In the Valta, no matter what month you were born, everyone is assigned the same birthday. November 1st. It's the anniversary of the day when the government declared war on the Eastern Order. The day you turn seventeen, the Recruiters come to take you away. And no one ever hears from you again.

It's October 31st. Today, Kress is sixteen years old. Tomorrow, she'll be taken.

The good news? So will her best friend Cardyn, and Brohn, the handsome, enigmatic boy she's avoided all her life. The bad news? Recruitment isn't what any of them expected.

Weeks of training await. Military and psychological tests, escape rooms, hand-to-hand combat. The Recruits are told they're the key to winning the war. But with each day that passes, things begin to make less sense.

If only Kress had been able to bring her trained raven, Render, with her. If only none of them had ever had to come to this place.