“We can do that. Is there any more of that tea? It smells wonderful.” She walked past Piper, snagged a cup off the counter, then took my seat and poured tea. “You two want a little more while you catch me up?”
She held the pot over Piper’s cup.
“What do you say, Piper?” I asked. “Three heads are better than one?”
“Except for Cerberus,” Myra said. “Just...dumbest dog ever.”
“Oh, please. He’s not dumb, he’s just easily distracted.”
“All three heads are easily distracted. And they all have a different idea of what the body should be doing. It’s sad.”
“It’s kind of funny.” I sat down next to Myra and made a grab for my pie, but she had already commandeered the plate, my unused spoon and the last half of my blueberry crumble.
Jerk.
“Going to have a seat?” I asked Piper.
She glanced at the door and the escape it offered.
“Come on. You’d know if we were a threat, wouldn’t you? You could tell?”
She slowly unwound her arms from her rib cage and brushed at strands of hair that had gone a little wild around her head. “Yes. I can tell if I’m in danger. Although you Reeds aren’t very easy to read.”
“That makes me curious as to what kind of powers you have.” Myra licked the last of the blueberry off the spoon. “I’d like to record them in our histories sometime if that’s okay.”
“She keeps the books on Ordinary.” I pulled the plate away from her and pressed the tip of my finger into the remaining crumbs of crumble. “But we can do that later. What we really need is to hear the rest of your information about the god powers.”
“Power,” Piper said.
“You know something about the missing powers?” Myra asked.
“She gave them away.”
“To whom?”
“Mithra.”
Myra’s eyebrow ticked upward, but she just sipped her tea. Then: “He’s never liked us much. I take it we’ll need to negotiate with him to get them back?”
“I figure. Think he’ll go for an offering of goats this time? Cute goats?”
“Last time we had to get him tickets to the national 4-H Skill-A-Thon, didn’t we?”
“Yes. And a subscription to a chocolatier magazine.”
“He does like judging pralines and young people with livestock. If only there was a chocolate goat contest. He’d love that.”
“You bribed him?” Piper looked like she couldn’t decide on being shocked or amused as she finally took the seat across from us.
“Not a bribe,” I said. “It’s just that Mithra has a certain way of conducting business. He is big on action and reaction, cause and effect. And equality. If we want something from him—the god powers—he will expect something of the same value from us in return.”
“Tickets to a livestock show is equal to god powers?”
“Maybe?” Myra shrugged. “It’s hard to get a read on him sometimes. What did he give you in exchange for the powers?”
“Power. Singular. One. And it wasn’t like that. I owed him for helping my mom.”
“No, it’s still an exchange. He gave you peace of mind. Stability. In return, he asked you for the god powers—very plural. How is it he thought you would be able to get them?”
