hello? Is there anyone there? Is this thing on? Hellooo?”
    She bolted upright on the couch and stared blearily at the muted light in her room. Water trickled from a nearby fountain set in the stone wall, the sound soothing and relaxing. That was the only sound in the otherwise empty room. Had she imagined it? She stood, adjusting the modest hem of her chiton, covering both breasts. “Hello?”
    “Over here, in the water.” Something bubbled and sounded suspiciously like Muffin.
    She raced over to the fountain’s edge and gasped at the sight of her fairy godmother’s face reflected in the pool. “Muffin!”
    “Oh, thank heavens.” The reflection on the water fanned herself. “For a minute there, I thought you were in another coma. You sleep like the dead, girl! No pun intended.”
    Rose skimmed a finger over the surface of the water curiously. “What are you doing in my fountain?”
    “I can’t come to the underworld, dingdong. Why else would I send you to get a flower?” The face in the water wavered into something that looked like a grimace but was probably a smile.
    “How are things going?”
    “Well, I’ve been kidnapped—”
    “Right on schedule.”
    Rose glared down at the fountain. “You could have told me about that.”
    “What, you didn’t read up on your Greek mythology when you were in high school? Not my fault you’re illiterate.”
    She sighed, tempted to splash the reflection away. “Gee, thanks.”
    “Any luck with that flower? You don’t have much time. A week, maybe less.”
    “A week? That’s it?”
    “Are you eating or drinking anything down here? How long do you think you’ll last
    without?”
    “Good point. But I haven’t seen a single flower here in the underworld. I don’t know that they grow here. There’s no sunlight.”
    “There’s only one kind of flower that grows in the underworld,” Muffin told her. “It’s a manifestation of Hades’s power. All the Titans have one.”
    “They do?” She hadn’t known that. “What about me?”
    “You’re not part Titan. They’d be too dominant if they internalized all their magic. It has to be stored somewhere, so they have secret objects that store and hold power for them until it’s needed.”
    “Even Zeus?”
    “I’m told Zeus has a field of lightning bugs hidden away somewhere on Olympus. Each of them carries a piece of his magic, just like the night flowers carry a piece of Hades’s power.”
    And so this flower that she was stealing wasn’t an ordinary flower. “So basically you want me to steal some of Hades’s magic from him? Is that what this is?”
    “Bingo. You got a problem with that, kid? ’Cause I can pull the plug at any time—”
    “No, no,” Rose said hastily. “Where’s he keeping these flowers, then?”
    “Probably in his chamber. They’re usually tightly guarded. Probably some sort of magical hexes or something guarding them. I think Hades has a witch or two on the payroll.”
    “So I have to get to his chamber.” That wouldn’t be too hard. He was hell-bent on seducing her.
    And, gods help her, she thought of his hands on her and desperately wanted that seduction.
    “I’ll see what I can do, Muffin.”
    “Good. You get that flower and bring it to me on the surface.”
    “On the surface?”
    “Hello, dummy.” The water splashed her in the face and Rose gasped, wiping her eyes.
    “What part of ‘I’m in the fountain because I can’t go to the underworld’ was hard to
    understand?”
    “You’re kind of rude for a fairy godmother.”
    “Quit being so dense, then, and just get the flower! I have a tight schedule.” The water wavered and the reflection disappeared.
    Rose sighed. This was feeling more and