Mal stepped angrily down into the kitchen. “Frey, answer me. What’s going on?”

“Nothing.” Freya swiped at her cheeks, sitting more upright.

Looking down at the table he could see the red stone almost glowing in the low light, the gold cage around it barely able to contain the malevolence. “You did it, didn’t you? You touched that thing.”

“My decision.”

Her face was pale, drawn, even as he pulled her roughly to her feet. “Gorramit, Frey, when the hell are you gonna do what you’re told?” He wanted to shake some sense into her but stopped short, just holding her shoulders tightly.

“I knew what I was doing.”

She was trembling but he ignored it in his anger. “I don’t give a gou-shi if you’d got the approval of the king of Londinium! I told you no, yet you go behind my back and do it anyway!”

His fury burned hot, scalding her, all the worse because she knew it was based much more on his concern for her rather than her disobeying him. Her understanding didn’t mean it wasn’t like acid, though.

She felt anger of her own bubbling up, but it hit the wave of distress and pain she’d picked up from the Culver diamond, and it was too much. She pulled free from his hands, feeling one of the seams of the shirt rip, and ran out of the kitchen, half-falling down the stairs.

Mal leaned on the table, his hands in fists, eyes closed as he tried to control himself. That woman … she … how … He couldn’t even finish the thought.

Then a spike of anger drove through him and he swept the necklace to the floor, hearing it clatter away but not caring where it ended up. He let loose a long, low stream of invective, the words dancing around the pipes and exiting through the ventilation system.

For more than a minute he didn’t move, his head down, trying to control himself. Finally he stood straight. “She could try the patience of a saint,” he muttered. “Oh, diyu .”

Letting the sigh roll out of his lips, he strode out of the kitchen and hurried down the stairs to the cargo bay, b