An Academy for Liars

Dante helps Lennon up and gets her to his car after she blacks out after seeing Dante’s son again. In the car, she confronts Dante for keeping the truth from her. He admits that he never found the right time to tell Lennon about his son. He says he began his affair with Eileen when he was 15 and she was his advisor. Lennon is horrified that Eileen violated Dante while he was a child, but he dismisses her concerns. Dante also confesses to being with Eileen six months prior, but not since his and Lennon’s relationship turned romantic. Lennon asks why he keeps secrets from her, and he says that he can’t give her what she wants, so their relationship should end. Lennon is shocked and hurt, telling Dante that she defended him to Claude when she didn’t have to and that maybe Claude was right.

Suddenly, a boy with a slashed throat appears in the middle of the road, and Dante swerves to avoid him. Lennon gets out of the car and finds the boy gone just as she realizes it’s the same boy whose face she saw in the aberration in Amsterdam. Dante says the boy is August, a former classmate of his. Lennon asks him more questions, but he refuses to answer, and they drive home in silence. Lennon goes to her room, and when she wakes, she finds a note saying Dante is gone and will return later. The phone rings repeatedly, and when Lennon answers, Carly says she kept digging on Dante and begs Lennon to meet her at a hotel in Savannah.

At the hotel bar, Carly reveals Dante’s past. He was born in Harlem with a redacted name to parents Loucille, or Lou, and Martin Fredericks. He was taken by CPS at age five after he showed up to school badly bruised. He didn’t say who did it, as he was mute for most of his childhood. He lived with his great-aunt Rosetta Lowe for a few years before he went back to his mother and his new stepfather, who was also abusive. His stepfather was found savagely beaten and nearly decapitated when Dante was nine. Dante was the only suspect, and he was sent to a juvenile detention center. While there, several of Dante’s fellow detainees started prison riots after claiming to hear Dante’s voice in their heads. Dante was put in solitary confinement until he was released under suspicious circumstances when he was 11. Less than a decade later, Dante graduated Drayton with his doctorate and bought the beach house on his great-aunt’s old property for $2 million—all when he was just 19. Carly’s research documents illustrate that Dante’s name has disappeared from the public record, even in newspaper articles. Lennon takes Carly’s memories of the interaction and Lennon’s request for her to dig into Dante. Carly’s nose begins to bleed, and she tells Lennon that Lennon ruins everything. Lennon agrees.

Lennon returns to her room in Dante’s house with Carly’s research documents. She spreads them out across the floor and wonders what else he’s hidden from her. Because of his violent past, Lennon becomes suspicious of Dante’s role in Benedict’s death. She realizes the one way to find out the truth is to open a gate into the past. She opens a gate to the past in Benedict’s house and steps through. Benedict greets her and offers her tea.

Lennon finds Benedict in the kitchen making two cups of tea. He enters Lennon’s mind, though his presence feels different from Eileen’s. He realizes Lennon is from the future and asks her what question she has for him. She asks him about August, and Benedict tells her that August was a kind, artistic boy who painted the portraits in Benedict’s house. He was a gatekeeper and was even more powerful than Lennon or Dante. Benedict trained Dante and August at the same time, but as August grew more powerful, he grew more violent and demented. When Benedict looked in his mind, he saw that August had a psyche like a serial killer. Disturbed, Benedict sought psychological help for August, but nothing worked. He asked Eileen to expel August, but she was too greedy for August’s power. Benedict did the only thing he could think of: He made Dante, whom August trusted, kill him. Lennon realizes with horror that this is the crime Claude referred to. Benedict says that Lennon is dangerous and sick like August, and he begins to enter Lennon’s mind and tries to kill her. Lennon pushes back and realizes she has to stop Benedict. She sees a letter opener nearby and persuades Benedict to slit his wrists.

After Benedict’s death, Lennon returns to the present. In her room, Carly’s papers are still on the floor while Dante sits on the bed. He beckons Lennon to sit by him. She asks if he knew that she killed Benedict. Dante says he had his suspicions, but he knows that Lennon had to do it. He didn’t know that Benedict wanted to kill Lennon.

Lennon tells Dante she knows about August. Dante reveals that the abominations and images of August are Dante’s own psyche manifesting a type of panic attack and making the ghosts real and tangible. Dante’s episodes have been getting worse, and he worries his mind is turning against him. Lennon promises to help him stay himself. They are interrupted by the phone ringing, and Dante tells Lennon the quakes are worsening, and they must return to Drayton.

Dante drives them back to Drayton in his car. When they arrive on campus, Dante tells Lennon to go to Logos and keep a low profile. At Logos, she’s welcomed back by Sawyer, Kieran, and Blaine, all of whom are happy to see her despite what happened with Ian.

Before long, a giant quake hits campus, and as the students flee Logos, Lennon is separated from Blaine. She sees Blaine running toward the Chancellor’s Mansion, and Lennon follows her. In the mansion, Lennon sees a hallway of doors. As she opens each door, she sees different places, and Lennon realizes they are doors to memories—this is an incredible feat of persuasion. At the end of the hallway, Lennon opens a door and sees Blaine crouched over an elderly man who is hooked up to many machines. As he takes a shuddering breath, the house breathes with him—this is exactly like what Lennon noticed when she was intoxicated. She realizes the man is William Irvine, and the gates will stay up at Drayton only as long as he is alive. When he dies, Lennon will take his place. She asks Blaine why she didn’t tell her, and she realizes Blaine is tied and cannot physically tell her. Blaine struggles but manages to write a note saying “run.”

Lennon runs down the hallway as it seems to grow longer in front of her. She finds a door that feels unlike a gate and goes through it. She finds a stairwell and hopes to escape, but she sees Dante. She asks him if he knew, and he says he did. Lennon’s heart aches as she realizes Dante’s betrayal. She asks how William is still alive, and Dante explains that like the school, the mansion exists in a pocket of time, which has elongated William’s lifespan. However, using persuasion so intensely tortures William, and he will soon die and the gates will fall. Eileen arrives and tells Dante to hurry. Another quake hits, and Dante shields Lennon with his body. He begins to persuade Lennon to become unconscious as she begs him not to. She goes limp in his arms as an elevator appears and opens and shuts its doors futilely.

Lennon wakes up tied to a desk. Dante tries to comfort her as she cries; he tells her that she must raise the gates as they’ve practiced. Dante is called out to see Eileen, and when he leaves, Lennon uses her will to summon the rats out of the practice lab. The horde of rats comes to Lennon, and Gregory leads them in chewing Lennon free of her binds. Lennon runs to escape before she’s stopped by Becker, who attacks her. As he tries to stop her, the rats attack him. Lennon runs again, guided by Blaine who warns her that Logos is crawling with faculty, so she should run to a gate on another side of campus. Lennon tries to make it through the gate with Blaine’s help, but Becker stops her, causing her intense pain. Sawyer, Blaine, Kieran, and Emerson attack Becker while Lennon tries to run. Nadine appears, intent on vengeance for Ian’s sake. She stabs Lennon, but Lennon summons an elevator and escapes. However, as the elevator falls, someone manipulates it and it fills with water; Lennon struggles to breathe until she blacks out.

Lennon regains consciousness in Eileen’s office as she vomits up water. Eileen wants to use Lennon to raise the gates; Eileen cannot access the power herself and can only work through Lennon. Lennon resists, and Eileen threatens to torture Dante if she doesn’t comply. Lennon is confused, and Eileen reveals that Dante helped with her escape. Eileen and the other faculty use their will on Dante, hurting him severely, as Lennon tries to stop it. Eileen continues to push her will at both Dante and Lennon while Dante tries to stop her. Lennon goes to her mental stronghold, her childhood bedroom, but Eileen pushes a tree through the wall. Then, Lennon finds herself in Dante’s house as Eileen’s will manifests as a storm on the sea. Lennon pushes Eileen out of her mind, and she sees the office again, with Dante laying on the ground, barely alive. Lennon looks to the window and sees her own reflection—the aberration. It laughs, and Lennon laughs. They move in tandem as Lennon takes a bronze bust of a young boy from Eileen’s desk and beats Eileen violently with it. Dante stops her before Becker arrives. Lennon summons an elevator, and she and Dante leave.

Lennon’s gate takes her and Dante to the Logos foyer. Sawyer, Blaine, Kieran, and Emerson greet them, happy to see Lennon. Lennon is grateful for their help, and she realizes that as much as she feels like a murderer, she’s also the defender of those she loves. She wonders if she was destined to come to Drayton and if the gates are her way to atone. Dante tells her to raise the gates and use them as leverage for power. Lennon says she can’t, but Dante assures her they can do it together. Kieran guides them through the secret tunnels beneath Drayton back to the Chancellor’s Mansion. Lennon needs to be there when William dies to prevent the gates from falling and revealing Drayton to the world. Becker tries to stop them, so Kieran, Sawyer, and Emerson help distract and stop him before he can hurt Dante and Lennon.

Dante, Lennon, and Blaine reach William’s bedroom. Blaine stops William’s heart with a technique Dante taught them in Persuasion I, and when the gates begin to fall, Lennon raises them up again, putting a giant elevator around the entirety of Drayton while siphoning Dante’s power. Dante bleeds profusely and his legs and hands break as Lennon takes from him until the giant elevator stops falling and the gates are up. Then, the Chancellor’s Mansion begins to collapse around them. Dante begins to die, falling out of consciousness after he tells Lennon to use her leverage to find power and freedom. Lennon screams for Dante as Blaine drags her out. Lennon watches Dante smile as the bedroom collapses around him with a flash of gold light. Blaine and Lennon make it to the lawn before the entire house implodes.

Days later, Lennon wakes in the infirmary. She sees much of the campus is destroyed and must be rebuilt. She goes to Eileen’s office and wields her power, relishing in Eileen’s fear of her. Lennon tells Eileen that she has to listen, or she’ll drop the gates and reveal Drayton to the world. Eileen will return home and stay under house arrest until her son turns 18, at which point she’ll spend the rest of her life alone in rural Wyoming. Eileen cannot harm her son or anyone else via persuasion again. As Eileen tries to argue, Lennon forces her into an elevator back to her home. Lennon also gets rid of Becker and much of the other faculty, letting them turn on each other until few are left. She then selects Emerson as the new vice-chancellor, gives tenure to Blaine, and gives the library to Sawyer. She offers Kieran tenure, but he decides to live outside of Drayton.

Lennon goes to live at Dante’s house, placing a permanent elevator gate to allow her power to flow to Drayton. She lives in a haze of depression, even burning her diploma and the letter that announces she is the new chancellor. At Christmas, Sawyer, Blaine, Emerson, and Kieran bring Christmas dinner. They drink champagne and all fall asleep in Lennon’s room. Blaine reminds her that there can be a life without Dante, and Lennon says she can’t move on because she never saw Dante’s body. As she falls asleep next to Blaine and Sawyer, she pictures Dante’s final moments: his smile, and the gold light.

The next day, after Lennon’s friends leave, she tries to open a door to the past. With much of her power flowing to Drayton, it’s more challenging than before. It takes Lennon months to open a gate to the night Dante escaped prison. She manages to persuade the guards to let her in, but Dante’s cell is empty, with only a moth flying near the singular light.

The next day, she opens a gate to a balmy Brooklyn afternoon. She sees children running in the spray of a fire hydrant and then sees a man hunched on a bench. She realizes the man is Dante. She goes to him and asks why he didn’t tell her that he planned to save her life. He says that she would’ve stopped him. Lennon says she isn’t there to say goodbye but to bring Dante back. He tells her that he’s tired, and Lennon realizes that Dante has to choose to live for himself. She tells him that she’s going to open an elevator, and he can either stay or come with her. Lennon opens the elevator, gets in, and just as it’s about to close, Dante throws himself in with her.