I lifted my eyebrows. “So?”

“A man doesn’t just give a gift to a woman without expecting something in return. Or maybe he’s making a payment for something he’s already had.”

My jaw dropped. He just called me a whore. I curled my fingers into a fist and pulled my arm back. A hand behind me grabbed me before I could ram my fist into Coal’s face.

“Lark, I said I needed you in the Traveling room,” Ash said.

I let out a slow breath, reached out and jerked the necklace from Coal’s fingers. Guilt over cutting off his hand be damned. I didn’t need this worm shit trying to control me. He wasn’t getting the subtle cues; time to be blunt. “Get out of here, and don’t bother missing me. We’re done.”

His green eyes seemed to burn, and the ugliness that hid behind his good looks reared its head. “You’re a slut, just like Belladonna. Just like your mother.”

Ash grunted as if he’d been hit in the gut. I swallowed hard and knew what I was about to say would sever the ties between Coal and me once and for all. There would be no going back. But I just didn’t want to deal with his garbage anymore, or the guilt. “I should have cut off your head instead of your hand, you stupid ass.” To be fair, I’d cut it off because I’d had no other choice. He’d been under Cassava’s compulsion and was dragging me to her so she could kill me.

But to Coal, the reason wouldn’t matter.

I pushed past Ash and strode toward the Traveling room, leaving a stunned Coal and silent Ash behind.

I should have known better than to think Coal would let me go after dropping that little bombshell. I made it all the way to the stairwell leading down to the Traveling room. A shout from Ash was the only warning I got. Coal came at me hard, leaping from the first step. He tackled me, and we fell in a tangled heap, hitting the sharp edges of the stairs cut into the earth. He screamed at me, his voice a blur of words and anger, violence and profanities flowing out of him.

There was nothing I could say, nothing I wanted to say. At the bottom of the stairs he got on top of me, pinning me with his knees as he tried to choke me with his one hand. A futile effort. I batted his hand away and sat up, pushing him off. “Go home, Coal. You aren’t needed here.”

Useless.

The word hung in the air as if I’d said it. He wasn’t useless, but he sure as hell couldn’t do the job he loved anymore, he couldn’t guard the edge of the Rim. And that was my fault.

“You bitch, you cut my hand off.” He breathed hard, as if he had been running for hours.

“Cassava was using you—”

“Shut up! You . . . I can’t believe you. No, you’re covering for someone.” He was nodding, wagging one finger at me. I shook my head, but he was on a roll. “Yes, that’s what’s going on. You’re covering for someone. This Griffin, was he the one? Or maybe”—he spun and looked at Ash who’d caught up to us—“You! You cut my hand off.”

“Oh, for the sake of the mother goddess, Coal!” I grabbed his arm and slapped his face hard. “Go home.”

He stumbled away, looking between Ash and me. “You are trying to steal her from me. But Lark will always come back to me. I’m her first love. Her heart is mine.” He spat at us, then finally turned and stumbled up the stairs. The silence that fell between Ash and me was not comfortable and I squirmed. Damn, I wished I could back up this day a few hours and start it again.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into him. It’s like he’s losing himself.”

Ash nodded. “It happens sometimes when a limb is cut off like that, almost like a piece of their minds goes with it.”

I bent and picked up the necklace, slipping it over my head. “You’ve seen this before, when someone loses a limb?”

“Yes, two Enders. They just couldn’t function as they had before and they made up a reality they could live with.”

“What happened to them?” I was more than a little afraid of the answer.

“Banished. Neither could be helped, and they began to threaten the safety of the family. Enough of that, you need to understand what you’re getting into when you step into the Deep.”

Relief swept through me. I might be going into a difficult situation, but I was leaving behind a mess with Coal. A mess I knew was far from cleaned up. Time would help, time apart; I had to believe Coal would find someone else, but I knew the struggle of being pegged “useless.” Our family wasn’t so good at taking care of lame ducks.

We went into the Traveling room, and again I was struck by the sheer wonder and magic of it. Set up as a globe, the whole world was contained in the one room. But instead of looking down on a globe, we looked from the inside out, and the walls of the room were seemingly painted with the continents and oceans. The currents of water and air were visible as they flowed around us, my feet splashing in the Pacific Ocean’s reflection. This was how we moved around the world without dealing too much with the humans.

Ash finally looked at me. His eyes burrowed into mine and I struggled to breathe. Unspoken words hovered in the air between us, and I couldn’t stand the silence. “What?”

“I’m glad you made it out of your testing. I need you, Lark.”

A lightning bolt of heat shot through me with his words, and I made myself breathe normally. Fought to think about the reality of what he meant. He didn’t mean he needed me other than to help him, I knew that. We were friends. “Running things here getting to you already?”