Lennon drives away from the party in Wyatt’s Porsche 911. The car was a gift from his father, and Wyatt never let Lennon drive it. He always treated Lennon with uncertainty, not trusting her with much. Lennon reaches an abandoned parking lot and contemplates overdosing on Wyatt’s blood thinners to end her own life. However, she sees an abandoned phone booth and feels the urge to go toward it as the phone begins to ring. When she answers, a voice tells her she’s been accepted to the interview stage of the application process to Drayton College, but Lennon has never heard of the school. The voice tells her to go to the interview in Ogden, Utah, the following day. Shocked, Lennon then hears her own voice tearfully telling her that Wyatt will never love her the way she deserves. Lennon thinks it’s the reflection from the mirror talking to her, but the original voice returns to wish her good luck before the line goes dead.

Lennon drives through the night to reach Ogden, stopping only to change her clothes and use the bathroom. She avoids looking in the rearview mirror more than she has to, afraid of her reflection’s return. She has many missed calls and texts from Wyatt, her mother, and her sister Carly, but she continues on her journey without responding. She cannot understand how the voice on the phone morphed into her own voice or how the phone rang with a call just for her as soon as she arrived at the parking lot. She feels uncertain, but this lets her know she’s not having a manic episode, as those are marked by feelings of certainty.

Lennon arrives at a seemingly rundown house in Ogden. She takes a crowbar from the trunk of the car before knocking on the door. A man answers and introduces himself as Benedict. He takes the crowbar from Lennon and invites her in, giving her vague details about Drayton College and asserting that the first test began at Lennon’s birth. He says the second test is the interview, and the last is an exam. He offers Lennon food, and though she tries to resist, he insists she’ll need it for the interview and for the pain, which confuses Lennon. She looks at a portrait with a strange smear over the face, which Benedict says a former student made of him. Lennon eats the pasta Benedict serves her, and he then begins to ask her questions. He knows her family was the first Black family to move into her neighborhood in Brunswick, Georgia, and that her father was a history teacher. He also knows that her parents were birdwatchers and that Lennon’s father taught her to crush the eggs of starlings and to snap the necks of the ones that had hatched, because starlings are vermin and a menace to other birds.

Benedict continues to prod Lennon, asking her if she would step aside on a path if another person was walking at her. She answers that she would. He then questions her about the end of her relationship with Wyatt, silently offering her a tissue when she tears up while discussing her moment of suicidal ideation; she admits that she’s had similar thoughts before. Benedict tells her that she’s passed her interview and can go on to the exam, though it may be painful. Lennon decides that she wants to continue, so he tells her to go to the eighth floor of the house, which confuses Lennon because the house looked only two-stories tall from the outside.

Lennon goes down the hall and finds a rickety elevator. She takes it to the eighth floor, which opens to another painting in the same, strange style as the portrait downstairs. A secretary leads her through a building with stained glass windows that overlook a campus; Lennon notices that it is similar in architectural style to the ivy-covered phone booth where she received her call. She realizes the elevator has taken her somewhere new. She arrives at a lecture hall where other people are waiting to take the test, including a blonde woman whom Lennon decides to befriend if she passes the exam. There are six proctors in the room, one of whom introduces herself as Eileen, the vice-chancellor of Drayton. She tells the group that they’ve been in the testing process since birth, and this written multiple-choice exam, followed by an expressive interview, is the final step. She tells the group to begin.

Lennon finds the test difficult, as the questions ask her to discern the emotion behind photographs of strangers and abstract art. As she takes the test, her nose begins to bleed. When she finishes, she’s sent to a private testing room with a man who introduces himself as Dante. He has moth tattoos on his hands and neck, some of which have had their wings ripped off, which Lennon finds unnerving. He tells her that her expressive interview task is to force him to pick up a pig figurine. Lennon asks him to pick it up, and he reminds her that she must make him do it. Lennon focuses on the figurine, then on Dante, and when he gets up to leave, she focuses with more fervor, realizing this is her chance to finally achieve something. She makes Dante lift the pig and then collapses in exhaustion. Dante welcomes her to Drayton.

Lennon has seizures after the entrance exam. She wakes after a strange dream about her eyeless reflection and following a boy as he knocks on doors on the Drayton campus until his knuckles split open. When she wakes, another Drayton student, a second year named Sawyer, sits in a chair watching her. He advises her to wait for the doctor, but Lennon gets up to shower in the bathroom. When she looks in the mirror, the strange reflection does not appear, and she notices that she looks healthier than before her arrival at Drayton. She finds her clothes waiting for her, freshly laundered. She then speaks with Dr. Nave, who tells her that she had four seizures, including one grand mal. He also reminds her that she was able to force Dr. Lowe, or Dante, to pick up the pig figurine, which is impressive, given Dante’s level of will. Dr. Nave does not explain how Lennon was able to do it, and she remains confused.

Lennon goes to the orientation meeting, and Eileen invites her to sit as she begins a slide show. Eileen explains that her great-great grandfather John Drayton founded Drayton College, turning the Drayton Mansion of Drayton Square into a school and haven for war orphans in the wake of the Civil War. Eileen takes pride in her ancestor’s abolitionist views and his goal of making his students embody the Socratic Ideal of a good man whose charisma and great mind could help prevent war. Eileen says that Drayton sought exceptional boys from all over the world to fill his school, but Lennon notices in a photo in the slideshow that all the boys were white, except for one, who was barefoot and wore a shirt that was too big.

John Drayton then discovered that some people were more capable than others of persuading the natural world to bend to their will, and Eileen clicks to a slide of one boy seemingly manipulating other students and another boy levitating a piece of chalk. This discovery of the power of persuasion attracted the notice of powerful forces, so Drayton enlisted the help of a student named William Irvine, who had the power to create entire worlds. Irvine used his power to take the 25th Square of Savannah, Georgia—Drayton Square—and erase it from the memories of people, historical records, and from reality itself. The only people who know about the 25th Square are the descendants of Drayton and the pupils of the school. Irvine died protecting Drayton, and within its safe walls is where Lennon and the others will begin their study of persuasion.

After the assembly, some older students lead the first years to Ethos College, where they will be living. Ethos College comprises four conjoined townhomes with stained glass windows on a green overlooking magnolia trees. Lennon approaches the welcome desk in the foyer and meets Allison, who explains the three colleges at Drayton: Ethos, the girls’ dorm, Pathos, the boys’ dorm, and Logos, the dorm for exceptional students who are afforded special privileges. Students may only enter Logos at the invitation of a resident, so most Drayton students have never even seen the inside.

Lennon goes to her room and finds that her roommate is the blonde girl from the entrance exam, who introduces herself as Blaine. They exchange stories about how they came to Drayton. Blaine was working as a hospice nurse in Chicago when she received a call with her dead grandfather’s voice telling her to go to a diner. At the diner, Blaine had her interview with an older woman, who then told her to take the L train to a stop that didn’t exist—this stop led her to Drayton. Blaine’s expressive interview task was to make a man slap himself, but she was only able to make his finger twitch. However, this was enough to grant her admission to Drayton. Lennon is confused, as she was able to successfully make Dante pick up the figurine. Lennon then finds a letter on her bed from the chancellor. It explains Drayton’s history, and it also contains her class schedule, which includes courses on abnormal psychology, ethics, mindfulness and meditation, and the study of persuasion. Blaine explains that her advisor, Eileen, told her that first years do not choose their own classes. Lennon also sees she has a meeting with her advisor, Dante, at 2:30 pm. It is already 2:42 pm, and she’s late.

Dante seems to have no knowledge of his scheduled meeting with Lennon as she interrupts him leaving his office. He leads her down a hallway to a waiting room where other students—two boys and a girl wearing matching blue jackets with an emblem of an ouroboros—sit talking in hushed whispers. Dante tells Lennon to wait with them. Lennon listens as the students, who are named Kieran, Yumi, and Adan, discuss who they’re voting for. They ask Lennon about any standout talents in the first-year class, but Lennon doesn’t know. They ask who her advisor is and are shocked when she states it’s Dante; they say he’s only taken on one student named Emerson before.

Dante reappears and takes Lennon to his office. He orders sandwiches for them, even though Lennon claims she’s not hungry. Lennon asks Dante if persuasion is magic, and Dante says that many people have differing opinions, but he views it as a sign of the strength of human will. Most students can persuade others to do certain actions, but a special few can persuade matter itself, and these students end up in Logos. Dante crosses out an ethics class on Lennon’s schedule and replaces it with an art class. Then, he gives her a sandwich for the road and sends her out. Before she leaves, the pig figurine ends up in her hand, and Lennon isn’t sure who persuaded whom.

Lennon attends the convocation cocktail hour on the lawn. Though the event is rowdy, the first years keep to themselves awkwardly in small groups. There aren’t many of them, and Lennon will later find out that the first years who failed the test awoke in their own beds, thinking their experience at Drayton was just an odd dream. Lennon scans the crowd finding and talking to a man named Ian. She’s attracted to Ian’s “bad boy” looks, and as they talk, she realizes he’s unkind and insecure—typical of the men she’s drawn to. They have sex, not in their dorms in Pathos or Ethos, but outside in the dark. Afterward, Lennon lies that it was fun, and Ian leaves.

Lennon goes to a phone booth and calls Wyatt. She asks him about Sophia, and when he doesn’t answer, she admits she saw them together. He offers to go to couple’s therapy and begs her to come home. Lennon realizes she’s never had so much power over him, and she’s never wanted him less. Before hanging up, she tells him she’s at school and may never come back. She then sees Dante stumbling across the lawn before falling down, and they make eye contact before Dante smiles at her oddly and gets up and walks away.

Lennon wakes up hungover and is late to her first meditation class. The other first years are already sitting in a circle as their professor Dr. Lund guides them through meditation exercises. Ian asks if they will learn persuasion in their meditation class, and Dr. Lund chastises him, stating that meditation leaves the mind vulnerable and any student who tries to use persuasion during this course will be expelled. After a series of mindfulness exercises, Dr. Lund tells the students to furnish their room with three items and to bring the items with them next time.

The first years go to lunch together. A tearful student named Nadine reveals she almost became a nun before coming to Drayton, and she believes her attendance at Drayton is God’s plan for her. The other students also reveal that their advisors have promised them different outcomes after their attendance at Drayton, from congressional seats to high-powered jobs to tenured professorships at Drayton itself. Lennon is upset that she was offered nothing by Dante and wonders what that says about her. Ian points out that none of them are special, as he worked at a convenience store before Drayton, Lennon is a college dropout, and Nadine was just a nun. Lennon wonders aloud if their abilities are what make them special.

Persuasion is Lennon’s final class of the day. On each desk is a cage with a live rat inside. Dante is the professor for the course, and he instructs the students to build a good rapport with their rat, as they will be practicing persuasion on their rat for the entire semester. He also discusses what persuasion is, illustrating that each creature on earth is capable of persuasion; newborns cry to persuade others to help them, for example. Lennon attempts to persuade her rat, a small creature whom she names Gregory, but she begins to panic. She leaves the classroom, and Dante follows her. He assures her that persuasion is morally neutral, not something evil that she is doing to Gregory. He promises her that the rats are well taken care of and were spared from being pet food for snakes. He assures Lennon that her moral qualms are a good thing that illustrate she will utilize her powers for good, which is necessary to stop persuasion from people with darker intentions. Dante encourages Lennon to get out of her own way, and Lennon agrees to go back to class.

When Lennon gets back to her room, Blaine is gone. Not wanting to be alone, she goes to Ian’s room in Pathos. They debate the ethics of experimenting on rats, and Ian says rats are disgusting. He tells Lennon he once saw a rat king—a collection of rats tied together by filth that begin to function as one organism. Ian thinks humans are superior to rats, and he believes that he is good at persuasion and nothing else. Without Drayton, he says, he would’ve drunk himself to death while working at the convenience store. He asks Lennon if she wants to have sex; if not, he wants to sleep. They have sex and fall asleep. Lennon dreams, and she realizes she’s dreaming someone else’s dream as a boy knocks on doors until his knuckles bruise. This is the same dream she had after her seizures. No one answers the door for the boy.

The weeks of the semester pass by in a blur of studying and tests. Lennon has trouble lulling Gregory into catatonia, and Dante tells her that she doesn’t want it enough. She tries to focus but gets a nosebleed. In her room afterward, Blaine tries to encourage Lennon and then gets her an invite to a Logos party. Lennon is hesitant to attend, but Blaine convinces her. Blaine dresses Lennon and does her makeup, and they head to Logos. Lennon recognizes the house from her dreams and the ouroboros logo from the blazers of the students in the waiting room. Lennon sees Nadine and Ian at the party, as well as Sawyer. She then sees Emerson, Dante’s other advisee, who is the president of Logos. Emerson introduces herself to Lennon before Lennon joins Sawyer in a corner, hiding from social interaction. Kieran gives them psychedelic mushrooms, and after some debate, Sawyer and Lennon decide to imbibe.

Afterward, they walk around the courtyard discussing their pasts. Sawyer was a librarian before Drayton, and like Lennon, he grew up as the only non-white kid in his town, as his mother was a Taiwanese immigrant. Lennon tells Sawyer about her past with Wyatt and Colorado. Sawyer asks her what she wants now, and Lennon says she wants to matter and be significant without hurting anyone else. The mushrooms make her feel relaxed and at one with nature; suddenly, her reverie is broken by the bell of an elevator. She and Sawyer see that a garden shed has transformed into an elevator, and the doors are open. The lullaby Lennon’s mother used to sing to her emanates from the elevator, so Lennon knows it’s for her. Despite Sawyer’s protestations, she steps inside, and the doors snap shut.