“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,
