Page 71 of An Academy for Liars

He nodded. “They’re the same. This road just takes a different form. It makes it easier for cars to bridge the gap.”

They slowed as a second gate—identical to the one they’d just passed through—appeared at the end of the road. Behind it, a small parking lot came into view. The gate parted open for them and Dante turned off the moving road and they got out of the car, walked up a narrow path through the trees. From around a tight bend, Drayton came into view.

The campus was, perhaps, more beautiful than the memory of it that Lennon had carried with her over the winter break. The Twenty-Fifth Square was resplendent in the reddish light of sunset. The glistening Spanish moss, touched by sun, seemed almost gilded. The shock of the frost-kissed grass, the ice shattering beneath her loafers as she tramped through the Twenty-Fifth Square. She was home, and it felt good.

Dante left her just outside of Irvine Hall, with a hurried goodbye and something about a meeting that Lennon didn’t fully catch. So Lennon walked alone across the empty campus until she reached Logos House.

She was struck, suddenly, by how much she’d missed the place.

Lennon went up to her room to discover that it wasn’t as she’d left it. Her bed was freshly made, the sheets and blankets changed and laundered, the scent of detergent sharp on the air. At the foot of Lennon’s bed, lying on her quilt, was a leather folder, embossed with Drayton’s crest. Within was her schedule for the spring semester, which included a sampling of Drayton’s core curriculum classes—Metaphysics II, Persuasion II, and Meditation II—as well as courses like Persuasive Thought and Tactical Persuasion I, taught by Alec Becker, Ian’s advisor—who would’ve been Lennon’s too if she hadn’t convinced Dante to keep her on. Most of these courses took place in the evening or at night instead of the early morning. She would have to become a truly nocturnal creature this semester, to manage the rigors of her course load. This came as something of a relief to her, as she’d come to prefer working at night, if only because her insomnia had worsened considerably in the wake of Benedict’s death.

Blaine entered her room then—rosy-cheeked from the cold—and didn’t bother to set down her bags before collecting Lennon in a hard hug.

“I thought you were in the Maldives?” Lennon asked when they pulled away.

“I got seasick and came home early,” she said, and for some reason Lennon wasn’t sure that she believed her. “Yachting isn’t for me. Why are you back?”

“Long story not worth telling,” said Lennon.

She was surprised when Blaine didn’t press her. “Have you heard the news?”

“What news?” said Lennon, unpacking what few belongings she’d brought with her to Florida, stuffing clothes back into the drawers of her wardrobe.

Blaine’s voice dropped to a low whisper. “Claude was expelled.”

“Expelled?”

Blaine nodded gravely. “He had some sort of altercation with Dante at the end of last semester. Turned up to his office drunk, apparently.”

“Dante didn’t mention anything to me.”

“You were with Dante over the break?”

“Not over the break. But he came to pick me up from my parents’ house down in Florida.”

“Lennon.”

“It’s not how it sounds. I swear. Who told you all of this business about Claude being expelled?”

“I heard it from Kieran, but apparently Emerson knows more. She was in his office at the time. I don’t know, you’d have to ask her. She’s here if you want to. Apparently she and Yumi had it out and she came back to Drayton early, like us.”

So Lennon went to Emerson’s room to discover that she was hosting something of a Christmas cocktail hour. There were people—women mostly; women were always so drawn to Emerson—sitting cross-legged on the floor nursing mugs full of mulled wine. Cigarette smoke hung on the air in a bluish pall. Emerson, though, was seated at her desk, her back to most of the guests she was hosting. As Lennon stepped closer, she saw that Emerson was hunched over a spread of papers, weighted down with expensive-looking pens and mechanical drafting pencils. A redheaded girl who was decidedly not her girlfriend, Yumi, was grasping at her left shoulder, working out a knot.

“I take it you had a breakup over the holiday?” Lennon inquired. Though this wasn’t entirely surprising. On at least two occasions, Lennon had overheard Yumi and Emerson in the thick of a lover’s quarrel.

Emerson flashed her the middle finger without looking up from her desk. “What do you want, Lennon?”

“A second to talk, if you can spare it.”

Emerson glanced up from her work. In her left hand, she held a cigarette. There were bluish bags beneath her eyes, and her lips were badly chapped. “That depends upon what you want to talk about.”

“Claude’s expulsion.”

Emerson went back to her work, sheathing the cigarette between her lips. When she spoke, it wagged and rained ashes down onto her papers. “There’s nothing to talk about. He’s out.”

“What happened? Blaine said he had a clash with Dante.”

“He was clashing with everyone, as you well know.”

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