“She wouldn’t know when. But if she ever tried to starve me again, or hurt Raven, I’d drop a poisonous berry into her soup, or her cider, or her wine. I’d get to her, and she wouldn’t be able to stop me.”

Light flashed in Jack’s eyes. Was Jack horror-struck… or a little impressed? Lily couldn’t tell. But Raven was unmoved by her story, and he peered at her, his dark eyes narrowed into slits. “If you found a way to beat her, you didn’t have to kill her. You could’ve left—”

“You did leave,” Jack realized, just as Lily opened her mouth to speak. “I talked to Belle at the detention center. She said you were together at the time of the murder. If you didn’t stuff those flowers into the teakettle before you left, that means…”

“Someone else did it. But it couldn’t have been my dad,” Lily said. “I know what you’re thinking, and it makes sense to you, because you don’t know where he was that night. He checked me out of the facility. He left me when he was a teenager, and my mom didn’t think he was coming back, so she never filed for full custody. He’s still one of my legal guardians. Since the doctors knew I was doing better, they left me in his care, and he took me back to his house. We spent hours decorating my bedroom, and then we sat on the couch and ate ice cream. He fell asleep around nine thirty, and that’s when I snuck out. When I came back, hours later, he was exactly where I’d left him, snoring on the couch. He couldn’t have killed her.”

“Lily.” Jack spoke softly this time, and that gaze was kind. Gentle. It stoked the fires in Lily’s chest, making her angry.

She would not be pitied. “He couldn’t have done it,” she nearly shouted, not caring if Raven’s father heard her through the walls. “The next morning, I woke up to hear him talking to someone at the front door. The police were there, asking about my mother, and he told them I’d been with him the entire night. They had no reason to suspect us. No evidence linking us to the crime. Besides, once that detective found the Recipe for the Perfect Murder in the kitchen, and the belladonna missing from Belle’s yard, he figured he’d found his killer.” Lily scowled, fingers tightening to fists. “I would’ve given her an alibi if I could’ve, because I was with her for hours that night, but after my dad spoke to the police, it was impossible.”