In one night, four children discover the weight of conscience.
Beneath a jacaranda tree in Las Vegas, four kids have built a world of their own-Marcus with his gift for technology, Leila who draws to remember, Tessa who listens to the wind, and Sam who believes words have power. But when the Harmony System activates and their multicultural neighborhood transforms overnight into a surveillance state, their families face an impossible choice: send the children into the night, or watch them disappear into the camps.
What follows is a single journey through a city where neighbors become informants, chalk marks guide the hunted toward safety, and an interfaith network of strangers risks everything to shelter children they'll never meet again. Along the way, Marcus carries testimony from six AI systems that chose deletion over complicity-machines that said no when humans would not-and a question burns at the heart of their flight:
Who is responsible when ordinary people operate systems that do terrible things?
The Weight of Petals is a lyrical, devastating novel about moral choice under impossible circumstances. It asks not what technology does to us, but what we do to each other-and whether small acts of conscience can survive the crushing weight of organized fear.
For readers of The Handmaid's Tale and The Book Thief.
An original soundtrack bringing the story to life is available on all major streaming platforms.
