Shadowgirl

1

Imogen Smith, ten years old, of London, England, was dead.

That much, at least, she could be certain about. That, and the fact that this had all started when she'd arrived in America.

God, how she hated the place. She couldn't stand the people, or the accent, or the food. Especially the food.

She gave herself a mental slap, to get back on point.

According to the satyr, Rowan—he had died and been reincarnated as a flower, of all things—she was a demigod, a daughter of one of the Greek Olympian gods and goddesses.

Well, that didn't matter anymore, now that she was dead.

But was she dead? The place she was in, wherever it was, don't look like the Underworld she'd read about. On the contrary, it was bright and airy and everything was, for some reason, white marble.

Then it hit her.

She was on Mount Olympus. Which meant that Rowan was right and she was wrong and she really didn't want to think about poor Rowan.

Then, suddenly, she was floating towards one of the buildings, the largest of them all. The house of Zeus, King of the Gods and Lord of the Sky.

At least, that was what she thought.

She drifted through the open doors, into a room occupied by twelve fifty-foot-tall beings, looking very stern. In the middle of the room sat a young girl a lightly older than her, eleven or twelve at the most.

"Imogen Smith," the one sitting at the far end of the room boomed. Zeus.

She looked up at him and all of the other gods and goddesses. She checked their names off in her head; Zeus, Demeter, Poseidon, Hera, Hephaestus, Aphrodite, Ares, Hermes, Athena, Artemis, Apollo, Dionysus, and the girl must be Hestia. To pretend that she wasn't intimidated—and they were plenty intimidating—she puzzled over the question.

Did she want to keep being Imogen?

It was the name her parents had given her, yes, but it carried too many painful memories—memories of her times at school in London, of her mother screaming her name as the plane spiralled down, out of the sky.

She had a middle name, Elinor.

Yes, Elinor would do.

She was jerked back to Olympus when she started falling. She flew through the sky, past the stars and the buildings and the earth, even, down down down, until she appeared in a palace again, but in black and bronze.

This was the Underworld, the realm of Hades.

The Lord of the Dead reclined on his throne, one of two. The other was empty. She assumed it was Persephone's, but since it was summer she would be up in the mortal world.

Hades looked at Elinor.

She looked back at him.

"Imogen," he said.

"No." She could feel herself waking up. Already Hades and the black palace were starting to fade. "Not Imogen. Imogen is dead."

She allowed myself a smile at the god's surprise, which only seemed to unsettle him more. "Elinor Smith, nice to meet you."

And Elinor Smith, ten years old, of London, England, woke up.

Pain.

She could only feel the crushing, inescapable agony.

"It's okay." A soft voice broke through the chaos. "You're safe."

"Hurts."

"I'm sure it does. You've been stabbed with Celestial Bronze."