“What does she say about her brother?”
Quinn closed the book and set it back down, looking troubled. “After he used the little bit of residual power, he’s described as being ‘taken with a sickness of the heart.’ We don’t know what that means or how long it lasted. I was able to find his death certificate, and he was eighty-three when he died in his sleep.”
Sam thought about that. Sickness of the heart could mean anything. Love was the first thing that came to mind, but that could be him projecting. Lust was the next. He’d never talked to another goddess who had the moon lust Quinn used to suffer, the driving need for sex to help her recharge when she’d overused her power. That didn’t mean they didn’t have it. It was the kind of thing they’d keep private. A sister probably wouldn’t know if her brother was whacking off all the time, just that he was being secretive and spending a lot of time alone. So it could be something like that.
“Maybe he didn’t want the power,” Quinn offered with a hint of anxiety when Sam didn’t say anything. “Or he didn’t know how to handle it, or was resistant to change or something.”
Or maybe it was like an addiction. If he’d had a need to replenish it but didn’t fulfill that need, Sam imagined the result could be something like a sickness of the heart.
What would happen when they did this three times? Jennifer, Chloe, and Tanda all had similar but different power sources—flowing water like the Mississippi River, the ocean, and rain. If each left a residue in him, how much ability would come with it? And what would happen if he used it? He didn’t want to become like Anson.
Not that he was worried he’d suddenly become a monster. Anson had planned everything, sought the power Marley gave him with the intention of stealing more. Reports on him after Quinn took it back indicated he’d been his normal, charming—and asshole—self.
“What are you thinking?” Quinn asked. Sam shook his head, and she didn’t push. Instead, she picked up a notebook from the table and looked at it, though he was positive she’d memorized everything in it. “The trickiest thing is isolating which parts of the power belong to whom, and separating it for transfer. I’ve been practicing that.”
“Seriously? You can feel it that way?”
She nodded. “I always could, to some degree. When I’m near the creek, for example, I can sense Jennifer’s power. It rises up, almost has a taste in the back of my throat. It took some time to be able to deliberately sense it and pull it away from the rest.”
“But I thought the power wasn’t in you,” Sam said. “Marley’s instructors talk about the source allowing you to tap into worldwide living energy or whatever.”
“Well, yeah, but I’m different.” She grimaced as if she were being immodest. “It’s not just that. It’s almost like there’s a repository inside of us that holds capacity. Like our brains hold brainpower and need oxygen to work right. The leech pulled out that capacity. The repository is still in there, in the goddess. So, if I can heal it and then isolate the capacity I have, I can transfer it back to them.”
“Not all of them,” Sam pointed out quietly.
Quinn shook her head. “No. Beth’s energy is dissipating. That won’t be a problem.”
It took Sam a moment to remember that Beth was the goddess from South Carolina. “And Marley’s?”
“No idea. I can’t give it back.” Her eyes were dark with pain and regret. “Marley damaged herself when she did the original bestowment, and when Anson leeched her, it made it permanent. I won’t be able to heal her like I can do the others.”
“How do you know that?” Sam pressed. When Quinn’s eyes filled with tears, he cursed. “I’m sorry. Of course you wouldn’t just assume you couldn’t.” He could count on one hand, without using any fingers, the number of times he’d seen Quinn cry.
“Every time I’m with her, I try,” she admitted. “When I said I’d been experimenting…I thought if I could heal her, I could definitely heal the others. I found the damage, and it feels so different from Tanda and Chloe.” She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth and sniffed, staring out the window. When she spoke again, her characteristic strength was back. Her gaze meeting Sam’s was as steady as her voice now. “You know that bowl that was my mother’s? The one with the lilies that my dad gave her for their twentieth anniversary?”
Sam pressed his lips together and nodded, wincing. He and Quinn had gotten careless in her apartment and knocked it off its shelf. It had fallen eight feet and hit the corner of the entertainment center. Some of the china had been literal dust.
“It would never have held water again. Marley’s like that, but worse. More than just holding it, she won’t be able to accept it. That part of her has been completely nullified.”
He didn’t like the sound of that, but he supposed that was a bridge they’d have to cross later. “So, where do I come in?” he asked. She shifted her position again, and this time Sam thought she looked uncomfortable, as if trying to ease pain.
“The power has been in me so long it’s contaminated, in a way. If I transfer it to you, you act like a filter, disconnecting it from me so that when you then transfer it to the original goddess, it recognizes its origin and zooms right to it, without sticking to what it’s mingled with for three years. In theory,” she added. “Obviously.”
Sam nodded, picturing the transfer. “So it’s like separating a solution. I’m a strainer. Or a centrifuge.”
“Something like that. The magical equivalent.” She smiled.
Sam grabbed a pen and a blank legal pad off the table and started making his own notes. “Have you talked to Jennifer yet? Are we ready to do this today? What kind of prep do we have to do?”
“Yes, yes, and not much.” Quinn flipped a few pages in her notebook. “I have everything written out, but it’s really just making you two comfortable and then I do all the work. It shouldn’t take long overall.”
“Okay, good.” Sam scribbled a few thoughts. “What about afterward? Any idea of the effects? How long will you need me to stick around?”
He sensed Quinn and Nick sharing a look, but his mind was already on Riley and how quickly he could get back to her. He’d call her on the way to Jennifer’s to see how she was doing and let her know when he’d be there.
“Well, we want to give it a day to see how Jennifer takes it,” Quinn said slowly. “And then we can go straight to Rhode Island.”
Sam’s head snapped up. Both of them were watching him warily. “What do you mean, straight to Rhode Island?”
“Once we start these,” Nick said, “we have to get them all done. This is unprecedented, Sam. I told you, we don’t know what it’s going to do to Quinn as she takes this apart.”
Sam shook his head and stood. “I told Riley I’d be back as soon as possible. I can’t leave her alone with Anson and Millinger still a big unknown.”
Fury tightened Nick’s features, and he would have stood if Quinn hadn’t put her hand on his leg. Sam let his hands curl. Nick might want to clobber him for daring to refuse to follow their timeline, but Sam was no pushover, and Nick knew it.
Quinn looked at the books and papers on the table. “We can wait. It’s already been three years…”
The note of despair in her voice made Sam falter, and it nearly did Nick in. His temples and jaw pulsed with the pressure of gritted teeth, and he evaded Quinn’s hands this time to stand and face Sam.