Excerpt from We Set the Dark on Fire by Tehlor Mejia, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Even still, the oratory looked hopeful inside—hundreds of tiny candle flames, standing against the night. In this corner of the world, if nowhere else, light was winning.

Dani was ushered inside by Ami, who left her to sit on a bench unnoticed. As police and maestras tried to create order among hundreds of scared, exhausted girls, she clutched her papers in her hands, refusing to allow her palms to perspire.

The Primera students sat mostly still, self-control as much a part of them at this point as their names. The fifth-years would be overseeing households by the end of the week, staffing enormous houses, managing social calendars. Supporting the husbands they'd spent a lifetime training to earn.

Across the room, the Segundas were utterly beside themselves. In various states of undress, they held hands and leaned against one another, expressing their fear and exhaustion unreservedly to anyone who would listen. Near the front of the oratory, one was actually sobbing.

Dani couldn't even remember the last time she'd let herself cry alone.

She could roll her eyes all she liked at the preening, fluttering Segundas, but things were the way they were supposed to be. The way they had always been. Opposites, coming together to make a perfect whole. And when Dani finally stood up and took her vows, she would be part of it at last, just like her parents had wanted.

Two more days, she told herself.

There were one hundred and ninety-six girls in this year's graduating class, and ninety-eight young men from prominent families waiting for them when they completed their studies.

Within these walls, they trained perfect wives. Primera and Segunda. The tried and true way to run a fully functioning home at the caliber required by the country's elite. Inner-islanders had flourished this way for thousands of years, long after faith had stopped driving the equation. No one was about to change the method now.

Looking around the ostentatious oratory, artistic renditions of Medio's origin story depicted across its walls, Dani tried to remember the last time she'd even heard the gods mentioned. They were everywhere at home, but what need did the inner-islanders have for gods? Faith, it so often seemed, was for the lacking.

Her musings had almost returned her heart to its normal rate when two maestras began to whisper, sunk low into a pew behind her. Dani listened closely. She'd been trained to be aware, resourceful, to find knowledge where she needed it, and to use it.

"Do you think it was one of ours?" asked one nervous voice.

"I hope not, but we'll know soon enough either way," said the second.

"What do you mean?"

"They had them bring their identification papers. I heard there's a new method for verification. If there are any forgeries in the school, they'll find out tonight."

The conversation continued, but the blood pounding in Dani's ears drowned out whatever came next. The battered envelope crinkled beneath her grasping fingers. At her hairline, sweat began to bead.

If they really had a new verification system ...

Dani stood as surreptitiously as she could, inching toward the wall. With those few whispered words, everything had changed. If she could just lean against this wall a moment, maybe she could make her way toward the door without anyone seeing.

But what then? asked a practical voice in her head.

Down the hill into the capital? Blend in until she could make it back to her parents? But going back would only make them targets as well. The Medio School for Girls could hardly fail to notice the disappearance of their star student two days before graduation.

And even if they did, they'd certainly miss the small fortune the Garcia family was planning to pay for her. The school would keep most of the money, of course, but the wealthiest families paid the most generous sums, and Dani's portion was meant for her parents. To buy them a small piece of the life they had earned for her when they fled the only home they'd ever known. When they left behind family and friends and every ounce of certainty. They'd lived in fear of discovery for years so Dani could have a chance to shine, but daughters in prison weren't worth a cent, and dead ones were even worse.

Excerpted from We Set the Dark on Fire by Tehlor Mejia. Copyright © 2019 by Tehlor Mejia. Excerpted by permission of Katherine Tegan Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.