Holmes grimaced at the mention of her uncle’s sex life. “Yes, yes, fine, except we’re not in a position to approach him, so it doesn’t matter. None of us are done up like art dealers and you’re a little too spot-on to play a prospective art student. You look like you just came from central casting. A disconnected undercut, Watson? Really?”

August smiled to himself.

“Marie-Helene buys it,” I said, setting my jaw.

“That’s because she thinks you’re handsome.”

“And you don’t?”

Nathaniel was looking over at us now. I’d been staring. Quickly, Holmes turned to me, adjusting my collar. “You look ridiculous,” she said. Her hands were warm. “I like you much better as yourself.”

There was a trace of something in the air, sickly sweet and familiar. Forever Ever Cotton Candy. The Japanese perfume that August had given her years ago.

“You look good, Simon,” he was saying, reaching past her to clap me on the shoulder. “And really nice work, with the deductions.” It came out unnatural, like he’d learned how to compliment people from an instruction manual.

“Anyway,” Holmes said, pulling away from me. “We’ll deal with him later. Big fish first.”

“What big fish?”

There was a look on August’s face, something strange and drawn, but when I glanced again it was gone. “Charlotte, we’re going to go play pool,” he said.

“We’re playing pool? Don’t you mean in the pool?” I paused. “Why the hell would we play in the pool?”

“Go off, then,” she said, coiling a strand of hair around a limpid finger. She was already slipping back into character. “I imagine I’ll work faster on my own, anyway.”

Holmes and not-Holmes. Businesslike words in a porn star voice.

“I’m sure you will, Tabitha,” August told her, annoyed, and steered me away. Past the bar, past a circle of overstuffed chairs, past a group of men in suits all smoking and checking their phones while a girl in a skirt served them drinks. I wondered if she was one of the art students who lived here, too. If that was part of the deal. I felt sick.

There was a pool table in the corner. Unlike the heavy, ancient ones in Holmes’s house, this one was made of acrylic. You could see straight through its legs to the wall. Only the felt surface was an opaque white.

“This seems pointlessly complicated,” I said.

“What does?”

“This party. This situation. This pool table.” I kicked its leg. “Who got bored enough to make this thing?”

August was already racking the balls. “Are you any good at pool?”

I’d played some in the afternoons in a pub near my school. Which of course meant nothing, because I’d spent most of that time staring at Rose Milton, girl of my freshman daydreams. “Eh,” I said.

“Well, it’s all geometry and hand-eye coordination.” He tossed me a cue stick and lined up his shot.

“Terrific. So the idea was to drag me into the corner and ritualistically beat me, and then explain why you and Holmes ditched me in Milo’s Military Funhouse earlier?”

With a resounding crack, he broke the balls across the table. Two solids went in the far right pocket.

“Tell me,” he said, leaning against the wall. “Do you ever get sick of playing the victim?”

It was so far removed from anything he’d said before that I thought I must’ve imagined it. “Excuse me?”

“Jamie, I’ve known you for less than a day, and you already flinch every time I talk to you.”

“I’m not—”

“I haven’t been anything but nice. What, exactly, is the problem?”

“You seem—either you’re completely naïve, or you’re a fake. The way you talk to me is ridiculous. The way you look at her—” Deep breaths, I told myself. If I beat him into the floor, Holmes would kill me. “I guess I’m stripes.”

“You are, but it’s still my turn.” His eyes were on the table. The solid-colored balls had all wandered into improbable corners. I was sure he was working out some mathematical solution. “Are you really that insecure? Or is it something else?”

“Do you know what you are to her?” I snapped. “Because I do.”

“No, you don’t. Not from what I can tell. And I wasn’t asking you about Charlotte.”

I glared at him. His ugly tattoo, his posh accent, his twenty-three-year-old bullshit confidence. “Then spell it out for me, genius.”

“Maybe you need me to,” he said, and with an elegant motion, he knocked another ball into a pocket. “Maybe I need to say to you, out loud, that I didn’t diddle any children.” Another shot. Another ball. “Or that I didn’t feed her drugs. Or tell my brother to ruin her life and raze an American boarding school.”

“Or almost have me killed,” I said. “You didn’t tell him to do that either. Is there some reason you’re suddenly so mad at me?”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

August’s cue stilled in his hands. “I faked my death to escape my family. Jail time, too, but mostly them. My parents agreed to let me go; my siblings think I’m dead. I’m not the enemy. I’m not the bad guy. I thought I’d made that clear.” His face was mercilessly blank, like he’d wiped off all emotion with a cloth. But his words sounded genuine.