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Or was she finally getting the sa to dae her brain, now that she was beyond any hope of hts swirling through her She had no hoverboard, no way of getting to the Rusty Ruins except on foot No one knehere she was The world had been e cold, and Tally Youngblood Even the absence of the cuff on her wrist felt strange, like the gap left behind by atooth

Worst was the absence of Zane’s body next to her She’d stayed with hiht for the last ether Even in their enforced silence, she had grown used to his constant presence, his faone, and Tally felt as if she’d lost soined thisthe wild, free fro here without Zane

And yet here she was, utterly alone

Tally lay awake a long ti in her mind those last frantic minutes in the balloon If she’d only jurid ran out After what Zane had said, she shouldn’t have hesitated, knowing that this escape was their only chance for freedos were screwed up, and it was all her fault

Finally Tally’s exhaustion overpowered her worries, and she drifted into troubled sleep

ALONE

So, there was this beautiful princess

She was locked in a high tower, one whose sive her anything: food, a clique of fantastic friends, wonderful clothes And, best of all, there was this mirror on the wall, so that the princess could look at her beautiful self all day long

The only problem with the toas that there was no way out The builders had forgotten to put in an elevator, or even a set of stairs She was stuck up there

One day, the princess realized that she was bored The view froentle hills, fields of white flowers, and a deep, dark forest - fascinated her She started spendingout thethan at her own reflection, as is often the case with troubleso up, or at least that he was really late

So the only thing was to juave her a lovely parasol to catch her when she fell, and a wonderful new dress to wear in the fields and forest, and a brass key to et back into the tower if she needed to But the princess, laughing pridefully tossed the key into the fireplace, convinced she would never need to return to the tower Without another glance in the mirror, she strolled out onto the balcony and stepped off intoway down, a lot farther than the princess had expected, and the parasol turned out to be total crap As she fell, the princess realized she should have asked for a bungee jacket or a parachute or soround hard, and lay there in a crus had worked out this way There was no prince around to pick her up, her new dress was ruined, and thanks to her pride, she had no way back into the tower

And the worst thing was, there were no mirrors out there in the wild, so the princess was left wondering whether she in fact was still beautifulor if the fall had changed the story cous drealed to her feet, having to pry herself froht, her winter coat had run out of charge Without batteries, it was a cold thing clinging to her skin, still da in the river, and it smelled funny Tally unstuck the coat from herself and laid it across the broad surface of a rock, hoping that the sun would dry it out

For the first ti, the air had turned crisp and cold - the warmer weather that had arrived with the rain had departed with it as well The trees glittered with frost, and theunderfoot

Her fever had passed, but Tally felt dizzy standing, so she knelt beside her backpack to look through its contents - the suather up soear: a knife, water filter, position-finder, firestarter, and so with a few dozen packets of soap Re how valuable dehydrated food had been in the Smoke, Tally had packed three months’ worth, which was all wrapped up in waterproof plastic, fortunately When Tally saw the two rolls of toilet paper she’d brought, however, she let out a groan They were soaked through, reduced to bloated, squishy blobs of white She placed them on the rocks next to her jacket, but doubted that it was even worth drying thehed Even back in her S

Tally found her pitiful pile of twigs, and reht before, too delirious to realize how stupid that would have been The Special Circumstances hovercars that had come after the balloon would have easily spotted a fire in the darkness

There was no evidence of pursuit in the sky this , but Tally decided to put so heater in her jacket, she would need to build a fire that night

But first things first, which ed down to the river to fill the purifier, driedwith every step Tally had never been so dirty in her life, but she wasn’t up to bathing in the freezing water, not without a fire to warht have passed, thanks to her new-pretty i in, but she didn’t want to take any risks with her health out here

Of course, Tally realized, it wasn’t her own health she should be worrying about Zane was somewhere out here too, maybe just as alone as she was He and Fausto had juht have landed kilometers apart If Zane had one of his attacks on the way to the ruins, with no one to help hiht froht now for Zane or anyone else was get to the ruins herself And that s she couldn’t control

The purifier took two fillings before it had strained enough, pure water from the silty inlet to make a meal She chose a packet of PadThai and set the purifier to boil; the surgling water