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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?”
    His eyes didn’t leave mine. “Something like that. The trainees are struggling. None of them really want to be Enders. But they’re all we have. You and I are the only Enders in truth, so try not to get yourself killed.”
    I laughed, expecting him to join me.
    He didn’t.
    He pointed to the globe at the water off the southeastern section of the North American continent. “This is where the Deep is situated. The humans call it the Bermuda triangle, and right now we can’t Travel directly to it.”
    “Why not?”
    “The civil war going on there is reaching a fever pitch and they’ve blocked anyone