Tally brought her board to a sharp halt. The Rusty Ruins were the remains of an old city, a hulking reminder of back when there'd been way too many people, and everyone was incredibly stupid. And ugly.

"No way. Don't tell me you have."

Shay nodded.

Tally's mouth dropped open. "That's impossible."

"You think you're the only one who knows good tricks?"

"Well, maybe I believe you," Tally said. Shay had that look on her face, the one Tally had learned to watch out for. "But what if we get busted?"

Shay laughed. "Tally, there's nothing out there, like you just said. Nothing and no one to bust us."

"Do hoverboards even work out there? Does anything?"

"Special ones do, if you know how to trick them, and where to ride. And getting past the burbs is easy. You take the river the whole way. Farther upstream it's white water, too rough for skimmers."

Tally's mouth dropped open again. "You really have done this before."

A gust of wind billowed in Shay's jacket, and she slid farther away, still smiling. Tally had to lean her board into motion again to stay within earshot. A treetop brushed her ankles as the ground below them started to rise.

"It'll be really fun," Shay called.

"Sounds too risky."

"Come on. I've been wanting to show you this since we met. Since you told me you crashed a pretty party-and pulled a fire alarm!"

Tally swallowed, wishing she'd told the whole truth about that night-about how it had all just sort of happened. Shay seemed to think she was the world's biggest daredevil now.

"Well, I mean, that alarm thing was partly an accident. Kind of."

"Yeah, sure."

"I mean, maybe we should wait. It's only a couple of months now."

"Oh, that's right," Shay said. "A couple of months and we'll be stuck inside the river.