An Academy for Liars

A student will find that the hardest lessons sometimes come from outside the classroom in this stunning dark academia novel from the acclaimed author of Lennon Carter’s life is falling apart. Then she gets a mysterious phone call inviting her to take the entrance exam for Drayton College, a school of magic hidden in a secret pocket of Savannah. Lennon has been chosen because--like everyone else at the school--she has the innate gift of persuasion, the ability to wield her will like a weapon, using it to control others and, in rare cases, matter itself. After passing the test, Lennon begins to learn how to master her devastating and unsettling power. But despite persuasion’s heavy toll on her body and mind, she is wholly captivated by her studies, by Drayton’s lush, moss-draped campus, and by her brilliant classmates. But even more captivating is her charismatic adviser, Dante, who both intimidates and enthralls her. As Lennon continues in her studies, her control grows, and she starts to uncover more about the secret world she has entered into, including the disquieting history of Drayton College. She is increasingly disturbed by what she learns, for it seems that the ultimate test is to embrace absolute power without succumbing to corruption...and it’s a test she’s terrified she’s going to fail.

Auteur
Alexis Henderson is the author of House of Hunger and the Goodreads Choice Awards finalist The Year of the Witching. When she's not writing, you'll find her tending to an assortment of houseplants or nursing a hot cup of tea.

Échantillon de lecture
1

There was something in the bathroom mirrors. Lennon first noticed when she was standing between them, preparing for her own engagement party. One of the mirrors hung above the sink behind her; the other hung above the sink in front of her. Standing between the two, she gazed with glassy eyes at the reflections of herself reflecting one another, on and on, shrinking into the dark and distant ether.

Every one of them looked miserable, which was to be expected.

Lennon had realized some time ago that her misery was less a problem with the wedding than with her. She had been in a bad way for months-unmoored, discordant, occupying her own body with a sense of unease, the way one might in an airport terminal or the lobby of a rent-by-the-hour motel. Her own flesh and bone a kind of liminal space.

She'd hoped things would change with the engagement. So she'd attended the cake tastings and the dress fittings, and she'd made a deposit on the venue and secured a film photographer, who would be flying in from out of state for the occasion. She'd sent wax-sealed invites across the country to her family members and a few seat-filler friends. And now here she was, alone in her bathroom regretting everything and so desperate to be somewhere, anywhere, else that she would've almost rather died than face the engagement party outside her bedroom door. It was something of a miracle, then, that she finished her makeup. Her body seemed to perform the act without her, and when it was done, she stared at all of her faces in the mirror and saw someone, many someones, that she didn't know.

And then she slapped herself.

One hand raised-all of the other Lennons in the mirror raising their hands with her-and a sharp pop across her freshly blushed cheek. The slap carried down through the legion of her reflections and then stopped.

One of the Lennons in the mirror didn't strike its cheek. It didn't move at all really, except to smile, its lips pulling up at the edges, as if the corners of its mouth were attached to strings that had been sharply tugged. Then it sidestepped out of line, edging up through the ranks, walking toward her. It was like her in almost every way-bony bronzed arms sparsely tattooed, thin high nose spattered with freckles, long braids unfurling halfway down her back-but there was one glaring difference between Lennon and the defecting reflection in the mirror: she had eyes, but this . . . thing did not. It strode toward her, smiling all the while.

Lennon wheeled to face the mirror behind her, saw nothing except the same girl moving toward her, through the shifting ranks of the line. Panicked, she glanced around the bathroom but saw that she was alone.

The defector was edging closer now, stepping gingerly around its peers, sometimes weaving between them, letting its fingers trail along their bare shoulders as it passed them by. It stopped only when it'd reached the reflection nearest Lennon and stepped up onto its tiptoes so that it was an inch or two taller. The aberration in the mirror slid its hands around Lennon's waist from behind, the way that a lover might. It opened its mouth and pressed a kiss into the soft juncture where neck curves into shoulder.

Lennon stumbled, backing into the sink, arms wheeling, swiping a jar of cotton balls off the counter on her way to the floor. It shattered on impact beside her.

There was a beat of silence, followed by a knock at the door. She knew it was her fiancé, Wyatt, checking in on her. She was now more than an hour late to her own engagement party, and she could tell from the strained tenor of his voice that he was running out of patience. "Are you okay?"

"Yes, fine! I'll be out in a second." Gingerly, Lennon scooped up the glass shards and placed them in the trash, risking glances at the mirror all the while. The thing was gone, but she swore she could still feel the wet crescent of its kiss at the curve of her shoulder.

She scrambled to her feet and fled the bathroom.

The house was full of Wyatt's faculty friends from the university where he worked. One of them, a WASPy woman in a tasteful tweed blazer, abruptly stopped whispering when Lennon emerged from the bedroom. She bore the decided stink of significance, which to Lennon smelled a lot like Chanel No. 5. The woman looked at Lennon, slightly startled, as if she were an intruder instead of someone who lived there.

This was the uncomfortable reality of her life in Denver. The obligatory check-ins from vague acquaintances upon the event of a police murder, or the subsequent protests that followed it. The offhanded inquiries about the details of her DNA makeup, her nationality, her place of birth, the texture of her hair, and if it was really hers. Then there were the acquaintances at Wyatt's dinner parties who inquired about the color of her eyes and how she'd come by them and what or who she'd been crossed with. Then came the questions about her parentage, and her parents' parentage, because those same acquaintances now wondered if the parents of her parents had eyes the same muddy hazel as hers. It was a gentle othering, or perhaps more aptly, a distancing, that made Lennon feel it was impossible to connect with others in the close and complicated ways she wanted to. She'd since stopped trying.

Lennon, still badly shaken by her encounter in the bathroom, forced a smile and shouldered her way through the house, a midcentury-style ranch with an interior courtyard, complete with a cactus garden and a large koi pond stocked to capacity. Every year Wyatt forgot to remove the fish before the first freeze of winter. She remembered one of the first nights they'd spent in the house. There was a blizzard raging outside and they'd lost power and were forced to sleep on the floor of the living room, in front of the fireplace for warmth. Come dawn, Wyatt woke with a start and a muttered "Fuck."

He snatched a bucket from the supply closet, shuffled into the kitchen to fill it with warm water from the sink, and took a meat tenderizer from the drawer before staggering outside, trudging through calf-high snowdrifts to the very edge of the koi pond, where he dropped to his knees and began to hammer the thick crust of ice. He removed several heavy plates of ic…