Page 16 of An Academy for Liars

He turned to look at her. He had a cigarette in his mouth, which he was in the process of lighting with a match. “What meeting?”

“This one.” She opened her folder, which she’d used as a makeshift umbrella as she dashed across the campus, rifled through the damp papers, withdrew the schedule, and held it out for him to see. It was wet, and the ink was bleeding. “It says—”

“I can read,” said Dante. “Come in.”

He led her down a narrow hall and into a small waiting room where a group of three students sat, talking in whispers. There was a lanky boy with ice-blond hair who was so pale Lennon was actually concerned for his well-being. Beside him, a boy who was his opposite in every way, except in frame and height—dark skin, dark hair, darkeyes, enviably long lashes. Lennon immediately guessed he was Nigerian and was right—she had an eye for these things. Next to him, a scowling girl who glared at Lennon from behind a pair of thick-rimmed, but decidedly chic, glasses. All of them wore the same blue jacket embroidered with an ouroboros.

Their conversation lulled when Dante and Lennon entered the waiting room, though whether this was because of her or Dante she couldn’t say.

“Wait here,” said Dante, heading down the hall. And then, to the group whispering at the other edge of the waiting room: “Be nice.”

The three of them nodded and—still ignoring Lennon—resumed talking among themselves. “Have you decided who you’re voting for, Kieran?”

The blond, Kieran, rolled his eyes. “No one if I could.”

“Well, George seems like a promising prospect.”

“He’s a sycophant,” said the girl. “Besides, he pissed himself in my first-year persuasion class. Sawyer’s a better candidate. Stronger.”

“Stronger?” Kieran demanded, raising his faint eyebrows. “You can’t be serious. Even if it was possible to pry him out of the library—and that’s a bigif—he can’t scale a flight of stairs without triggering a fucking asthma attack.”

“Strong inspirit,” retorted the girl, who was called Yumi. “I mean, I don’t like him either—”

“No one does,” said the other boy, who Lennon later learned was named Adan. “But that doesn’t detract from his talent. If anything, it makes him more impressive.”

Yumi rolled her eyes. “He’s a waste of time.”

They weren’t faculty—that much was apparent to Lennon—but they were certainly more self-assured than the average student. Thetell was not the ease with which they carried themselves, but the urgency, the decisive air of important people with important places they needed to be.

Adan picked idly at his fingernail. “Emerson said the newcomers have some talent.”

“Did she now?” Kieran’s gaze wandered languidly over to Lennon. “Is that true?”

Lennon, startled, turned to look over her shoulder to see if he was speaking to someone else. “Me?”

“Yes, you.” He repeated his question. “Is it true?”

“Is what true?”

“Is there any talent in the new year?”

“How would she know?” Adan demanded. “She clearly just got here. Who’s your advisor?”

“Him,” she said, nodding down the hall toward Dante’s office.

Yumi’s mouth gaped open. She looked absolutely affronted. Personally offended, as if Lennon had just insulted her. “ProfessorLowe?”

Lennon nodded.

“But the admin office said he doesn’t take new candidates,” said Yumi, looking as though Lennon had stolen something that belong to her. “I tried to apply to him last semester—”

“Not taking new students and not taking you are two entirely different things,” said Adan.

“But I got a mark of distinction on my Persuasion II class—”

Kieran rolled his eyes. “Nobody gives a shit about that. If you’re not Emerson, or, I guess, her for whatever reason”—the boy gave Lennon a lingering and contemptuous glare, as if he was struggling to parse out whatever it was that made her so important—“then I doubt he’s interested.”

Just then, as though on cue, Dante reemerged from his officedown the hall and gestured for Lennon. She got up rather gracelessly, collecting her folder to her chest.

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