Brittyn has grown up in a society where selecting your mate has become unheard of, but rather fate draws your card. Every child is born with a tattoo on their palm, and by age 17 their tattoo begins to search for its match. Throughout her life, Brittyn has entrusted the system and believes in its ways. Sooner than later she finds herself caught in a web of realization.

Selene is a "non-essential" crew member on a generational spaceship that classifies artists as insane. She and her fellow non-essential artists are given a rather unique assignment: create art they find beautiful, with no angle of making it essential for life on board the ship. As they hone their art skills, Selene teams up with a troubled sculptor and learns just how dangerous art--and being non-essential--can be. This novella takes place on the spaceship Godspeed and deals with characters seen in the Across the Universe series. You can read it without reading the novels, although it might be more fitting to read it after A Million Suns.