“Uh . . . ,” Matt said. “I’m not sure where or when we’re going, exactly?”
They all turned to Jia. “Oh!” she exclaimed, as though she had forgotten her role in all of this. “I’m sorry. Let me think . . . We need to go to the late 1600s, I think around 1680?”
Belamie scoffed. “You think? You don’t know?”
Jia shook her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t. I was very young when I left, only six or so.”
Belamie rolled her eyes. “Well, this is turning out just as I thought. A bunch of children trying to take charge. Try sometime in 1688. That’s what Quine’s letter specifies. Set the dials sometime in that year, that should set us right. And the coordinates are thirty-nine degrees north and one hundred and sixteen degrees east. That will take us outside the walls, at least. I’ve never been able to travel directly into the city. You don’t want to take us directly into the city. We’ll be killed on the spot.”
“Not while I’m with you,” Jia said.
“We’ll see,” Belamie said, clearly not sure she believed Jia really could gain them an audience with the emperor, even if she was his daughter, but Jia seemed confident. That was enough for Matt.
“Set the dials, Mateo,” Belamie said.
Matt obeyed. Blossom’s engine roared to life. The bus began to shift, and they were off.
18The Kangxi Emperor
1688
Beijing, China
The Forbidden City
Jia had never before been so nervous for any mission in all her days as a time pirate, and she had to work extra hard to hide it. She didn’t want anyone to see how scared she was, how uncertain, especially Matt. She couldn’t let him down, not after all that he’d been through, so she squared her shoulders and held her head high, even though she was a wreck inside. She was going back to China. Back home. Home. What a strange, powerful word, that it could stir so much inside of her, things that lay dormant for years. She’d almost forgotten who she really was, where she came from. She had told the story of her being just an orphan from China so many times for so long, she had almost come to believe it herself.
They landed in the moat surrounding the Forbidden City. Blossom had transformed into a junk, a small Chinese ship, flat-bottomed with two orange-red sails.
The Forbidden City was surrounded by a wide moat and closed in by high stone walls. Only a few sloped, red-tile roofs could be seen above them. Jia had never been outside the walls of the Forbidden City, save for the few moments before Captain Vincent took her on board the Vermillion. In her younger days, this had been the whole world.
“It doesn’t look like time has been disrupted here,” Matt said.
No. It looked just as she remembered.
They sailed toward the edge of the Forbidden City, where guards were posted with swords.
“They look kind of serious,” Matt said. “What if they don’t believe who you are?”
“Then we’re in trouble,” Belamie said. She kept her hands on the hilt of her sword, though Jia knew it wouldn’t do them any good, no matter how skilled and fierce a swordswoman she was. If Jia did not convince the guards, they’d be lucky to be taken prisoner. But she wasn’t going to let Matt believe for one second that they might be in any kind of danger.
“They’ll believe me,” Jia said. “When I show them the amulet.” She brought it out of her pocket. It too had almost been forgotten, pushed to the bottom of her memories.
“Let me do the talking,” Jia said. “The rest of you should remain quiet unless directly spoken to, understood?”
They all agreed, even Belamie. They were all looking to her now.
When they reached the edge of the moat, Jia greeted the guards. She had, of course, practiced her Chinese plenty with Matt, and done some studying on her own from time to time, but she had always been a little reluctant, and the words had never felt quite right coming out of her mouth. Now, as if returning to this place and time had unlocked something in her brain, the language seemed to slip off her tongue without a thought, as though she had never left. It felt oddly comfortable, and to her surprise, empowering. This was her native tongue, and she was speaking it in her native country, in her original era.
The guards were stiff and eyed the odd grouping with deep suspicion, especially Albert, Jia noticed. He was so pale and completely not Chinese in every way, but then Jia showed them her amulet, and their expressions and stances changed drastically. They each bowed low to Jia and helped everyone out of Blossom. Matt stepped beside Jia.
“I know I can’t take these dudes,” he whispered in her ear, eyeing the guards and their armor and weapons. “But I’ll be your moral support.”
She smiled. “Thanks. You’re my hero.” And she knew that he really would be very soon. She wondered how it would all play out. In her memory, she saw herself speaking to her father on his throne, and then Matt appeared and took her away, but she was never quite sure why, and she still didn’t fully understand. There must be a reason.
The guards led them through the gates of the Forbidden City, past smaller buildings where servants lived. She saw a few of them repairing the roof of
