“A dead body loses heat at about zero point eighty-three degrees Celsius an hour—that’s one point five degrees Fahrenheit, if it’s easier for you. That’s not quickly at all. Although if a body is kept in a cold place, it will lose heat faster. But regardless, he couldn’t have been newly killed when you found him or you wouldn’t have noticed a temperature difference. Also, for you to feel signs of rigor mortis, even just a little, he would likely have been dead for three to eight hours,” she says, and my mind spins at the implications.

“But obviously he wasn’t in that hallway for hours or someone would have found him before I did,” I say, following her train of thought. “Are you saying you think he was moved there sometime after he’d been killed?”

Her forehead tenses with concentration. “That’s the thing, you said you didn’t see blood on the floor, but there was blood on his shirt. Even if your temperature readings were off because of adrenaline and exercise, and even if you aren’t a good judge of stiffness, it’s strange that there wasn’t any blood on the floor. So yes, I think we can assume that he was placed there.”

“You mean he was killed somewhere else and then put in that hallway specifically for me to find?” I’m trying to wrap my mind around the lengths someone went to in order to set me up.

“That’s what it looks like from where I’m sitting.”

“Ash knows the guards’ schedules to the second, right?” I say, considering her words. “So are there specific windows of time where we would be more likely to go to the vine courtyard and then to leave it? I guess what I’m asking is, would someone be able to make an educated guess about the time we would be coming back from those trees?”

Layla nods. “Definitely. The easiest time to go anywhere is right after curfew, because the guards always make rounds then. And then again about forty-five minutes later—which would be your most likely time to return. If you miss that window, you have to wait for another hour and fifteen minutes, when the guards go again.”

No wonder Ash was insistent that someone set me up. “We need to find out who saw Stefano after his classes. It will give us a timeline to work with.”

“Ash is already working on that,” Layla says. “We also need to think about where Stefano was killed and where his body was kept before it was placed in that hallway.”

There’s a brief knock and the latch lifts on our door. Pippa comes in, looking at us in an almost sad way that sets me on edge.

“Your presence has been requested in the dining hall,” Pippa says. “Immediately.”