Free Hollywood Demon (The Collegium Book 6) by Jenny Schwartz Page A

grandma’s cottage, and saw Doris hurry out. They admired the car. Clancy kind of knew Doris didn’t really care about cars—they were just things to get her efficiently from A to B—but it was quietly exciting, heart-warming, to share her pleasure in her new purchase with someone.
    Doris gave her a big hug. “Honey, you did good. It’s a nice, sensible car.”
    “Ordinary.” Clancy smiled, returning the hug. They walked into the kitchen which smelled of lasagna. “Fresh basil.” She inhaled deeply.
    “It’s ready when you are,” Doris said. “I’ve left Mark’s up at the house. He can re-heat it when he gets home.”
    It might be early for dinner, but not when it was her grandma’s lasagna. “Ten minutes,” Clancy promised and dashed upstairs.
    The rich, tomato-y sauce tasted as good as it smelled, and exactly as she remembered. Eating it, she told Doris the story of her experience in Iceland. Mark’s reaction had reassured her that perhaps her lack of control of her magic wasn’t such a bad thing. Maybe, in this instance, it was warranted. Okay, the volcano’s eruption was bad, but she could have calmed it if Erik had let her.
    Doris’s fork clanged as it hit her plate. “Neville did what?!!” It was a rhetorical question. Clancy had told her the whole story, including her demotion to a support role at Collegium headquarters. “And Jeremy knew.”
    Yes, Jeremy knew.
    Clancy thought about her brother and her own reaction to his learning of her disgrace within the Collegium. She’d guessed Neville would contact him. Jeremy had been one of the chief geomage’s star pupils. Like Neville, Jeremy successfully juggled his geomage talents with mundane scientific qualifications. Both were highly regarded geologists.
    Clancy had been an Arts major at college.
    She’d come home, returned to California, feeling guilty as Neville had intended she should. That guilt had emphasized how dependent she was on Jeremy’s tolerance for permission to stay here. Now, listening to the angry scrape of her grandma’s fork against her plate, she felt some of the pressure the Collegium’s protocols had placed on her lift. “I don’t need Jeremy’s permission to stay here, do I?”
    “No,” Doris said definitively.
    “I still don’t want to use my magic.” It scared her, the surge and violence of it. No matter how she practiced the patterns and spells of geomagic that the Collegium taught, her magic still disregarded the rules about fifty percent of the time.
    “Your decision.” Doris filled the kettle. “What do you intend to do?”
    Clancy had a one-word answer. “Paint.” She carted the art supplies from the car to the front porch while Doris made a pot of chamomile tea. A corner of the porch had clear plastic blinds that could be rolled down to enclose the area. She put the easel there, two blank canvases and the paints and brushes she’d bought.
    Doris put down the two cups of herbal tea she carried, and unrolled the blinds, tying them securely. “A good place to paint. You may need an outdoor heater when it gets cold.”
    “I’ll wear an extra layer. And fingerless gloves.” Clancy hugged Doris. “Thanks, Grandma. I’ll find a place of my own—”
    “No hurry.”
    They drank their tea sitting on the porch chairs, the air cool, but not chilly. There was a view across the valley, the lights of LA glittering with promise, shining like home. Clancy sighed, everything in her finally relaxing. “It’s been a long day.” After a series of long days on the road. Her magic gently touched the Earth beneath the cottage, brushing against the power in the chamber. It was a reminder that, if she wanted, she could borrow energy. But she’d promised herself she wouldn’t use magic.
    “I have line dancing, tonight,” Doris said. “Hence, the early dinner. Do you mind if—?”
    “Go. That’s the third yawn I’ve smothered. I’ll do the dishes and watch a bit of TV before crashing.”
    “Thanks,