Glass and the seven other girls seized from the camp stood in a long row. In their newly issued white dresses, they looked like the spokes of the picket fence Luke had built around their cabin.

They’d been led from the den through a series of winding, crumbling hallways into a vast, empty hall. Huge chunks of the ceiling and walls were missing, and early-morning sunlight pooled on the floor. A few flowering trees grew out of the cracks in the cement, filling the air with a subtle, sweet fragrance. In another situation, it might’ve seemed pretty, or at least striking, but the longer Glass spent at the Stone, the more her stomach filled with dread. She wasn’t sure what was going on here, but it all felt very, very wrong.

“What are they going to do to us?” Octavia whispered to her.

“I don’t know,” Glass said, glancing around nervously.

A blond woman in her late twenties, wearing a gray tunic dress, walked up and down the line, inspecting the girls. With each tiny frown or eyebrow raise, Glass grew more anxious. She didn’t know what they were being evaluated on, and even worse, she didn’t know whether it was better to fail or succeed.

The woman in gray reached Glass, looked her up and down, then peered into Glass’s eyes, unblinking. Glass wasn’t sure what to do except stare back. But it felt so intrusive, so personal, she could only hold the woman’s gaze for a second before averting her eyes.

The woman had already moved on to Octavia before Glass had a chance to gauge her reaction, beyond a vague sense that it had not gone well. But should she be upset or relieved? What was the point of impressing these people?

Survival, came the answer. It was like she was on autopilot, feeling nothing but a stark determination to do whatever it took to get out of here. To get back to the camp. To get back to Luke.

When the line of girls started to move, it took a glance of warning from Octavia for Glass to realize she needed to follow.

“We’re going on a tour of the Stone before your cleansing,” the blond woman called out. “Soren wishes for you to get a feel for your new home, now that you’re staying with us.”

“Staying with them?” Lina whispered from behind Glass. “They make it sound like we’re guests.”

Glass nodded, but said nothing, not wanting to incur the wrath of the woman who was already watching them suspiciously.

“This is the scullery,” the woman called from the front of the line, as they wound their way down a corridor.

They passed a bombed-out, windowless space, and Glass got a view of a few red-faced women in white dresses scrubbing earthenware on one side and clothing on the other side in giant, steaming pots. Something to look forward to.

The woman stopped, hand raised, and nodded into the room. “Tomorrow, all of you will take a turn with each of our tasks and will be given a position based on aptitude.”

Octavia scoffed quietly beside Glass. “Right. Aptitude. To see whether we have a god-given gift for washing disgusting clothes, or an innate talent for cleaning dishes.”

The woman in gray scowled at Octavia, and she fell silent.

The line moved again, and soon they were being led outside. In the distance, Glass saw a group of Protectors with shaved heads running alongside some exhausted-looking figures. From the way the Protectors were screaming at them, Glass gathered that they were also prisoners. Were more of her friends among them? She squinted into the sunlight, mind racing.

More alert than she’d been before, Glass tried to observe as many details as she could about the Stone. What had looked like a single structure from the outside was more like a collection of buildings in a honeycomb pattern, not unlike the layout of the Colony. Some structures they passed were no more than skeletons, bare steel beams surrounding piles of rubble, while others were more intact.

White-clad Protectors were everywhere, but oddly, they didn’t seem to be doing much. Since she’d arrived at the Colonists’ camp, every day was a constant flurry of activity, with people weeding the garden, collecting firewood, chasing after the children, or building new structures. What did these people do all day?

There were at least some signs of actual life in the center of the building, which the woman called the “Heart of the Stone” as she led them toward it. It was a tiny forest—maybe a courtyard once—now full of trees, some of them bearing fruit. Glass breathed in the smell of ripening apples and pears, dimly hearing the woman’s droning explanation of something about religious ceremonies and offerings to Earth. The group started out again before Glass was ready to leave the comforting green canopy.

“Now I will take you all to meet our leader and see our bounty,” the blond woman said reverentially, leading them back through the building. “Soren has returned from a long spirit walk and is eager to meet you all.” Glass and Lina exchanged nervous glances. Meet felt like an odd word to use with girls who’d been drugged and kidnapped. And this was the person in charge, who’d given the orders and approved the Protectors’ violent actions.

The building opened up onto a huge vista, so sprawling and bright that Glass nearly staggered from the scope of it. An enormous rectangular field full of planters stretched out before them, and beyond that, a river basin, glittering in the midday sunshine. As her eyes adjusted, she took in more details: the remains of fallen buildings along the far horizon, the crops in the field. There was a lone woman in a white dress picking through the crops with a careful squint, her black hair falling over one shoulder.

Something strange caught her eye, and Glass stepped closer to get a better glimpse. There were wheels underneath one of the planters, this one full of potatoes and other root vegetables. As the blond woman started a speech about Earth’s bounty, two realizations struck Glass: that potatoes grew under the ground, not in heaped piles, and that every single planter here had wheels.

They weren’t planters at all. They were carts. This wasn’t a farm, just a place to sort through the food these people had looted.

Anger swept aside her fear as Glass thought about how hard everyone had worked getting ready for the Harvest Feast. The weeks spent working the fields, the hours spent hunting, the days spent gathering and drying fruit.

“You’re just thieves.” The words tumbled out of Glass’s mouth before she had time to stop them. Next to her, Lina gasped and shook her head, but it was too late.

The woman stopped talking, eyes narrowing, as everyone turned to stare. “How dare you speak about the Protectors that way.” Glass recoiled as the woman strode toward her, hand raised.

But then the dark-haired woman from the field strolled up, wiping dirty hands on her white tunic dress. The blond woman stopped in her tracks.

“Peace, sister,” the dark-haired woman said. “I’d like to hear what she has to say.” Her eyes were crinkled at the corners, and bright with curiosity. She smiled at Glass, and there was only warmth in it.

“Please, tell me,” the woman said. “How are we thieves?”

An alarm rang in Glass’s mind, warning her to be careful despite the woman’s gentle demeanor. But then she thought about the anguish in Luke’s face when he saw her dragged away. The terrified screams and shouts of pain that filled the clearing after the explosions went off.

“This bounty isn’t some gift from the Earth. It’s food you stole from communities who worked hard to feed their people, their children. You have a field here,” Glass said, motioning to it. “Why aren’t you growing anything? Do you people not know how?”

The older woman nodded earnestly. “We do know how, actually. But Earth has not yet given permission. We can’t disrupt the soil for our own selfish needs until we find the place where we’ll plant our civilization’s roots. Earth must first send us a sign. Then and only then will we evolve from foragers to farmers.”

“How big a sign do you need?” Glass asked, feeling as though she was walking a dangerous line. “You’ve got an enormous fortress. A perfect space for planting. You’ve even got fruit trees growing in the middle of the grounds—the Heart, you call it? You could easily turn that into an orchard. Then you wouldn’t need to attack innocent people and steal their food.”

The dark-haired woman was reaching out for Glass’s hands. Confused, Glass let her take them, and the woman pressed them between her own rough palms.

“I appreciate your passion,” the woman said, looking into Glass’s eyes. As she released Glass’s hands and backed away, she nodded to the woman in gray and pointed to Glass, some kind of signal that made Glass’s stomach twist. Then she turned to the rest of the group. “Greetings, new friends. It is such a pleasure to meet you all. My name is Soren.”

A cloud drifted past the sun, rearranging the scenery as Glass’s mind scrambled to make new sense of everything surrounding her. She was Soren. Their leader.

“I go by a number of names here,” Soren went on, reaching up to tie her gray-streaked dark hair into a bun at the nape of her neck. “Some call me High Protector, others prefer Mother Protector, or Mother, for short. Most people just call me Soren, though, which is my real name, and that’s fine too!” She laughed, a refreshingly normal sound after all the strange rituals and chanting. “I’m not fussy about titles. The important thing is that you know what my purpose is, and that’s twofold: helping you find a home here, and serving Earth with all of my soul.”

Soren closed her eyes for a long moment. When the older woman’s eyes opened, they looked even brighter and more peaceful than before.

“We’ll have time to get to know each other as we go about our work,” she said, greeting each girl in the line with a smile. “But today, I’d like to leave you with a few thoughts about mothers. I consider myself the mother of everyone here.” She stopped in front of Lina, and smoothed her glossy hair. “You included.”

To Glass’s surprise, Lina blushed and looked at her feet.

“Mothers are wise,” Soren went on. “They care for others, and giving this gift gives them one in return—they’re connected to the soil, to the air, to their intuition in a way that’s special and important.” She laced her fingers together, pivoting to face the others. “Mothers are also strong. They don’t bend to their children’s whims. They instruct. They shape them into the best people they can be.”

Soren’s eyes met Glass’s, but this time, Glass didn’t look away. She couldn’t wrap her mind around the disconnect between Soren’s warmth and the Protectors’ violence. She’d seen them attack her camp. She’d watched them almost kill Luke. Yet standing here, listening to Soren’s calm words, she felt her anger begin to melt away.

“What I want you to take away, as you get to know our little enclave here and the things we’re hoping to accomplish, is that we women must be mothers to our people.” Soren grinned. “Especially the men. They’re children, really! All humans are. They’re innocent, but dangerously reckless in that innocence. They’re takers. We need to show them the way. What has been done to Earth—the greatest mother of all—is nothing short of heartbreaking. Even before the Shattering, this world was overrun with spoiled children and their toys, poisoning the air and the waters, building and harvesting and chopping to suit their own needs. There were gods, religions, but the highest power of all was selfishness.”

Soren’s brow furrowed, and she took a deep breath. “We’ve been given another chance. To do better. To be better. And I’ll need your help to make it happen. You, the women among us.”

Soren pressed her hands to her heart, and to her surprise, Glass felt something stirring inside her own chest. She’d tried so hard to make herself useful these last few weeks, but there never seemed to be a place for her back at camp. She didn’t know how to heal the sick or design buildings. She couldn’t carry heavy loads of firewood. She could never come up with fun games to amuse the children. But maybe Soren was right. Perhaps there was a role for Glass on Earth, one that she could do well, without letting people down.

“We all serve Earth, and if you serve Her well, one day you may stand where I do, as the highest Protector of all… if Earth wills it.” Soren beamed. “That’s a little custom of ours. When one of us says, ‘If Earth wills it,’ we all repeat it, to sort of encourage it along. Shall we give it a try? If Earth wills it…”

And everyone hesitantly repeated, “If Earth wills it.”

“A good start,” Soren said, clapping. “Welcome to our family.”