Daylight || Harry Potter

Chapter Thirty-Seven

As the fog swirling with the Mist condensed around us, my apprehension grew thicker too. Luke may have been confident, but me? Not so much. I doubted Ladon, the dragon who guarded the Garden of Hesperides, which included the apples Luke was supposed to steal, was just a dumb, oversized lizard. Guarding the apples was his entire job, he wasn't going to mess that up.

Still, we'd made it this far. And Luke was shrewd and smart. He'd find a way.

We stepped into the fog, into the Mist, and when it cleared, a dirt road appeared, a single path leading to the summit of the mountain. It seemed closer now, swirling with storm clouds and raw power. The path led through a lush meadow of shadows and flowers: the garden of twilight.

If it hadn't been for the enormous dragon, the garden would've been the most beautiful place I'd ever seen. The grass shimmered with silvery evening light, and the flowers were such brilliant colors they almost glowed in the dark. Stepping stones of polished black marble led around either side of a five-story-tall apple tree, every bough glittering with golden apples. Not just yellow apples, but actual apples made of gold. As soon as I smelled their fragrance, I knew that one bite would be the most delicious thing I'd ever tasted.

"The apples of immortality," Luke marveled. "Hera's wedding gift from Zeus."

I glanced at Luke and Oakley, and I could see them also gazing hungrily at the apples. There was a mischievous glint in Luke's eye that I recognized as the expression he made whenever he was about to steal something. He was locking in on his target, plotting for the moment he'd swipe it right out from under the dragon's... many noses. The dragon had, like, a hundred heads. It looked like someone had taken a bunch of pythons, fused them together, and stuck it to a giant iguana whose body was as thick as a booster rocket.

It would've been scarier if he were awake, but thankfully, he wasn't. He appeared to be asleep. The heads lay curled in a big spaghetti-like mound on the grass, all the eyes closed. All was still.

Then the shadows in front of us began to move. There was a beautiful, eerie singing, like voices from the bottom of a well. Luke reached for his sword, but froze as four figures shimmered into existence. Before us stood four young women who looked like the nymphs at Camp Half-Blood, except they weren't dryads or naiads. Their skin was like caramel. Silky black hair tumbled loose around their shoulders. They gave off a glow that reminded me of the way the ocean shone as the sun disappeared behind it at the end of the day.

"The Hesperides," I said. They were the nymphs of the evening and golden light of sunset, the protectors of the apple tree.

"Half-bloods," one of the nymphs replied coldly. "And a satyr. Here to steal from our tree, no doubt."

Luke stepped forward, turning on the charm. "Steal? We're not here to steal. We're on a quest to retrieve one of your gorgeous apples for my father. You may have heard of him. His name is Hermes. He's an Olympian. Real important guy. I mean god."

"Hermes, the god of thieves," the Hesperid mused. "Well, son of Hermes, heed our warning: thy quest is a fool's errand. Ladon is not easily distracted. He will not allow thee to come anywhere near the tree."

"So you're not going to try to stop us?" I asked.

"We just have, half-blood," another Hesperid told him. "Tis not our task to physically prevent thee. That is Ladon's function. We are merely here to warn hopeful thieves."

"Whether Ladon kills tonight is up to thee, half-bloods," the first Hesperid said. "Choose wisely."

"Sorry, but I have a job to do." Luke frowned. "I'm getting an apple whether you like it or not."