He doesn’t answer my question, which means that he’s been in the Dark City for long enough. He could have found me and he didn’t. That he wanted to warn me must have been just another of his lies.

I stare at him, at how he so firmly believes what he’s saying. “I’m not sure I can survive at the expense of someone else,” I tell him. And then I realize that there’s one thing I’ve learned since Elias’s been gone: “I can take care of myself.” I try to ignore the way my voice shakes. And then I turn and walk out of the room, leaving him and the maps and the pins behind.

Chapter XX

I wander the dingy gray hallways, my stomach painfully empty as I follow the smell of food past barren rooms holding nothing but stale air and dust. It must be evening, the light through the windows fighting against snow-heavy clouds and reflecting dully off a thin layer of white coating the ground.

A few times I get turned around, all the corridors looking the same, but finally I find the source of the smell in a long narrow room stuffed with old tables. Most of them are unoccupied and I slip inside with my head tilted enough that my hair covers my face.

Even though I try to blend in with the wall, the few Recruiters slumped in the scattered chairs notice me. It’s an uncomfortable quiet—forks paused midway to mouths, someone half standing with a dirty plate, all of them staring at me.

But I’m too starving to follow the voice inside warning that I should just leave. Trying to be as unobtrusive as possible, I head toward a counter along the back wall that holds dishes of graying food: some sort of soup, some sort of meat, a few crumbs of bread. Hastily I fill a bowl, feeling the Recruiters’ eyes following my every movement.

When I turn I don’t know where to go. I start toward a small table shoved against the far corner but one of the men snakes an arm out around my waist, pulling me to him. My hip slides sharply along the lip of his table and I wince as I resist his grasping hands.

“We got room here,” he grunts. His face is dirty, sauce from the meat crusted in the corners of his mouth.

“I’m okay,” I tell him pointedly. In my head I hear Ox’s admonition not to cause trouble and I look around the room to see if any of the other men care about what’s happening. They’re all watching but none moves to intervene.

“I could use some company like you,” the man urges. His fingers bite into my lower back.