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"That’s called apadlock, I think" She felt the s to remember how they worked "They had theht steal"

"Great All this and we still need our rings"

Tally shook her head "Ss, Zane To open a padlock, you need a

" She searched her memory for another old word, then found it "There must be a key somewhere"

"A key? Like a password?"

"No This kind of key is a littleYou stick it in and turn, which makes the lock pop open"

"What does it look like?"

"A flat piece of steel, about as long as your thue, but started looking around

Tally stared at the door The shack was obviously much older than the chain that held it shut She wondered what it had been used for Leaning close to the narrow gap Zane had opened, Tally sheltered her gaze with both hands and peered into the blackness Her eyes adjusted slowly, until she could e pulley and a crude ine, like the kind they used out in the Smoke The elevator had once moved up and down on a chain This shack was old; it must have been abandoned after lifters had been invented, which was ages ago Modeee jackets (Which was a lot safer than dangling froht) When lifters had been added, the old mechanism must have been left up here on the roof to rust

She yanked at the padlock again, but it held firm Heavy and crude, the lock looked out of place here in the city When wardens wanted to secure so, they stuck up a sensor that would tell you to keep out Only New Smokies would have used a padlock made of metal

Croy had told her to come here, so there had to be a key around somewhere

"Another stupid test," shefor the key, he had cli up as a Special," she explained "And et hold of, because it’s all a test Their point is tothat Croy left for me They don’t want us to find it unless we’re bubbly"

"Or e of the shack, "they want the search toclearly e find it"

"Whatever it is," Tally said, and sighed She felt annoyance rising in her, along with the feeling that this test would never end, that every solution would just lead to another level of probleame Maybe the smartest move would be to blow it all off and just have breakfast Why was she trying to prove herself to the New Smokies, anyway? They didn’t ly

But Zane’s brain was still spinning "So they’d hide the key soet to But ould be trickier than cli up here?"

Tally’s eyes swept the roof, until they found the spindly transmission tower At its top, twenty stories above theht of it, the world grew crisp again, and she s up there"

THE HIGH TOWER

The transmission toas the newest piece of Valentino Mansion, made of steel painted over hite polymers to keep rust at bay It was part of the systes, supposedly to help find anyone who got lost or injured outside a s

White struts loo like a cat’s cradle, shining in the sun like porcelain The tower didn’t look hard to climb, except for the fact that it was five times as tall as Valentino Mansion, even taller than a party spire As she stared up into its heights, a low rumble sounded in Tally’s stoer "At least there’s no dragon guarding it," she said

Zane lowered his anxious gaze fro from a dream I had"

"You really think the key’s up there?"

"I’m afraid so"

"The New Smokies climbed all that way?"

Old memories came back "No They could’ve hover-boarded up the side Boards can go that high if they stay close enough to a big piece of metal"

"You knoe could requisition a hoverboard," Zane said quietly

She looked at him with surprise