Page 107 of An Academy for Liars

“It’s more complicated than that,” said Dante, and she waited for him to elaborate but he didn’t. Perhaps he sensed, like Lennon, that there wasn’t much left to say.

“How is he still alive?” she asked.

Dante turned back to look across the campus. The house was so tall you could see above almost all of the trees on the square. There was Irvine Hall in the far distance; closer was the sharp spire of the chapel piercing above the oaks, and the glossy leaves of the magnolias looked slick and wet in the moonlight. She could see the small figures of the students mulling about the center of the square, bracing for the next series of quakes. Up high and from afar, the whole campus looked like something that could be crushed easily underfoot, and Lennon wondered why it had taken her so long to grasp the fragility of this place, the tenuous nature of its existence. Now, as the boards of the balcony trembled underfoot, as the only man that kept this school protected lay below, dying in his bed, she saw just how naïve she’d been to mistake Drayton for anything more than ephemeral.

“Like the school, this house exists within a pocket of time,” said Dante, carefully. “It’s extended William’s lifespan well beyond its natural length. But that also means that he’s lived to suffer longer than any man ever should. Gatekeeping on that level does horrific things to the body and the mind. William has weathered this burden better than anyone ever imagined he could—and he’s done it for decades—but he can’t go on any longer. He’s going to die soon, and without him the gates will fall.”

“Which is where I come in. Right?” It felt good to put words to that betrayal. “To replace him? That’s why you brought me here. Without telling me the truth, that if I do this I’m going to suffer just like William?”

“It’s not as simple as that. I promise you. I wouldn’t—”

Just then, clipped footsteps, someone turning the corner of the wraparound balcony.

Eileen stepped into view.

“We can’t find…” She stopped short at the sight of them. “Oh. There you are.” Her gaze bounced between Lennon and Dante. But when she spoke, it was to the latter. “We’re getting close, so you’ll need to hurry.”

Dread pooled like bile in the pit of Lennon’s stomach. Her hands went cold and clammy, began to shake, as she realized the reality of her situation. She was standing between two of the most powerful persuasionists alive. Any hope she’d had of running had disappeared the moment Dante had laid eyes on her, if not the moment she’d entered the house. Even if she called an elevator now, they’d have her knocked out cold before the doors opened. She was trapped.

Another tremor rocked the campus. Eileen sidestepped, almost falling out of her heels. A second, more violent quake struck before she could regain her footing. Dante lunged toward Lennon, dragging her back and crushing her against his chest, shielding her with his own body. A few feet from where they stood, just shy of Eileen, one of the beams on the porch collapsed and split through the floor.

There was a horrible moment in the aftermath of the shake when Eileen—eyes wide with astonishment—stared at Dante, at Lennon cradled in his arms. “Get her ready. Now.”

“Just give us some time,” Dante snapped, and for a moment she really thought she was safe. Thought that he would protect her fromthis, as he had protected her from everything else. But Dante, releasing her from the cage of his arms, took her by the shoulders and said, very quietly, “I’m going to try to make this painless.”

As he said this, a shade of black descended from her upper periphery.

“You should know that your sacrifice won’t go unnoticed,” said Eileen, flatly, like it was something she needed to say to keep her hands clean. “We’re all indebted to you for this.”

“Dante.” Lennon was crying now, trying and failing to struggle to her feet, her knees giving way beneath her each time she attempted to rise. Her vision contracted to little more than a pinpoint. She fought to stay conscious. “Please don’t do this.”

A fissure appeared in the stone mask of his expression. Behind it, she saw something, not regret but fear, or pity maybe, and then his will came down upon her in a wave of vertigo, smearing the night into a blurry spiral. She pitched forward, blacking out. As Lennon slumped to the floor, the last thing she saw, materializing behind Dante, were the golden doors of her elevator closing and opening helplessly.

“I OWE YOU an apology,” said Dante. They were sitting in the same small classroom where Lennon had first met him. She couldn’t remember how she’d come to be there, or really anything after losing consciousness on the balcony of the chancellor’s mansion.

Lennon tried to speak, but her tongue was swollen, fat and useless behind her teeth, spit pooling at the back of her throat. She had just enough autonomy to swallow, but it was a great effort to work the muscles of her throat without choking.

Her entire body felt like a limb she’d slept on wrong, tingling and unbearable, numb from loss of blood flow. She managed to blink, the effort of closing and opening her own eyelids was equivalent to pulling the cord on a pair of heavy wooden blinds. Even thinking was difficult, but with great effort she strung together a few thoughts, taking stock of her situation. Someone had her in a psychic hold, that much was obvious. It was keeping her body and mind sedated, her instincts suppressed.

Lennon managed to lower her gaze, saw her own hands bound in her lap, her ankles tied to the legs of the desk she was sitting in.

“An unnecessary precaution,” said Dante. “I told them you wouldn’t run.”

Lennon tried to move her hands. Her fingers twitched, and then, very slowly, her hooked middle finger rose just above the rest of her clenched knuckles and straightened itself.

Fuck you.

Dante saw and smiled. “You still have fight in you. That’s good. You’ll need it.”

He sat down on the desk in front of her, and she was surprised to discover that even here he still smelled like the sea. Hot tears welled at the corners of her eyes and slid down her cheeks.

“Hey, none of that,” said Dante, but with a fondness that sounded sincere. He wiped at her eyes. “It’s okay. I’m going to tell you what happens next, and you’re going to listen, all right?”

Lennon managed to straighten her middle finger a little more.

“It’s going to be just like we practiced, with the gates to the past. As the chancellor dies—they say he doesn’t have a lot of time left—you’re going to raise them around the school. I’ll be right there with you the entire time, all right? There’s nothing to be afraid of. You can trust me if you do itjustthe way we practiced, okay? Like that first time? At my home. When the time comes, you just imagine that you’re there, you open that gate to the past, and you keep opening it, okay? You keep pushing until the walls of the cabin surround the entire campus.”

Lennon tried to plead. To beg. To curse the day she’d ever met him.

---