Witch's Bell Book One

louder than a military band in full patriotic swing.
    There was something to be said for no longer having magic. Every emotion, every sensation that Ebony felt, now felt realer. It came with a great deal more attached to it. No longer could she write-over an unpleasant sensation with a quick spell. With her abilities and magic in check, all Ebony could do was actually watch and listen. She had to pay attention to what she was feeling and thinking, and try and move through it for all she was worth. Even though she couldn't see the other side, and hadn't the foggiest where she was meant to be heading to.
    'Ben,' Ebony finally called out, almost catching up to him, 'Ben?'
    Her heart was in her mouth, trying to shake through her neck like a wild dog on a chain.
    Ben turned slowly. His expression was strange, confused. He appeared to look at Ebony like a man staring at an apparition in smoke. Was it really there or just his mind playing tricks on him? 'Ebony,' he said slowly, 'what are you doing here?'
    Ebony swallowed again, and this time it hurt. 'I came in today, you know, like I said I would last night?'
    'Last night?' Ben made a face that said the words "last night" sounded like alien mumbo jumbo.
    But before Ben could fully process the thought, the last person Ebony wanted to see, walked up behind Ben. Chalcedony.
    Chalcedony appraised Ebony like a farmer might look at a fox that had broken into its chicken coop. 'What are you doing here?' she asked abruptly, folding her sleek arms over her even sleeker shirt.
    Ebony's skin started to prickle, but she had to press on, she told herself. Nothing about this situation was going to be easy from here on in. And if it wasn't going to be easy, then Ebony had to make herself as hard, and unyielding as stone. 'I work here,' she tried to swell the confidence inside her until her words didn't rattle like a rasp from a ninety-year-old.
    Chalcedony's lips curled, but no one in their right mind would call it a smile. 'You work here,' she repeated loudly and clearly.
    Other officers and detectives began to turn around, staring at Ebony with as much puzzlement as Ben was. It was as if Ebony was now the only square in a sea of circles, or the only bright red piece in a puzzle of grays and blacks. She didn't quite fit.
    'Ebony Bell, you no longer work here,' Chalcedony's voice grated like a rasp over metal. 'In fact, you're lucky you still even can work, considering what you did.'
    'What I did,' Ebony repeated, using every single ounce of effort and will not to turn around and run home wailing about how unfair the world was.
    A couple of detectives gave bare laughs. Bare, unfriendly laughs that clearly told Ebony they were siding roughly on the side of Chalcedony, the Grimshores, and all that was wrong with Vale.
    Ebony dug her fingernails deep into her palm and chewed on her lips for a bit. 'I didn't do much, Chalcedony,' she said. 'In fact, taking the time to think about it, I really haven't done much my whole life.'
    Chalcedony gave a harsh little laugh at that. 'Now, if you are finished making an idiot of yourself, you had better leave this station before you're thrown out.'
    Definitely unfriendly, Ebony reassured herself in a kind of detached way. As her emotions and sensations seemed to simmer her in a sauce of terrible uncertainty, a little part of Ebony stood to the side and watched. Witches watched, after all, didn't they? Or maybe it was simply a reaction to not being able to believe what was happening to her. One moment she was the sassy, competent, but wild witch-consultant to the Vale police department. The next she was some kind of vile, unloved little creature who had disgusted everyone without having done anything in particular. Nice, very nice.
    But Ebony couldn't maintain this little detached frivolity for too long. Because just when everything seemed to be going pear-shaped, he popped up.
    Nathan Wall walked towards her, his face as blank and expressionless as a slab of new marble. Every single step forward he took, Ebony found herself being wrenched further and further into the reality of the situation, until it writhed at her skin like ants trapped in honey.
    If she had enjoyed a single ounce of detachment before, she now paid the price. Her lips began to prickle, her eyes began to flicker, and her skin felt like it had been snap-frozen then thawed.
    She watched his expression, her own melting into some kind of drooped-lip pout.
    'What's going on here?' he asked,