The Psi internment camps are key to the dystopian setting and plot, but they also play a symbolic role, evoking real-life internment and concentration camps in history, specifically internment camps instituted by the U.S. government for Japanese Americans during the Second World War, the Nazi concentration camps in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, as well as migrant and detention camps in other settings.

As was the case in these camps, inmates in the Psi camps are targeted for being different and for potentially being a political threat. They are under constant surveillance, are not free to leave, and are forced to work. They are threatened regularly with violence. Personal dignity is not prioritized. Zu alludes to having her head shaved for lice, a common practice in Nazi camps. As was the case with these real-life camps, those on the outside either remain unaware or apathetic to the scale of the atrocities being perpetrated. This historical connection gives Bracken’s depiction of the persecution of young Psi people more plausibility and realism. It also encourages the reader to look for real-world thematic parallels.