The moment our suite door closes, the friendly expression drops from Layla’s face. “You might as well walk around with a guilty sign on your back if you’re going to act this emotional. Did you imagine that they weren’t going to question our maids about our behavior?” Disgust flashes in her eyes and she walks out of my bedroom.

I throw back my covers and follow her to the table near the window in the common room, which is laid out with cloth napkins and fragile-looking china. “I wasn’t expecting—”

“I don’t care what you were expecting,” she says, and sits down, placing a napkin on her lap. “There is already a bull’s-eye on both our backs.”

I sit down, too, trying to reconcile the horrifying reality that I found a dead body last night with Layla’s expectation that I act like nothing happened. “If we’re supposed to be acting normal, then why did you say I look terrible in front of Pippa?”

Layla looks up from her cheesy eggs and frowns. “Because by calling it out, I instantly normalized it. I made her read your demeanor as nothing more than a bad night’s sleep on a lumpy mattress. And by smiling, I sent the impression that I approve of you. Pippa knows that I’m discerning, that I wouldn’t accept you if you weren’t trustworthy.” She pauses and levels a look at me. “Seriously, what’s wrong with you? This is first-year deception.” Her upset and anger from last night have been replaced with her usual cool demeanor.

I poke at the potatoes on my plate, trying to muster an appetite. I have no idea how to process the events of the past few days. Saying I’m freaked out doesn’t even begin to cover it.

All night long I’ve been replaying the moment when Ash told me to take that hallway. And I can’t ignore the fact that Stefano had a knife sticking out of his chest when Aarya and Ash had just talked about a missing knife at lunch. She even accused him of stealing it. Not that I would put it past Aarya to lie about the knife for exactly this reason.

“The dining room is being cleaned—” I say.

“They don’t want to give us an opportunity to talk in a group. They’re probably trying to see who searches out who,” Layla says, and spears a roasted potato wedge.

My stomach twists. “Is that why they didn’t question us last night after that guard saw me?”

“I don’t know,” she says, and I can see stress in her expression. “There is a tactic here, I’m just not sure what it is yet.”

I put down my fork. I wish I could erase this whole event from my memory. “Okay, tell me. What do I do if they question me? I haven’t taken deception classes for years like you have. I don’t know what you know.”

Layla makes eye contact with me and pauses. “Exactly.”

“What?”

“Play the ‘I don’t know what’s going on here’ approach. You’ve been using it well so far. At least it will be consistent.” She doesn’t offer any more information.