Witch's Bell Book One

right.'
    Avery Bell fluttered her eyes towards him. She appeared to give Nate a very long, very calculating look. 'What isn't right, little chevalier?'
    'Ebony was just attacked,' he said clearly and forcefully, tone unforgiving – even in the face of Avery Bell's magical gaze. 'This isn't a good time for a domestic. We have to find out who did this, and why.'
    Avery Bell smiled mysteriously. 'No, those are things to find out later,' she dipped her head to the side, as if trying to see Nate from another angle.
    'Later?' Ebony shot back, voice arcing with anger. 'This means nothing to you, doesn't it? Your only daughter is mugged by a magical creature, and you just don't care. I couldn't defend myself, because you took away my magic. What the Hell kind of mother are you?' Ebony's voice was venomous – poisoned with a deep, frustrated anger. How dare her mother, how dare she.
    Suddenly Avery Bell's face changed. Her eyes became darker, almost black. Her skin began to crackle with an electric blue, and her lips drew into the thinnest line. 'You invoke Hell,' She put a bony hand up, touching her chest, 'against your mother.'
    Ebony sucked in a breath, watching the anger and power crackle over and through her mother, like thunderous water engulfing a ship sinking into the sea. She wasn't going to back down though. 'Maybe you don't give me any choice.'
    'Choice?' Avery's voice sounded like a bone snapping – it crackled, and punched out of her throat with a snap. 'That's exactly why you are here, and now, doing this and that,' though her words sounded peculiarly melodic – like a nursery rhyme – they were anything but. Each was steeped in a grave, deep anger that rumbled like a volcano. 'Have you forgotten everything I ever taught you? You think something like this can happen without your permission? You think you can ever be punished, ever be affected, ever be changed by another without first giving your consent?'
    Though her words might have been mysterious to some, Ebony knew precisely what her mother was talking about, and she didn't want to hear it. 'You're trying to shift the blame. Nice. You think this is all my fault?' she put a hand up to her own chest. 'You think I'm the only one involved in this story?
    'No, but here you are at the center, confused, delirious, and completely out of your depth,' Avery's expression, though obviously angry, was still controlled. That was the entire thing about her mother – everything she did, everything she said, probably everything she though, was controlled.
    'Thank you so much,' Ebony shook her head, sucking her lips in, and just trying not to be torn apart by the dual forces within her: a vicious anger, and a shaking sorrow. It wasn't that she was only angry at her mother's actions, in more ways than one, she felt abandoned. 'You are a true witch.'
    'Oh yes, I am,' Avery didn't overtly react to the implied insult, just tapped her hand onto the banister, her numerous rings clicking softly. 'As such, I can read you like a book,' her eyes darted to and fro over Ebony, as if she were literally trying to read her daughter. 'You are so pulled by your little fantasies of righteousness, justice and sorrow that you can't see what is before your eyes.'
    'Oh, go on then,' Ebony took a deep, rattling breath, throwing up her hands, 'enlighten me. What's so obvious?'
    'You're being rewritten,' this time there wasn't a drop of anger left in Avery's voice. No gravity, no frustration.
    Ebony stopped, eyes blinking quickly.
    'Surely you must have realized, little witch, the signs are all around you.'
    Ebony's breaths became shorter, tighter. Her skin seemed to peak with an intense heat, then ebb quickly into a confused, prickling cold. She wasn't being rewritten, she tried to tell herself bravely. While all the things that had happened to her in the past several weeks were certainly not things she would have chosen for herself – that didn't mean she was now at the mercy of other forces. It just meant....
    'You're no longer in control. And you cannot blame me for that,' her mother's voice was much softer now, much kinder. It was also filled with a poignant sorrow Ebony hadn't quite heard before. 'Though, perhaps, I could have been more careful. I could have taught you more. Tried to impress upon your growing mind the importance of making your own path, taking your own chances, and finding out what you truly want.'
    'I'm not being rewritten,' Ebony said out loud, tongue darting out and