The houses on this road weren’t typical of student accommodations. They were tall and redbrick—Edwardian, maybe—with high windows and gabled roofs, the kind of house a parent or a grandparent might live in, but not someone Daisy’s age. Maybe it was a ploy? Maybe someone had hijacked the mailing list for the Brethren of Zoise? A serial killer who lured yoga fans to his house and murdered them halfway through a Sun Salutation?

Maybe she should skip this and have a bite to eat before attending Late-Night Pool Club . . . but she was still stuffed after having afternoon tea with the misnomered Ladies Who Brunch, and, having walked all the way here, it seemed a shame to give up. Approaching the front door, Daisy was reassured by the paint flaking off the window frames, the algae in the mortar, and the weeds poking up through the paved driveway. And wasn’t that a Che Guevara poster she could see in the front room?

Daisy took a fortifying breath. She was good at doing things on her own, but that didn’t mean it was easy. Especially not when she’d conceded the possibility of getting murdered.

Grasping the satisfying heft of the lion’s head knocker, she announced her arrival.

The door opened to reveal a young man about Daisy’s height with shaggy ginger hair and bare feet. Daisy thought he might have been with Elise at the booth. He wore a dressing-gown-like black robe and a slightly bemused expression.

“Hi, my name’s Daisy. I’m here for the Zoise meeting?” She gestured at her mat.

“Of course, come in. You must be here for the taster session. My name’s Jasper.” Jasper’s hair curled up over his ears and onto his neck, and he had a splatter of freckles across the bridge of his nose and the tops of his cheeks. As Daisy stepped past him, she had the feeling that this was exactly the sort of boy Esther would find very attractive indeed.

“This house is really nice,” Daisy said. “I didn’t realize there was any student housing this far out of town.” Daisy followed Jasper down a hallway. The floor was hardwood, and fairy lights wound up banisters that looked like an original feature of the house. Coving on the ceiling, picture rails . . . if it weren’t for the socks drying on the radiator and the pizza boxes and take-away trays littered about, she could have stepped into the last five minutes of Property Brothers.

“Yeah, we’re really lucky. This place came up for sale a few years ago, and my dad bought it so me and my brother would have somewhere to live.”

“Does your brother do yoga, too?”

Jasper laughed. “Finn spends ninety percent of his time getting high in the attic—says yoga’s too energetic. And there’s Mei, but you’ll never see her—she basically lives with her boyfriend these days.”