Page 87 of An Academy for Liars

“Lennon, am I clear?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” He got up and went to stand at the water’s edge. “Come here.”

Lennon stood and followed. The tide was out, and gentle waves licked the shore. It was a bright night, thanks to the near-full moon, its reflection shattering into bright shards of light on the black surf.

Dante cast a hand out, and Lennon watched, enthralled, as he held the little waves back, interrupting their rhythm for no more than a few moments, before releasing them again. “This is how I settle my mind when things start to feel like too much. Try it. Just focus on the water.”

Lennon did try, but the most she could do was send little ripples across the surface.

“How do you do it?” she asked him finally, exasperated by her own ineptitude. What was meant to ease her nerves had quickly devolved into a humbling lesson about brushing against the limits of one’s own power. But that was better than her wallowing in guilt. And perhaps that was Dante’s design.

Instead of explaining how to hold the waves back, Dante decided to show her. It was the first time that he had ever opened his mind to her, and what she experienced in those moments took her breath away: The scope of his power, the way that it expanded through the facets of reality itself. The fact that one man could extend a hand and just seize it all, like it was his.

There were figureson the shore when Lennon emerged from her tent the following morning. Nine of them, standing along the beach behind the house. Dante had eyes on them already. He was sitting near the ashes of last night’s fire, staring at them with his elbows braced on his knees.

“It seems we have a few uninvited guests waiting for us back home,” said Dante, and Lennon considered that word,home. It was a strange way to refer to a place she’d only been for a few weeks. But it didn’t feel facetious. She couldn’t deny that here, on what seemed like the very edge of the world with Dante, she felt safe in a way that she didn’t anywhere else. Not even Drayton.

Lennon came to stand beside him. The sun glared so sharply off the water that it almost hurt to look at it. “Do you think they’re from Drayton?”

Dante nodded. “When we go back, I want you to say as little as possible. And stick close to me, if you can, unless I tell you otherwise.”

“You don’t think they’re going to try to take me back to Drayton, do you?”

“I don’t know,” said Dante, his eyes narrowed against the sun.

They packed up in a rush, loaded the boat, and made their way back to the house. Upon docking the boat, they were approached by the men at the shore. Lennon recognized Professor Alec, who led the pack, and none of the other eight, though she could tell, immediately, that they were graduates of Drayton—something about their demeanor, the way they stood. On instinct, she firmed the walls of her mind against any potential invasions. But if the men were projecting their will, Lennon couldn’t feel it.

“Send the others away or we don’t speak,” said Dante to Alec, tying up the boat. She noticed, though, that Dante kept his speargun close, which she found almost funny because the real weapon was, of course, his mind. He was the best of all of them. Lennon guessed that with half a thought he could bring all the men on the beach to heel, with the exception of Alec, perhaps, who might be able to hold his own against Dante. But even then, for how long? No one was Dante’s equal, as far as Lennon was concerned, and the men who had come here today were more of an intimidation tactic than any tangible threat. At least, that’s what she wanted to believe.

Alec nodded to the other men, and they dispersed, disappearing around the sides of the house and back, no doubt, to their vehicles. When the last of them was gone, Dante motioned for Alec to follow him into the house, and Lennon trailed after them both.

“How do you like your eggs?” he asked Alec, gesturing for him to sit at the same breakfast table where he and Lennon had taken most of their meals thus far.

“Scrambled hard,” said Alec, and he settled himself, rather toocomfortably, in the chair that Lennon usually sat in. Lennon, not knowing what else to do, sat awkwardly beside him.

Dante nodded and began to crack a few eggs into a bowl one-handed, tossing the shells into the sink as he worked.

Alec appraised Lennon, giving her a small grin. “Well, you’ve done well for yourself. Haven’t you?”

Dante cut a glance behind him. “Alec.”

“What? She looks amazing. The ocean air must do her good.” Here, he shifted his attention to Dante. “Quite a stunt you pulled to get her here. Was it worth it?”

Dante didn’t deem that question worthy of an answer. He set two plates of breakfast on the table—one for Alec, his eggs scrambled hard like he’d requested, and one for Lennon, her eggs poached soft, the way she liked them. There was toast and fruit too.

“If I’d known you were coming, I could’ve prepared the guest room,” said Dante, sitting down.

“Oh, I won’t be long. I’m only here to impart two things, really. The first is for you.” He pointed at Lennon with his fork. “Ian’s been laid to rest. Or what remained of Ian anyway. I figured you’d want to know.”

Lennon had, actually. She’d thought about what had been done with his remains many times over the past few days, wondering how they’d spun the story of his gruesome death to inquiring students, or any family he had outside of Drayton. A part of her wanted to ask for more details, but she couldn’t think of a way to phrase the question without sounding mawkish or, worse yet, gloating.

“I’m truly sorry” was all Lennon could think to say in the moment. “I know you two were close—”

“I’ve had advisees before, and I’ll have advisees again,” said Alec, a dissonance between the coldness of the statement and the placidsmile he wore as he said it. “You owe me no apologies for his death. He did, however, have a family. A mother back in Ohio. A younger sister who misses her older brother very much. She’s eight years old. Too young to even process such a loss.”

Lennon thought of her own sister, Carly, and found it hard to breathe around the lump in her throat. “I didn’t know. He never mentioned them. What did you tell them?”

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