Miss Knight nodded—probably the first time she’d ever agreed with him. Miss Dane frowned.
“After Ella and Rosemarie went downstairs,” Beatrix said, “I stayed in the top-floor room with Lydia for perhaps fifteen minutes before Omnimancer Blackwell arrived. I explained that I intended to let Garrett arrest me. Lydia left, and—and the omnimancer left soon after.” Beatrix glanced at him, just for a fraction of a second, and his face went hot with the memory of what she’d skipped over. “I realized there was no one in the house. I was afraid one or more of you had gone to confront Garrett, create a distraction or do something else that could make this worse, so I went back into the forest. I didn’t see anyone. I called for Garrett and got no answer. Then I tripped over him.”
Peter frowned. “But he’s not on the main path.”
She nodded. “I was afraid he might have gone to lie in wait for you by your car. I started to run toward the farm, and that’s when I found him.”
It sounded like—feltlike—the truth. On the other hand, he’d thought she was being straight with him about a whisper campaign that turned out to be far worse than he’d imagined.
“And you?” she asked him.
He told them. She nodded, but her watchful look did not ease.
“I went downstairs to discuss the problem with Rosemarie, as I said I would.” Miss Knight, still a bit breathless, sank into a chair. “But you weren’t there,” she added to Miss Dane, “so I ran outside to look for you. Ichecked out front, then all around the woods, and finally I heard you calling for Beatrix. Wherewereyou?”
“In the forest,” Miss Dane said.
“Because …?” Miss Knight prompted.
“I needed to think. I don’t think well surrounded by recording equipment.”
Miss Knight sighed.
“Lydia?” Beatrix asked.
“I walked to Senator Gray’s house to ask him to represent you. He’s a defense attorney, you know.”
Peter’s breath caught in his throat. Beatrix put a hand over her mouth. “Youtoldhim? He knows?”
“No, he wasn’t there.”
That was a mercy. But it wasn’t truly an alibi. None of them had real alibis.
“If someone here killed Garrett,” he said, “now would be a good time to mention it.”
No one said a word.
“Rosemarie Harriet Dane,” Beatrix said, “tell us whether you killed Wizard Garrett, tell us truthfully, or it will harm Lydia, her efforts with the League and the League generally.”
“I did not kill Wizard Garrett,” Rosemarie said.
Beatrix turned to her friend. “Ella Ruth Knight, tell us truthfully whether you killed Wizard Garrett, or it will harm Lydia, her efforts with the League and the League generally.”
Miss Knight, gaze steady, said, “I didnotkill Wizard Garrett.”
“I know I don’t have a Vow for you to call on, but I promise you, I did not kill Wizard Garrett,” Lydia said.
Beatrix looked at him, then, and all his anxieties about whether she had done it disappeared. Her face was twisted in anguish. She said, “Peter William Blackwell, tell us truthfully whether you killed Wizard Garrett, or it will harm Lydia, her efforts with the League and the League generally,” her voice cracking, and he knew she feared the killer was him.
He opened his mouth to assure her he didn’t do it, then closed it, shocked. “Beatrix,” he said, too rattled to keep up the pretense that they didn’t call each other by their first names, “the Vow isn’t making me answer you.”
“What?” she whispered.
“Beatrix Jane Harper, tell us truthfully whether you killed Wizard Garrett, or it will harm me, in addition to your sister, her efforts with the League and the League generally,” he said.
She stared at him, eyes widening. She would have had to answer immediately if the force of the contract had kicked in.
“I didn’t kill Garrett,” he told her. “I vow to you that I did not.”
