Page 43 of An Academy for Liars

The game picked up speed, and Lennon watched as both Sawyer and Nadine surrendered to a kind of trancelike state, their hands moving of their own volition as their minds toiled away at the great and gruesome work of bending the other to their will. It was Sawyer who prevailed in the end, though: with a strangled little cry he forced the hand that Nadine held pressed to the table a half centimeter to the right. The point of the blade clipped her pinky, and a small bubble of blood welled from the wound and trailed onto the table.

Emerson gave a slow clap. “Welcome to Logos, Sawyer.”

Nadine left the room in tears.

Ian stepped up to the front of the room. He didn’t look even remotely worried, which made sense given that he was easily the top of their class, and even as a first year was widely considered to be one of the most competent persuasionists on the campus. First, he filled his glass and threw back the shot of absinthe. Then he turned to the bowl, rustling through the slips of paper—a theatrical gesture—taking longer than he needed to select one, given that there were only a couple left. He smiled even, as he unfolded it, but the expression froze on his face when he read the name written there.

“Lennon,” he said, his gaze flicking up to her, then casting sharply away.

Lennon felt as though the floor had dropped beneath her feet. When she stepped forward, she thought for a moment that she was being persuaded to do it. As instructed, she filled her glass of absinthe and drank it down. It was strong and herbal, bitter enough to burn her throat when she swallowed. Then she sat down opposite Ian.

“Well, this should be quick,” said Kieran with a shit-eating grinthat made him look more than twice as punchable as he usually did, which was already quite punchable.

Across the table, Ian could barely look at her. His face—pale to begin with—had drained of almost all color so that he appeared nearly jaundiced in the wan lamplight. Before the game had even begun, he forced a thought into Lennon’s mind:Don’t fight. I’ll make it painless. Just a nick.

At the sound of his voice in her head, Lennon flinched and fumbled the knife. It struck the floor, and she picked it up, to a chorus of snickering. Ian withdrew from her mind, but she could still feel the greasy residue of his presence within her, a kind of violation. And who the fuck did he think he was telling her to go belly-up?

“Poor thing,” she heard Yumi whisper to Emerson. “I hope this is quick.”

Lennon pressed her left hand to the table, spread her fingers so far apart they hurt.

Ian pressed his left hand down. Humiliatingly, he didn’t even bother to spread his fingers wide like she had. It was clear he wasn’t expecting anything remotely close to a proper fight, and that sparked something in Lennon. It made her angry. It made her want towin, not just to earn a bed in Logos but to make Ian eat the very words he’d forced into her mind.

Her hand tightened around the blade. Across the table, Ian—grimacing—gave her a curt nod. Emerson began to count: “One, two, three, four…”

Lennon pierced the knife between her fingers, firmly embedding the blade each time. The idea was to get used to the rhythm, to give herself over to the trance of it before she made any attempt to breach the confines of Ian’s mind. But her strategy was wholly based around the fact that Ian didn’t see her as a threat. He wouldn’t seize violentcontrol—he had no need to. She’d given every indication that she would surrender to him, which meant thatshehad the element of surprise. Not him. When Ian’s first move did come, it would likely be gentle—he didn’t want to hurt her; he’d made that clear. He was expecting nothing less than full compliance. But Lennon knew that the moment she fought back, or even raised her defenses, Ian would realize that she was contending with him, and the ruse would be broken.

She had to act fast, before he knew that she was fighting.

“One, two, three, four.”

Lennon summoned her strength, honed her focus—and drove her will toward Ian. She had intended a simple gesture, a jerk of the hand that would’ve done nothing more than clip the knuckle of his index finger. She was more stunned than horrified when the blade went through Ian’s hand—piercing cleanly between the tendons and pinning it to the tabletop. He didn’t scream, but his mouth wrenched open, and his good hand slithered from around the hilt of the knife and fell limp to his side. He stared—wide-eyed—at his own hand nailed down to the tabletop, the dark puddle of blood spilling out from under his palm and leaking through his fingers. Ian started to say something and passed out cold. His weight pulled against the knife blade, tearing the wound a little wider. Lennon sprang forward to help him, ripping the hilt free of his hand. Ian slumped low in his chair.

“Holy fuck!” Lennon shrieked, dizzy at the sight of what she’d done. “Help!Someone help him—”

But no one moved. Everyone remained frozen there. Even the logicians at the table looked on motionless and in shock. It was Emerson who broke the silence, staring at Lennon with narrowed eyes. “Congratulations on your acceptance to Logos.”

After the initiation,Lennon found her way upstairs to her new dorm in Logos House. It was dark, and she didn’t so much as flip on the lights before climbing into its one and only bed and losing herself to a dreamless slumber. She woke hours later, in the late morning, and by the light filtering in through the curtained windows, examined her new room. It was about half the size of the dorm she’d shared with Blaine, but better furnished. There were bookshelves bracketing the hearth, already filled with belongings from her dorm in Ethos College, though she hadn’t recalled anyone coming in last night. The wardrobe was similarly stocked; all of her clothes washed and freshly pressed, the collars starched, her shoes polished. There was a bathroom connected to the bedroom—another luxury—and judging by the narrow, locked door on the other side of it, Lennon guessed that she was meant to share it with just one of her peers. Quite the step up from the communal bathroom in Ethos College.

Mornings at Logos were quiet. In Ethos, each day had dawned with a ruckus, the frenetic energy of students stumbling out of bedand wolfing down breakfast and queuing up for the showers. Logos had no such commotion. In fact, as Lennon stepped out of her room, she found it almost eerie that the only discernible sound in the corridor, apart from her own footsteps, was that of the grandfather clock at its end, ticking. At the opposite end of that hall was a birdcage elevator, just like the one in Benedict’s house back in Utah. This came as something of a surprise—she’d wrongly assumed that the only working elevators in Drayton (apart from the one she’d created at random) were located in Irvine Hall.

As Lennon stood staring, the elevator gave a chime, and a cabin rattled to a shuddering stop behind the door of the birdcage. Emerson dragged back the grate and stepped into the hall. She was drenched—stooping beneath the dead weight of a waterlogged peacoat, her cheeks and nose red with cold. “Morning.”

“Is that…a gate?”

Emerson stepped past her, tracking mud onto the fine Turkish rug that ran the length of the corridor. “Yep. First one William ever raised, actually.”

Lennon, without thinking, followed Emerson like a duckling down the stairs. In the kitchen, gathered around a large butcher’s block of an island, sat a few senior members of Logos House—Claude and Kieran, among others—picking at the remnants of an elaborate breakfast. Blaine, however, stood over the sink, the sleeves of her shirt rolled up to the elbows, dutifully washing the dishes.

Lennon stalled, not knowing what to do. “Um, is Ian okay?”

“We took him to the infirmary last night. Latest update is that he’s been sent off campus for surgery.”

“Oh my god.” A wave of guilt washed over her. “I have to go to him—”

“No, you don’t,” said Kieran, biting down on a toast point with asatisfying crunch. He spewed crumbs when he spoke again. “He knew the game he was playing. You won, he lost. Let it go. He wasn’t good enough, and that’s why you’re here and he’s not.”

“Ian is the best in our class.”

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