After what seemed like a solid minute, she yelled, "Okay, hold it!"
The burner stopped, and the air was instantly cool around her, the night suddenly black. Tally stood up from her crouch, feet still on the gondola's railing, and blinked, amazed at how still and silent it was with the raging flame extinguished.
She pulled her hand from the burner, expecting it to be a blackened stump, no matter what her nerve endings told her. But all five fingers wiggled in front of her. The cuff glowed blazing white, mesmerizing blue flickers traveling around its edge. The smell of molten metal struck her nose.
"Quick, Tally!" Zane yelled, jumping down into the gondola. He started tugging at his cuff. "Before they cool off."
She leaped down from the rail and started pulling— glad that she had brought two gloves for each of them. The cuff slid down her arm, but came to a halt as it always did, catching at the usual spot. She squinted at the glowing band, trying to see if it had grown. It seemed bigger, but maybe the heat-resistant glove was thicker than she'd thought, making up the difference.
Tally squeezed the fingers of her left hand together and tugged again; the cuff crept another centimeter along. Heat still radiated from the ring of metal, but it was gradually turning a dull red, its light fading. … As it cooled, would it shrink around her hand now, crushing her wrist?
She gritted her teeth and pulled once more, as hard as she could…and the cuff slipped off, dropping onto the floor of the gondola like a glowing coal.
"Yes!" Finally, she was free.
Tally looked up at the others. Zane was still struggling; Fausto and Peris were scrambling to avoid her glowing cuff as it rolled, steaming and hissing, across the gondola floor. "I did it," she said softly. "It's off."
"Well, mine's not," Zane grunted. His cuff was wedged around the thick of his wrist, its glow faded to a dull red. He swore and stepped back up onto the gondolas railing. "Hit it again."
Fausto nodded, and gave another long blast on the burner.
Tally turned away from the heat, looking down at the city, trying to clear the spots from her eyes. They were past the greenbelt now, over the burbs. She could see the factory belt coming up, dotted with industrial orange work lights, and past that the absolute blackness that marked the edge of the city.
They had to jump soon. In a few more minutes they would pass beyond the metal grid that underlay the city. Without the grid, their hoverboards wouldn't fly or even stop a fall, and they'd be forced to crash-land the balloon instead of bailing out.
She looked up at the swollen envelope, wondering how long it would take the still rising balloon to settle back to earth. Maybe if they could rip the envelope open somehow to get themselves down faster…but how hard would a torn balloon crash-land? And without working hover-boards, the four of them would have to hike until they reached a river, giving the wardens plenty of time to find the crumpled balloon and track them down. "Come on, Zane!" Tally said. "We've got to hurry!"
"I'm hurrying! Okay?"
"What's that smell?" Fausto said. "What?" Tally pulled back into the gondola, sniffing at the still, hot air.
Something was burning.
"It's us!" Fausto shouted. He jumped back, releasing the burner chain, staring down at the gondola floor.
Tally smelled it then: burning cane, like the smell of brush thrown onto a camp fire. Somewhere under their feet, her red-hot cuff had ignited the wicker gondola.
She glanced up at Zane still perched on the railing — he ignored the others' panicked cries, tugging fiercely at his glowing cuff. Peris and Fausto were hopping around, trying to find the source of the smell.
"Relax!" she said. "We can always jump!"
"I can't! Not yet," Zane shouted, still struggling with the cuff. Peris looked as if he was about to leap out of the balloon without bothering to take his hoverboard.
Her vision was finally clearing from burner's glare, and Tally looked down at her feet. A bottle lay there, left behind by the Hot-airs. She reached for it with her gloved hands; it was full.
"Hold on, you guys," she said, and with a practiced motion twisted off the foil and placed both thumbs beneath the cork. She popped it, watching the cork soar into the dark void. "Everything's under control."
Froth bubbled out, and Tally put one thumb over the bottle's mouth. Shaking the bottle, she sprayed champagne across the floor of the gondola. An angry sizzle came from the smoldering flames.
"Got it!" Zane cried at that moment. His cuff fell off and rolled under her feet, and Tally calmly emptied the rest of the bottle onto it. The smell of molten metal rose up around her, tinged with an oddly sweet smell: boiled champagne.
Zane was staring with amazement at his freed left hand. He pulled off the heat-resistant gloves and tossed them overboard. "It worked!" he said, and swept Tally into a hug.
She laughed, letting the bottle drop to the floor and pulling off her own gloves. "Time for that later. Let's get out of here."
"Okay." He balanced his board on the gondola's railing, looking down. "Damn, that's a long fall."
Fausto tugged at a dangling cord. "I'll vent some hot air — maybe we can get a little lower."
"No time," Tally cried. "We're almost at the end of town. If we get separated, meet at the tallest building in the ruins. And remember: Don't let go of your board on the way down!"
They all scrambled to put on their backpacks, bumping into one another in the small space, Zane and Tally struggling back into their winter coats and crash bracelets. Fausto pulled off his interface ring and threw it to the gondola floor, grabbed his board, and jumped out with a whoop. The balloon pitched upward as his weight left it behind.
When Zane was ready, he turned and kissed her. "We did it, Tally. We're free!"
She looked into his eyes, dizzy with the thought that they were finally here, at the edge of the city, at the beginning of freedom. "Yeah. We made it."
"See you down there." He looked over his shoulder at the distant earth, then turned back to her. "I love you."
"I'll see you down…," she began, but the words sputtered out. It took a moment to replay in her mind what Zane had said. Finally she managed, "Oh. Me too."
He laughed, then let out a wordless cry as he tumbled over the rail, the gondola bucking again under its two remaining passengers.
Tally blinked, dazzled for a moment by Zane's unexpected words. But she shook her head to clear it. This was no time to get pretty-headed; she had to jump now.
She pulled the straps of her backpack tight, wrestling her hoverboard up onto the rail. "Hurry up!" she shouted at Peris.
He was just standing there, staring over the side.
"What are you waiting for?" she cried.
He shook his head. "I can't."
"You can do it. Your board will stop your fall — all you have to do is hang on!" she shouted. "Just jump! Gravity does the rest!"
"It's not the fall, Tally," Peris said. He turned to face her. "I don't want to leave."
"What?"
"I don't want to leave the city."
"But this is what we've been waiting for!"
"Not me." He shrugged. "I liked being a Crim, and being bubbly. But I never thought we'd get this far. I mean, like, leaving home forever?"
"Peris…"