pulling on her clothes. She’d been raped. She’d come up there to soak alone in a hot spring and some…”
“Bastard,” Mark supplied.
“Yes. He was there, on the far side of the pool. He stared at me, at the woman. I could have taken his photo. I could have screamed. I could have run.” She was lost in the memory. The shock in the man’s eyes that he’d been discovered, then that instant’s flare of the desire to hurt her, too. She hadn’t been scared, though. She’d been furious. “My magic just lashed out. The woman was closer to me than to the man. She was on solid rock. He was on the edge of the hot spring, tramping across the mud in his thick boots. I made the mud boil. He screamed.”
“Clancy. Clancy?” Mark’s voice, intense with concern.
She blinked and blinked again when she realized that he’d pulled to the side of the road and parked. How long had she been lost in the memory?
He was worried, but he wasn’t touching her. He was scared for her and obviously uncertain if he’d make things worse.
“I didn’t really hurt the man,” she said. “His skin was no more blistered than from sunburn.”
“I don’t care if you boiled the flesh from his toes.”
She gasped. “That would be torture.”
“And you’d never do it.” He clasped her hand then, cautious and gentle. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You reacted as anyone might.”
“I exploded a volcano!”
“Doris would be proud of you.”
Her jaw dropped. Clancy could feel it, but she couldn’t make it shut. Shock.
“You protected the woman and yourself.”
“The man ran away. But the police caught him. Lianne, the woman, she was so brave. She walked with me back to the fashion shoot.” She smiled, a wobbly effort but a real one. “Don’t ever believe that the fashion industry is heartless. The instant they saw Lianne, not one of them had another thought for the shoot. Every one of us was part of getting her to the hospital.”
Her uncertain smile died. “Erik, the geomage responsible for Iceland, met me outside the hospital and ordered me gone. I hadn’t even realized the volcano had erupted.”
Anger shimmered in Mark’s blue eyes, deepening their color to cloudy sapphire, but his clasp of her hand remained gentle. “So, you saved a woman and yourself, reacted naturally, and for this the Collegium sanctioned you? That’s why the chief geomage, this Neville, wanted to berate you some more?”
“Berate is a good word. Unusual. Old-fashioned. It suits Neville.”
Mark slowly released her hand, restarting the car. “Doris is right. You don’t need the Collegium.”
“That’s kind of true,” Clancy said. “I don’t need them, and they don’t need to worry about me, because I don’t intend to use my magic again. I told Neville.” And when Mark swore under his breath. “It doesn’t matter. I was never a powerful geomage. I just enjoyed ‘talking’ with the Earth. But there are other things I can do. I’m going to take up painting, again.”
She exhaled shakily, feeling adrenaline still coursing through her body, stirred up by her memories. “What sort of car do you think I should buy?”
There was a beat of silence, before he said, “How much money do you want to spend?”
She relaxed as he let her change the subject to a determinedly ordinary one. “Five thousand. I ought to be able to get a reliable car for five grand.”
Mark gritted his teeth to hold back the offer to just give Clancy a car. Hell, it was past time someone did something for her. What the seven bells was her brother thinking not to be flying out to Collegium headquarters, thumping the chief mage’s desk, and arguing Clancy’s case? Instead, it sounded as if Jeremy had joined the chorus of condemnation.
Unlike Doris.
Some of his outrage eased. Clancy wasn’t without family support.
“Five thousand should get you a good car.” He had no idea. He’d never bought a used car. Then he recalled horror stories
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