Free Goddess of Light by P. C. Cast

although the exteriors of the shops were gaudy and their design horrid, the interiors were couture heaven.
    Sure, her foray into flirting hadn’t gone so well. But that really hadn’t been her fault. The only prospect she’d had so far had been wearing a gold chain. He couldn’t count. It’s true that she’d been scared away from the casino by the cover charge debacle, so her gambling had been, thus far, nonexistent. But the weekend was just beginning, and she shouldn’t think of it as a complete loss, at least not yet. Maybe she would just turn it into a shop-a-thon. Or at the very least a shoe-a-thon.
    The thought of buying more shoes temporarily brightened her mood, until she imagined what V would say about her being stuck in a rut and falling back on old habits instead of embracing new experiences. Pamela chewed an olive as the waiter paused at her table to refresh her glass of wine. V might be right. Maybe she wasn’t trying hard enough.
    Resolutely Pamela closed the magazine and refocused on her surroundings. The crowd around the fountain had definitely thickened. A young woman who had impossibly beautiful blond hair caught her attention. She was talking to another girl whose hair was equally lovely, flowing in a thick, silver-colored wave down to her waist. Both girls were wearing costumes that Pamela supposed were meant to look as if they had stepped from the streets of ancient Rome. Sheer, cloud-colored fabric floated in seductive drapes around their lithe young bodies. One instant they appeared to be fully covered and modestly clad, then one of them would laugh and turn gracefully—almost as if she was a dancer—and a cunningly concealed fold in her robe would open to expose a glimpse of creamy skin. Also it seemed that the girls were covered in some kind of golden glitter, because as they moved through the tourists and towards the fountain, they left a sparkling trail in their wake. Pamela pulled her eyes from the duo and looked at the rest of the crowd. None of the men seemed to be able to keep their eyes from the seductively costumed women.
    It was, she decided, an excellent publicity ploy. At least from the male perspective. And wasn’t that just typical? She cast her eyes through the growing group of people who were congregating around the fountain. Just as she thought, most of them were female. Yet the duos of scantily clad young women kept increasing. And did one handsome young lad equally as revealingly dressed join them? Of course not.
    â€œI’ll bet women didn’t really dress like that in ancient Rome,” Pamela grumbled to herself. “They’d catch their death.”
    â€œCOME ONE, COME ALL, COME TO THE MALL!”
    Unexpectedly, the center statue’s canned voice boomed over loudspeakers, catching Pamela unaware. She glanced at her watch, surprised that it was already eight o’clock.
    â€œAh, but tonight we have a special show for you! Nymphs, I command you dance for the Las Vegas revelers, two by two!”
    Well, that made more sense. The actresses were meant to be portraying nymphs. As the similarly attired young women stepped from the crowd and began to dance around the fountain, Pamela had to acknowledge that they were very attractive. She watched the show as she sipped more wine, thinking that she had never seen so many expensive hair extensions. The “nymphs” twirled and laughed and leapt in a graceful circle, flinging their thick manes as if they had been born with them.
    The awful statues of Apollo and Artemis came alive, one right after another. It seemed the evening show focused on the dancing nymphs, who were admittedly more entertaining than the animated statues who spoke in bad rhymes. Pamela even realized that her foot was tapping in time to the pulsing rhythm of their dance. It really wasn’t a bad show, she thought as she refilled her glass again.
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    â€œSeekers of the ancient ways, think upon