An Academy for Liars

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of graphic violence, death, substance use, and emotional abuse.

Lennon and Dante go to Cipher, an exclusive club, and Dante persuades the bouncer to let them in. Dante vaguely tells Lennon he has an errand to run. He goes to a room in the back of the club and meets with an older woman. Lennon can tell she is a persuasionist. She and Dante have a mental conversation that Lennon cannot decipher. Afterward, Lennon asks Dante about the woman, and Dante explains that Drayton, like all schools, needs donors, and the donors at Drayton ask for power in exchange for money. On their way out of the club, someone bumps into Lennon, and she drops the pig figurine Dante gave her during their first meeting. When she tries to crouch and pick it up, the crowd in the club begins to stampede.

Lennon realizes someone is persuading the crowd to stampede. She goes into her safehold, her childhood bedroom, in her mind. The boy from her dreams appears and tells her to use her persuasion to push the crowd away from her. She struggles to do so, but she manages to clear the room until it’s just her and Dante.