Crossed characters

Appears from the start

Known from earlier: Cassia's closest friend and the boy the Society officially Matched her with, confident, well liked, and left behind in the province when her family was demoted and she arranged her own reassignment.

Appears from the start

Known from earlier: Cassia's grandfather, killed on his eightieth birthday as the Society's rules require, who secretly left her two poems that were never among the hundred the Society preserved.

Appears from the start

One of the two narrators. Sent to the Outer Provinces as an Aberration, he is quartered in a village with other boys who have been given uniforms and no working weapons. He knows exactly what they are for and says very little about it. Watchful, self-contained and determined to keep the youngest of them alive, he has spent his life learning how to survive being noticed.

First appears in chapter 2

The other narrator. She engineered her own transfer to a work camp near the Outer Provinces so that she could get close to Ky, and she is now doing hard labour under guard, trading on the one thing she owns outright, a memory full of forbidden poems. Her certainty about the Society is gone; what she has instead is a plan and very little information.

First appears in chapter 3

An older boy sent to the Outer Provinces alongside Ky, capable, blunt and better than anyone at working out what the officers are actually doing. He has his own reasons for hating the Society and does not talk about them at first.

First appears in chapter 3

The youngest of the boys sent out as decoys, small enough that his presence there is obviously indefensible. Ky has taken responsibility for him without being asked.

First appears in chapter 4

A girl from Cassia's work camp who escapes with her into the canyons. Fearless, resourceful and almost impossible to read, she takes what is useful without apology and explains herself only when it suits her.

First appears in chapter 20

One of the farmers, a community that lived in the canyons outside the Society's reach. He stayed behind when the others left, and he knows the Carving better than anyone alive. Grieving, unpredictable and openly contemptuous of everything the Society claims to offer.

First appears in chapter 22

Hunter's young daughter, one of the graves left behind when the farmers abandoned their settlement in the canyons.

First appears in chapter 52

The leader of the Rising, known to its members only by the title. For almost everyone in the rebellion the Pilot is a voice, a promise and a legend rather than a person anyone has met.