Exclusive Excerpt: Alexis Henderson Tackles Dark Academia in An Academy for Liars
Alexis Henderson has already proven she can write dark historical fiction (The Year of the Witching) and disturbing horror (House of Hunger). But her latest novel will tackle all new territory for her, combining her penchant for genuinely creepy storytelling with the fascinating world of dark academia. A twist on the magical boarding school trope, An Academy for Liars follows the story of a down-on-her-luck young woman admitted to an institution known as Drayton College by way of a mysterious phone call she receives in a mall parking lot.
Hidden in Savannah, this seemingly age-old school of magic is home to a select group of students who are taught to harness their innate gifts of “persuasion”, an ability which technically isn’t mind control but isn’t that far off from it, either. The most skilled of practitioners can, allegedly, even use their abilities to “persuade” matter, and reshape reality itself.
For Lennon, adjusting to her new reality is challenging and learning to master her powers exhausting. But she’s determined to succeed, even as she begins to discover disturbing secrets about the secret world she’s willingly made herself part of.
Here’s how the publisher describes the story.
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.
An Academy for Liars won’t hit shelves until September 17, but we’ve got an exclusive look at the story for you right now—-a glimpse at Lennon’s first real test to become part of Drayton.
He was slim, and tall enough to need to duck a bit when he walked through the door. His jaw was sharp and faintly stubbled with the ghost of a beard, like he’d intended to shave that morning but had forgotten. His hair too was shorn short. His skin was a rich bronze. Lennon guessed he was about Wyatt’s age, give or take a few years. He was covered in tattoos. The backs of both of his hands were tattooed with moths, and the imagery was repeated on the hard planes of his neck. The moths on his hands had their wings, but a few of the ones on his neck had had their wings ripped from their thoraxes. The imagery was grotesque enough to make Lennon squirm.
The man drew the door shut, frowning slightly, his blunt brows drawn together. He made no apologies for his lateness. Barely registered Lennon when he spoke. “You have a name?” His voice bore what she guessed was a faint Brooklyn accent, though she wasn’t sure.
“It’s Lennon.”
His gaze flickered to her. He looked, for the briefest moment, startled. But he recovered himself quickly, extended a hand covered in tattoos. “Dante.”
Lennon shook it. His palm was calloused. “Nice to meet you.”
Dante walked to the desk at the head of the room and shrugged off his trench coat, draping it across the back of the chair. He set his briefcase on the floor beside the desk. His shoes were brown leather oxfords, mud stuck to the soles. He nodded to the other, smaller desk that stood opposite his. “Sit.”
Lennon obeyed, and stepped into the center of the room and slipped into her seat behind the desk. It was so small her knees pressed painfully against the underside of the tabletop. It seemed like it was built for a child.
Dante settled himself in the chair behind the desk and reached into the inner pocket of his blazer, withdrawing a crude, fat little pig figurine with three stubby legs (two in the front, one in the back) and deep holes for eyes. He set it down on the desk, facing Lennon. “This is the expressive portion of the entry exam,” said Dante. “Your task is to make me lift this figurine without leaving your desk or touching me. Understood?”
Lennon nodded, swallowed nothing. Outside, a drizzling rain began to fall, and the students gathered in the courtyard hastily collected their things and retreated indoors.
“Let’s begin,” said Dante.
Lennon blinked. At a loss, she said: “Um . . . would you lift the pig? Please?”
“I said make me lift it. Not ask me to.”
Lennon didn’t know what he meant by that (what was she supposed to do, produce a gun from thin air and order him to lift the pig with a finger hooked over the trigger?) but didn’t dare ask. Instead, she focused her attention on the pig, wondered at its origins. Its ears were perky, and Lennon imagined its creator forming them, carefully pinching wet clay between thumb and forefinger and affixing its curlicue tail before ushering it into the oven, where it would bake and blacken until the soft earth hardened into scorched terra‑cotta.
“You’re trying to reach me,” said Dante. “Not the pig.”
Lennon raised her gaze, observed him the way she had the photographs during the previous phase of the exam. The terrain of his face told stories. There was a silvery scar to the left of his cupid’s bow, near the corner of his mouth—a busted lip poorly stitched? Lennon couldn’t place his race but could tell that, like her, he was mostly Black but mixed with something else. White, maybe?
Dante endured her scrutiny without expression. His hands remained motionless, palms flush to the desk, flanking the pig figurine. But she noticed a slight fissuring in the stone façade of his expression. He looked almost . . . disappointed. He checked his watch; it was dull brass with a brown leather strap, and Lennon swore its face was painted to resemble a woman. “This is a waste of time.”
A sudden pang of anger pulsed through her, so sharp it snatched the breath right out of her lungs.
Everything, she realized then, had been leading up to this. This one chance at a success so great it could make up for her countless failings. All that stood between her and success was the smug man sitting in front of her and that fucking pig figurine. Lennon would make him lift it. She had to make him lift it. She refused to crawl back to Wyatt with her tail tucked between her legs, fresh off yet another failure. In the moment, her desperation grew so dire she felt like her survival and her success at Drayton were near synonymous. And though she didn’t know it then, she was right.
Lennon felt a kind of stirring, a trembling pressure that built be‑ hind her sternum, like the drone of bumblebees or a phone ringing on vibrate. It spread through her chest and into her limbs, numbing them, then traveled to her head, thrumming incessantly behind her eyes until her vision doubled, both Dante and the figurine standing on the desk in front of him duplicated, then tripled. Her nose began to bleed again, more profusely than it had the last time, spattering the desk, which was shuddering violently, both chair and table rattling in unison. But then she realized, with mounting horror, that it wasn’t the desk that was shaking . . . it was her.
Somewhere down the hall, or in the distant recesses of her own mind, she swore she heard the chime of an elevator’s bell.
Dante’s fingers twitched. He flexed them.
The seizing grew more severe, and Lennon feared she would be sick, or scream, or lose herself to the throes of a passion so complete she wasn’t sure she’d survive it. Passion turned to pain. Her ears began to ring, and she realized that this was the pain that Benedict had warned her of. She kept shaking and gripped the edges of the desk with white-knuckled desperation to keep herself from being thrown out of it.
Dante’s hand shifted across the desk, inching toward the figurine, and Lennon gritted her teeth so hard she thought the molars at the back of her mouth might crack. Her vision came back into focus and her shaking dulled to a tremor as she gazed into Dante’s eyes with silent urging. The intangible force of her will moving across the classroom.
The rain came down harder.
Dante’s hand peeled away from the desk and hovered, shaking, a few inches above the pig, then he seized it in a jerky motion reminiscent of an arcade claw machine fastening its metal fingers around a stuffed toy. He lifted the figurine a few inches above the desk, his eyes on Lennon, then dropped it abruptly as though it had burned him.
Excerpted from An Academy for Liars by Alexis Henderson Copyright © 2024 by Alexis Henderson. Excerpted by permission of Ace. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
An Academy for Liars will be released on September 17, but you can pre-order it right now.
Lacy Baugher Milas is the Books Editor at Paste Magazine, but loves nerding out about all sorts of pop culture. You can find her on Twitter @LacyMB