“You look like shit,” she said, and Jack’s head snapped up.

“Belle.”

“You don’t get to call me that. You can call me Belladonna, after the flowers you stole from my garden.” She narrowed her eyes. “You must’ve snuck over after I went to bed that night and carried your little bouquet to Evelyn’s house—”

“I didn’t poison Raven’s stepmother! I offered to get you out of here, remember?” Jack shook her head in exasperation. “I went to the cops and provided your alibi, but the detective wouldn’t listen to me. He said I had a ‘history of telling stories.’ ”

“Man, he has you pegged. Jack the storyteller. Jack the liar.”

Jack’s face flushed burgundy, and Belle stepped closer. There were no weapons in this cell. The table and chair in the corner were bolted to the floor, and the bedding would’ve made a pathetic noose. That threadbare fabric could disintegrate in an instant. The charcoal-gray blankets already looked like dust. No, Belle would have to use her words to slice Jack open and leave her gutted.

“When you offered to be my alibi, I had this intense rush of relief and… shame for how I treated you over the past few years. But then—” Belle huffed, wagging her finger in the air. “Then I realized you weren’t providing an alibi for me. You were providing one for yourself.”

“I was home that night,” Jack insisted, striding past Belle. She sat down on the bottom bunk, curling into herself. “My brothers can account for me.”

“Your brothers would lie for you in an instant.” Belle stepped up close. “And before you bring up your mom, I need you to remember that I know you very well. I know you better than Raven. I know you better than that detective who thinks you’re some sweet little girl who got caught up in someone else’s darkness. You’re the one with the darkness in you, Jack. You lie and you steal, and you never care who you hurt.”

“I don’t—”

“I saw you,” Belle snapped, plucking the book of fairy tales from the bed. She flipped through the old, yellowed pages, landing on an image of crows descending on Cinderella’s stepsister. “I went to see Raven the night before he left for boarding school. I saw you wrap your fingers around his shirt and pull him closer. I saw you kiss him, and it hurt so badly, I wanted to summon the crows and laugh as they clawed at your skin.” Belle flipped to another chapter, where a young, beautiful girl pushed a crone off a cliff. “I wanted to kill Raven’s stepmother for putting him in danger. But you know what I realized, sitting alone in my library after Raven left town?”

“What?” Jack swallowed, visibly steeling herself against the daggers in Belle’s voice.