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tinge. Lily once told me she heard that Dr. Steele is addicted to opiates, and it washes out all of his natural coloring.
    â€œAnd now, ladies,” Dr. Steele says in a frail, whispery voice, “it is time to depart.”
    He waves a long-fingered hand, and the doors on the steam engine open with a loud hissing sound. The surrogates begin to file into the carriages. I look back and see Mercy dabbing her eyes, and Patience looking as placid as ever. I see the rose-shaped bars on the windows of the dormitories, set in the pale pink stone of the holding facility. I see the faces of the other surrogates, the girls who will go back inside once this train leaves and never think of us again. My gaze falls on a twelve-year-old girl with bulging brown eyes. She is so thin, and clearly malnourished; she must be new. Our eyes meet, and she crosses the fingers on her right hand and presses them against her heart.
    I step into the carriage and the doors close behind me.
    T HE CARRIAGES ARE AS DEVOID OF PERSONALITY AS OUR bedrooms at Southgate.
    Purple curtains cover the windows, and a bench hugs the walls of the rectangular space, lined with plum-colored cushions. There are only seven of us in this particular carriage, and for a moment, we stand awkwardly in the sparse compartment, not quite sure what to do.
    Then the train lurches forward and we break apart. Raven, Lily, and I take a spot in one corner. Raven pushes back the curtains.
    â€œAre we allowed to open them?” Lily asks in a hushed voice.
    â€œWhat are they going to do?” Raven says. “Shoot us?”
    Lily bites her lip.
    The ride to the Jewel takes two hours. It’s dizzying, how quickly the certainty in my life dwindles. I’m certain this train will take us through the Farm, the Smoke, and the Bank, to the Auction House in the Jewel. I’m certain that I’ll go to a prep room, then to a waiting room, then to the Auction. And that’s it. That’s all I have left. The unknown stretches out in front of me like a vast, blank sheet of paper.
    I stare out the window, watching the mud-brick houses flash past, dark brown against the pale gray sky.
    â€œIt really isn’t much to look at, is it?” Raven says.
    I kick off my shoes and tuck my legs under me. “No,” I murmur. “But it’s home.”
    Raven laughs. “You are so sentimental.”
    She puts on a good show, but I know her too well. She’ll miss it. “How was your Reckoning Day?”
    She shrugs, but her mouth tightens. “Oh, fine, you know, my mother was over the moon about how healthy I looked, and how tall I was, and how excited I must be to see the Jewel. As if I’m going on a vacation or something. Yours?”
    â€œWhat about Crow?” I ask. Crow is Raven’s twin brother.
    She untucks her hair from behind her ear, letting it fall to cover her face. “He barely spoke to me,” she mumbles. “I thought . . . I mean, I didn’t . . .” She shrugs again. “He doesn’t know how to talk to a surrogate, I guess.”
    I try to remember what I thought about the surrogates, before I knew I was one. I remember thinking that they were something other, that they were special. Special is just about the last thing I feel right now.
    At that moment, Lily begins to sing. Her small hand wraps around mine, her eyes bright as she watches the Marsh pass by us. Her voice is sweet and she sings a traditional Marsh-song, one we all know.
    â€œCome all ye fair and tender ladies
    Take warning how you court young men . . .”
    Two other girls join in. Raven rolls her eyes.
    â€œIt doesn’t really suit the moment, does it?” she mutters.
    â€œNo,” I say quietly. “It doesn’t.” Most of the Marsh-songs are about girls who either die young or get rejected by their lovers—they don’t really apply to us. “But it’s nice to hear it, all the