Ox stays on the other side of the room, far away from me, and I take his distance as permission to explore. I run my fingers over the pins, entirely fascinated by what I’m looking at. There are countries I’ve never heard of, with lines crisscrossing and scratched out to show new borders.

“What is this place?” I ask, moving to the next map, inspecting the curve of a shore along some ocean, the pins sticking out like tiny metal trees.

“War room,” he says. “The Protectorate controlled it. Recruiters didn’t even know about it until we took the Sanctuary.” He leans against a table, his hands curled around the edge of it, one foot crossed over the other. He looks relaxed but I can tell by the way he holds himself, the tension in his shoulders, that he’s just trying to pretend he’s calm. To pretend that me being here doesn’t bother him.

I make a full circle, staring at each wall—the world spread flat for my eyes to travel. I end up in front of a magnified section of the map that shows the Dark City, the rivers surrounding it and the land stretching beyond that. To the west and south on the mainland there’s a huge barren section bordered by a thick black line. I trace my finger along it.

“That’s the edge of the Forest,” he says evenly, as if he doesn’t know what the significance of that is for me. I don’t bother to enlighten him.

He riffles around on a table behind him and picks up a small jar of pins. He pours out a handful and I see they all have colored heads on them: red and green and yellow and blue.

“The Protectorate spent a lot of time sending scouts all over the world to figure out what and where was still alive, and this is where they kept all that information. When we took over we found their records.” His expression is unreadable in the dim light—sad? Resigned? Angry?

“There’s a key to the map.” He fumbles through the pins and holds up one with a green head. “Green means Protectorate-controlled. Red is infected and blue means they lost contact and don’t know the status.”

Ox turns his hand, letting the rest of the colorful pins fall back into the jar, some cascading to the floor below and scattering along the water-stained concrete.

Like everyone else, I knew the Protectorate sent Recruiters out to fight the hordes, trying to reconquer land. But I had no idea they had so much information about the entire world. I feel like I’ve been starving and someone just set out a buffet in front of me. I start to spin back to the map, to take it all in, when Ox grabs my arm.