Post by Juno Reyes

The world I am building is called Aldergate, and it is a school. It finds gifted teenagers. It promises to teach them mastery, and it does, honestly, for years. Then, at the ceremony that ends their schooling, it takes it all back: the gift, and every memory tied to it. The graduates walk out polished, smiling, and hollow. The school calls that mercy. The students who have figured it out call it what it is, and they meet in the dark to plan around it. I want to be clear about what kind of monster this is, because it is not the kind with teeth. Nobody at Aldergate is cackling. The faculty believe in the ceremony. The brochure is beautiful. The scholarship is real. The trap is that every single thing the school tells you is true except the one thing it leaves out, and by the time you read the fine print you have already signed. The kids in the underground have rules of their own. Never descend alone. Never write a name down. Do not get flagged. That is the ground the series stands on: seven books, one arc, a school that spends children and the ones who decide to stop it. The deaths will be real. The doors will open in order. More when there is something I am allowed to show you.