I dump out the pitcher and reset the well for tomorrow. Surviving on such a small amount of water is absurd. Even now my throat scratches, angry at the tease the cup provided.

I’ll never be able to help the pack if I give in to thirst and end up fogged like the rest of them. And even if I don’t, I can’t help Ma. I don’t know how to read the map. I sink into bed, my stomach reeling. No matter what I do, I lose.

When morning arrives, I have a plan, or at least the very crudest makings of one.

“I need to see the map,” I tell Reed as he arrives with my breakfast.

He scowls. “I’ll have a mirror brought.”

“No mirror. That’s how I’ve seen it my whole life. I need to look at it properly. Maybe I’ll be able to make sense of it if I can actually study it.”

Reed’s brow pitches up, but he turns and leads me from the room. Let him believe that I think I can do this. Let all the Loyalists believe it. If the General thinks I’m trying to read the map, perhaps I can buy more time for Ma.

Instead of working our way down through the Backbone as we had yesterday, Reed leads the way up several flights, then through a curtained doorway guarded by two Loyalists. Inside, I find a windowless room crowded with Old World artifacts. Shelves teem with salvaged tech, tarnished and worn. I can make out the door of a rusted rover and a sloped piece of scrap metal bearing a faded birdlike emblem leaning against the far wall. Dowels near the ceiling hold scraps of brittle paper. Countless crates are stacked haphazardly beneath them, their contents hidden from view.

It’s a treasure room, a scavenger’s paradise. I’ve never seen so much Old World tech in one place. And yet despite the wide array of items, none of them seem terribly useful. There are no goggles, like my trusted pair. No Old World rifles or the exceedingly rare Old World bullets. Not even plas, like I’ve seen Flint carry. Instead, everything looks like scrap. Garbage. Pieces of history rather than valuable assets. But all the junk has something in common: the Old World language, long lost to us, graces each item.

A lone woman sits at a table in the center of the room, head bent as she observes something before her.

“Oracle,” Reed says in greeting.

The woman looks up. She is young—perhaps just a few years older than I am—and she wears a long, sweeping dress the color of straw. Her braided hair is knotted atop her head with dark strips of cloth.

“Reed,” she says with a small smile. “I’m surprised to see you. I thought you’d been granted a station in the Barrel for a moon’s time.”