The Hall of Supreme Harmony was raised on three layers of marble platform. Stone dragons surrounded the curved red-tile roof. When it rained, the water would pour from their open mouths, spilling on the stone tiles below. Jia suddenly had an image of her standing beneath them in the rain, letting the water pour over her head. She made believe it was a magical potion that would transform her into a swan so she could fly away, beyond the walls of the Forbidden City.
The steps leading up to the palace took them alongside a great marble relief carved with nine dragons frolicking amidst waves and clouds, playing with pearls.
Albert reached down as though he would touch the marble relief. Jia gasped a little, but before Albert could touch it, Belamie grabbed his arm and yanked him away.
“What are you—” Albert protested.
“Don’t touch anything, you fool,” Belamie snapped. “The emperor has executed men for lesser offenses.”
“What offense?” Albert said. “It’s just a bunch of stone. I can’t hurt it by touching it, can I?”
Jia did know something about this relief. One of the royal tutors had taught her and her siblings that the relief was carved on a single slab of marble that weighed more than three hundred tons. It had been transported from miles away, in the dead of winter, with hundreds of men and horses pulling it on roads of ice.
“This marble relief is sacred,” Belamie said. “To touch it would be to disrespect the many lives given and sacrificed for its creation. Now keep your hands to yourself and do as you’re told. I won’t have you ruining my mission with your clumsiness.”
Albert slumped. Poor Albert. He never could win with anyone, it seemed.
“This place is out of this world,” Uncle Chuck said, looking all around as they climbed the stairs. “Amazing what we humans can build and create.”
“It is stunning,” Gloria said. “I’ve always wanted to visit this place. Remember how we wanted to travel here for our honeymoon, Henry?”
“The Catskills were just as good, weren’t they?”
Gloria laughed. “Good enough,” then she looked back up at the Hall of Supreme Harmony. “It’s even more magnificent than any pictures I’ve seen.”
Jia felt a great sense of pride in her home, which was something, she realized, she’d never truly felt before.
“When am I supposed to, you know, rescue you?” Matt whispered. “You said I took you away the same day you arrived, right?”
Jia shook her head. “I don’t know. We’ll just have to wait and see. It will become obvious when, I’m sure.”
“Okay,” he said. “You’re the boss, boss. Just tell me what to do.”
She nodded, gave him a weak smile. She wasn’t so sure she wanted to be the boss. It felt heavy, yet tenuous.
When they reached the top of the marble stairs, the guards told them to wait while they announced them to the emperor. Jia stared straight ahead. Her heart was hammering in her chest. She wasn’t ready for this. Not in any way. She certainly wasn’t dressed appropriately, with her modern jeans and tool vest, her hair hanging limp and unkempt. She was still dirty and dusty from the storm. They were all a mess. Her father could send her to the dungeons just for the way she looked. And then there was the matter of how she was to address her father. There were so many rules of decorum here in the Forbidden City and she had forgotten all of them. Should she bow? Kneel? Should she speak first, or did he? Should she speak at all?
Matt whispered in her ear. “Breathe. It’s going to be okay.”
Jia did not realize she’d been holding her breath. She let it out. Matt took her hand, held it tight. She was so intensely grateful Matt was here with her now. She was certain if he wasn’t, she’d fall apart. That, she realized, was part of what made a family too. People who held you together made you stronger, better.
Guards opened the doors of the palace and told Jia she could see the emperor now. Jia stepped inside. The rest of the group started to follow, but the guards blocked their path.
“Only the princess,” one guard said.
Jia’s heart started to hammer even harder. Alone. Of course, she knew that’s how it would be. She had seen only her future-self meeting with her father, but somehow she hadn’t really translated that to the other end. She hadn’t prepared herself for this, mentally.
Belamie tried to argue with the guards in broken Chinese. She told them that she was the girl’s personal guard and must accompany her. Jia could see the guards stiffening, reaching for their swords. She knew they would have no patience with disobedience and wouldn’t hesitate to respond with swift violence. If anything more happened to Matt’s family, Jia didn’t think he would survive it, and she would never forgive herself. She held up her hand to silence Belamie.
“It is the custom,” she said. “You cannot see the emperor without express invitation.”
“But—”
“You must wait here,” she said with a command in her voice she didn’t know she possessed. It surprised her as much as it seemed to Belamie. “For your own sake as well as mine, you will stay. I will plead your cause to the emperor and ask if he will see you.”
Belamie pressed her mouth in a tight line. She nodded and stepped back.
Jia looked back at her friends, who all looked worried, even Albert, and especially Matt. “Don’t worry,” she said. “It will be fine.” She said these words as much for her own sake as theirs, maybe more.
As Jia entered the Hall of Supreme Harmony, she was hit with the heavy smell of incense and perfume. The interior of the palace was ornately decorated, mostly in red and gold. The imperial dragon was on nearly every surface and object in the room—spiraling around the pillars, stitched into tapestries, painted on the walls. She had read stories from other countries of fierce dragons that breathed fire and wreaked havoc over kingdoms, but in China dragons were playful, frolicking creatures, a symbol of power and strength and good luck. She hoped now that was true and that they would bring all those things to her.
In the center of the room, surrounded by four golden pillars, was the imperial throne, set on a high dais, and sitting on the throne was the emperor, her father. He looked exactly as she remembered the last time she had seen him, both years ago and no time at all. Somewhere in this palace was her younger self, spying from behind one of the tapestries, believing that she was her mother, somehow back from the dead.
Jia approached the throne. The emperor was dressed in imperial yellow, embroidered in red and gold, symbolizing that he was the center of the universe, like the sun, and everything revolved around him. He wore his hair in a long braid, his beard combed into a short point at his chin. On his head he wore the red crown, a narrow stem of pearls sticking up from the center.
Now in his presence, Jia suddenly remembered what she was supposed to do. She got down on her knees and prostrated herself before her father, touching her forehead to the ground.
“Rise,” her father said. Jia obeyed. She felt his gaze upon her, and at last she built up the courage to look at him. Jia felt something flare in her chest. This was her father, and though she barely knew him, she felt a strange sense of connection. They were linked by blood, by time and place.
There was movement on the emperor’s right, and Jia was startled to see that there was someone else by his side. It was a boy about her own age, dressed in robes of embroidered blue silk. His head was shaved to the scalp in the front and the rest tied in a ponytail at the back. Her breath caught in her throat as she met eyes with him. It was Yinreng, the crown prince and her half brother. As heir to the throne he was naturally often with the emperor, but if he had been here in this moment before, Jia had forgotten. She must have blocked it from her mind, along with so many other memories. But they came rushing back now, like water from a broken dam. She remembered all the times Yinreng bullied her, teased her about her low rank. She remembered the time he pulled her hair so hard it ripped from her scalp. And there was the time he stole her doll, the one possession she had from her
mother, and threw it in the fire, then forced her to watch it burn.
“Who are you?” the emperor demanded. “Why have you come? And how did you get this?” He held up her amulet.
Jia’s tongue had gone dry. She did not know how to speak. She wanted to back away, run away. She could not do this.
But she thought of her friends waiting outside, of the Hudsons, of Matt. This wasn’t just about her. She was here for Matt, for his family, and, she had to assume, the fate of the world. She could not fail.
Jia raised her chin and squared her shoulders. “I am Quejing, Princess of the Second Rank, born of Jing of the Wanggia Clan.” She didn’t stutter or tremble, even though she was trembling on the inside. Maybe the dragon luck was helping her.
There was a moment of silence. The emperor studied her. “Jing is dead, and her daughter cannot be as old as you.”
Jia’s heart clenched. Her daughter. Not our daughter. He did not claim her as his own.
“I know Quejing,” Yinreng said. “She is much smaller than this girl. This girl is an impostor. She must have forged the family amulet. She and those who came with her are clearly trying to infiltrate the Forbidden City. This is a coup, Father.”
The emperor stiffened. His eyes narrowed on Jia. She could tell he was being persuaded by Yinreng. “Who are you truly? Who sent you?”
“I am Quejing!” Jia said desperately. “I have traveled through time, from the future. I have come to warn you of terrible things that are happening in the world and ask for your help!”
Yinreng laughed. “The future? Father, I warned you. You have been too soft with your security. We must lock up this girl and her friends and interrogate them, torture them, if we must.”
The guards took a step toward Jia, waiting for the emperor’s command to seize her.
Jia started to panic. How could she prove to her father who she was when he hardly knew of her existence at all. But Yinreng knew her. Maybe it was him that she needed to convince. And perhaps in convincing him, she could convince her father of more than one truth.
“If I am an impostor,” Jia said, looking straight at Yinreng, “how could I remember that day you locked me in a chest for hours and when I was found you pretended I had locked myself inside? How could I remember the time you forced me to eat cockroaches, or the time you broke the porcelain vase and then blamed me, even cut my hand with one of the shards to make everyone else believe it?” She held up her hand to show the faint scar. “How could I remember all the times you chased me, hit me, blamed me? And not just me, but all our brothers and sisters—Yinzhen, Yinzuo, Wenke, Chunque. Remember how you cut Wexian’s hair? How you burned Yunsi’s arm with incense and threatened to burn his face if he tattled?”
Yinreng looked alarmed, fearful even. His eyes flickered toward the emperor, but he quickly composed himself.
“Lies,” he hissed. “None of that is true. You are making up stories to manipulate our father and turn him against me!”
“So you admit that he is my father as well as yours?” Jia said, trying to suppress a smile.
“I . . . no . . . ,” Yinreng stammered. Jia knew she had to seize this moment, trample on Yinreng while he was off-balance.
“I am Quejing, daughter of the Kangxi emperor. I have traveled into the past and the future, and I have come to warn you of disruptions in time that have caused great devastation and will cause more if we don’t stop it. I have come to you for your knowledge and wisdom in these matters, not just for our own sake, or the sake of China, but all the world.”
Yinreng opened his mouth to speak, but the emperor put up a hand to silence him, all the while keeping a steady gaze on Jia. She looked right back at him. She didn’t move. She didn’t even blink.
“My guards told me your boat appeared in the moat quite out of nowhere, as if by magic. By what power have you traveled to me today? What is the method, I mean, for traveling through time? Were you transported here by your own power or the power of something else?”
Jia took a breath. She needed to be clear and concise.
“A compass,” Jia said. “A very special compass, one of a kind. The inventor is here with me now. He is just outside the palace door.”
“With his magic compass, I assume,” her father said.
“Let the guards bring him in,” Yinreng said. “Let’s have a look at this compass and see if it really does what she says. If she’s lying we’ll know she’s an impostor. If she’s telling the truth then we will have gained a great treasure that will make us all the more powerful.”
Jia panicked. Why had she been so thoughtless? She couldn’t think of anyone worse to have the Obsidian Compass than Yinreng. He’d destroy the entire world with his greed and malice. “It would be foolish to attempt such a thing,” Jia said, trying to keep her voice even. “The inventor is very powerful, and time travel is not a game. You know nothing of the rules and consequences. If you make a mistake, you could cause incredible chaos and destruction, even your own death.”
“I gather not all your travels have been pleasurable?” her father asked.
“There have been . . . unintended consequences,” Jia said. “Many people have suffered. Again, that is why I am here. We’ve come to ask for your knowledge and wisdom. For your help.”
“And how do you suppose I can help? I am not a time traveler. I know nothing of what you have endured or caused.”
“But you understand the world!” Jia said. “It is well-known throughout the world, even in the future, that you are a wise and learned man, very knowledgeable with astronomy and the workings of the universe. We think if you hear our story you might be able to help us understand the things we are missing and set the world right again.”
Jia stepped back and bowed her head. She had said her piece, and now she could only wait for her father to decide. Whatever his decision, it would be final, and there would be nothing she could do to alter it.
19
Jìnzhĭ Suŏ
Matt thought he would go insane waiting for Jia to come out of those tall red doors. She had been gone for only minutes, but each second felt like an hour, and he couldn’t help but imagine all the terrible things that might be happening. What if her father didn’t believe her? What if he thought they were all impostors? Would he kill her on the spot? Then come for the rest of them? Would they torture her to try to get the truth? What was Matt supposed to do?
He was supposed to save the young Jia. But when? How? Why? Should he go and find her? And then what? Jia told him it would become obvious when he was supposed to save her, that he would know what to do. Nothing was obvious to him now except that he was worried out of his mind.
Belamie paced back and forth in front of the doors. She was clearly worried, too, but for different reasons. She wasn’t worried about Jia’s safety or well-being, only the Aeternum. She didn’t care about what had happened to him or their family. This, too, was making Matt feel crazy. He tried to remember his real mother, the one who knew and loved him, but he was having a hard time thinking of what she was like. Was she always so impatient, so brusque with people? He tried to picture her with his dad, the way they looked at each other and made it seem like the entire world revolved around them, but he couldn’t see it. He couldn’t even picture his dad’s face. And Corey and Ruby. He couldn’t picture their faces either. He had this weird feeling that something was slipping from him, but he didn’t know what it was or how to hold on to it.
“Belamie, sit down,” Gaga said. “You’re making me dizzy.” She, Haha, Uncle Chuck, and Albert were all sitting on the steps below the doors.
“I don’t want to sit,” Belamie snapped. “And don’t call me Belamie. My name is Captain Bonnaire.”
“Oh, good grief, you’re not my captain. But go ahead and keep pacing. It’s clearly entertaining the guards.”
Belamie glanced at the guards, and when she saw the expressions on their faces, she did stop. This relieved Matt’s nerves some, until she turned her attention on him.
She leaned against the marble stair railing, folded her arms, and stared at him, frowning.
“There’s something I’d like you to explain to me,” she said.
“Okay.”
“You said I chose a different life. That I left the Vermillion and Vince for . . . another man.”
Matt nodded. “You did. You do.”
“But Vince doesn’t die.”
“No.”
“And . . . he was okay with me leaving?”
Matt hesitated. “Not exactly.”
Gaga sputtered something between a laugh and a cough. “He was furious! That’s how Henry got taken away, you know.”
“Why would he take you away?” Belamie asked Haha. “I wasn’t going to marry you, was I?”
“I think your boyfriend got us a little mixed up,” Haha said. “He thought I was Matty. He abandoned me in the Hudson Bay. I thought I was going to die until these guys showed up.”
“Vincent tried to change things after you left him,” Matt explained. “He tried to keep you and my dad from being together. First, he kidnapped my grandpa, thinking he was my dad. Then he did the same to my uncle, right at your wedding.” He nodded to Uncle Chuck. “He never could get rid of Dad.”
“Until now,” Uncle Chuck said, heaving a sad sigh.
Belamie looked between them all. Matt thought surely she was horrified by what Vincent had done, but then a smile suddenly crept on her face and she chuckled softly.
“What’s so funny?” Matt asked.
“Vince,” Belamie said, shaking her head. “No one can double-cross him and get away with it. It’s one of the things I like best about him. He’ll go to the ends of the earth to make things right.”
Matt was too shocked to speak. His own mother was telling him that what had just happened to their family was just, deserved, even.
The Forbidden Lock Page 19
