Chapter 56

  

San Francisco, April 10, 1906

  

When Li returned to his rooms from his night working in Chinatown, he found Mai waiting for him, crying. But Li did not notice her tears at first. Though Mai had washed her hands, blood covered her neck and the front of her dress. Li rushed to her, sure she had been assaulted.

“I’m not hurt,” she said between sobs. “It’s Anand.” Mai told Li what had happened.

“I’m going to kill Samuel,” Li said. “And I don’t care if I’m arrested. I’ll see through returning the Heart of India.”

“You can’t,” Mai said. And she told him why.

“A child?” Li said after she’d told her story. “Anand’s child? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I’m telling you now. Please do not do anything else to risk yourself, brother. I need you. The child needs you.”

  

Anand did not wish for Mai to see him die. After he kissed her goodbye one last time, he took his bound diary with him. He was headed to the ship he had disguised with the name of the saloon ship that had been the center of his life in San Francisco: The Siren’s Anchor.

He was weak with blood loss, but he no longer felt any pain. He walked with purpose. With his last breaths he was setting the stage for the return of a meaningful treasure. Though he would not live to see a unified India free of British rule that the Heart of India’s creators hoped for, he felt blessed with the meaningful life he’d been given.

The ship was in rocky waters, but it would hold until Vishwan came. He had hoped it would not have come to this, but he knew what he needed to do. He wrapped his diary tightly in a leather satchel and left it inside a trunk in the hull of the ship with the Heart of India.

As he climbed to the bow, he felt his body grow numb as it shut down. Anand smiled. He did not fear death. He had been given ten years longer than his due. He had cheated death once, and it had allowed him to travel the world and to find Mai. Though he would never see his brother Vishwan again and would miss meeting his child, it had been more than he had dreamed possible when he lay dying of typhoid ten years before.

He took one last look at the world before jumping into the freezing waters below.