Summary

As the novel opens, Rowan is walking to school with friends in Eden, the self-contained city where they live. Rowan's memories have been altered so that she believes she is Yarrow, a privileged, wealthy teenager who is the daughter of Chief Ellena, a high-ranking government official. (For the sake of clarity in this novel, Rowan is referred to as Rowan rather than Yarrow, except in direct quotes.) Pearl is the official “chancellor” of Oaks, the elite boarding school they attend. Rowan is her unofficial second-in-command. The girls, along with their friends Lynx and Copper, are dressed in elaborate outfits that barely meet the school's uniform regulations. Rowan runs through a series of thoughts as she walks, from Pearl's dress to the fact that the Earth's total population is now about a million people. She knows that Pearl's goal is to literally control the...