Lame and suddenly orphaned, Kira is mysteriously removed from her squalid village to live in the palatial Council Edifice, where she is expected to use her gifts as a weaver to do the bidding of the all-powerful Guardians.

In this novel that unites characters from "The Giver" and "Gathering Blue, " Matty, a young member of a utopian community that values honesty, conceals an emerging healing power that he cannot explain or understand.

Given his lifetime assignment at the Ceremony of Twelve, Jonas becomes the receiver of memories shared by only one other in his community and discovers the terrible truth about the society in which he lives.