MIRACULOUSLY, THE FLAGSHIP stayed afloat; her prow stood up out of the water, and her decks sloped, but the holes in the stern had been patched up, and she had survived, along with her imperial passengers. She dropped anchor halfway to shore, while the rest of the fleet gathered around, looking like a floating city.
The patrol boat ferried Topaz back to where Nathan was waiting, and they hugged each other, Topaz clinging onto him and sobbing. As they limped up onto the main deck, the imperial court of China bowed down to them as one. Zhu came to greet them with open arms, beaming from ear to ear.
‘You save us,’ he told them with a pointed look at his overbearing guardian. ‘You save me – and you save China.’ His courtiers gathered around like old friends and cheered.
Topaz was gratified, but it did not lessen her heartache at the loss of Yoyo or her worry about Jake. She and Nathan wasted no time in asking Prince Zhu to lend them a boat to return to Xi Xiang’s island for their comrades.
Zhu replied: ‘I will not lend you a boat – I will give you my fleet.’ And with that he ordered the navy to follow Topaz’s directions.
Just then, a cry went up from sailors who had spotted a figure drifting towards them, clinging to a piece of wreckage. Topaz’s heart gave a flutter as she rushed over to the rail and watched half a dozen crewmen haul a limp figure out of the sea.
Yoyo . . .! Though Topaz couldn’t tell whether she was dead or alive. Finally she received the news that her friend was still breathing, and she and Nathan punched the air in celebration. Now they needed to know that Jake and Galliana were safe.
A short while later, as the ships started on their journey to Xi’s island, Yoyo was laid out on the main deck, with imperial doctors rushing over to attend to her. She had been cut badly across her shoulder and chest and was scratched and bruised all over. Topaz and Nathan took her hands. She looked up at them, blinking in the bright sunlight. ‘That’s the last we’ll hear from her,’ she murmured. ‘The indestructible Madame Fang died as she lived: with a bang.’
Despite the assurance, Topaz found herself glancing back at the sea, checking that the old woman wasn’t still lurking out there somewhere.
‘Any news on Jake and Galliana?’ Yoyo continued.
‘We’re on our way there now,’ Topaz told her.
They had only travelled a few miles when Nathan spotted the submarine heading in their direction. At first, it threw everyone into a panic and the sailors started preparing the gun decks again, but Topaz noticed two people sprawled on top of it. One of them suddenly stood up and started waving.
‘C’est Jake!’ she exclaimed, leaping with joy. ‘Il est vivant!’ She took a moment to inspect the other figure, and added uncertainly, ‘Is that Galliana with him?’
Nathan took out his telescope and peered over. He was surprised to find instead a shabby, bearded young man. His mouth curled up into a smile. ‘Well, I’ll be—’
The Djones brothers came aboard the flagship to another emotional reunion, and Jake gave the others the devastating news of Galliana’s death.
‘She gave her life for mine,’ he sobbed. Topaz fell to her knees in shock and Nathan’s face streamed with tears – something Jake had never witnessed before. It should have been a moment of triumph: the missing Philip Djones discovered after four years, Xi Xiang vanquished, his schemes destroyed; but how could they celebrate when their leader was no more?
When the young prince understood what had happened, he immediately sent a team onto the submarine, instructing them to prepare the body as if Galliana were a member of his own family.
Philip stood with his arm around his inconsolable brother, as Topaz looked from one to the other, half smiling, half crying, and said, ‘C’est un miracle – to see you both together. Although, of course, Philip is the good-looking one.’
Jake surprised her by suddenly kissing her on the cheek. She blushed and locked eyes with him.
Philip looked at them, eyebrows raised. ‘How long exactly have I been gone . . .?’
Yoyo watched them, half smiling. Yesterday, outside the doctor’s in Zhanjiang, she had guessed that Jake’s feelings for her were not strong. Probably, in her heart, she had always known that he and Topaz were inseparable. She went over to join Nathan at the rail; he was staring at the submarine as an empty coffin of interlocking jade plates was lowered down into it in readiness for Galliana’s body.
‘I’ll never forget her,’ he murmured. ‘She was the one person who never laughed at me. And she gave me my first compliment: when I was four, she said my cavalier boots with silver spurs were very daring.’ Suddenly a terrible thought struck him. ‘Or was that jarring?’
The submarine was tethered to the flagship, and they set off again, this time towards Zhanjiang. Its harbour was deep and repairs could be carried out there.
Jake and Philip, standing shoulder to shoulder in the afternoon sun, looked back at the archipelago. Xi’s mountain, the furthest island, was easily identified – a sharp pyramid with a crooked peak. Neither brother would ever forget it – a place of almost unendurable pain, but also a place where they had found each other at last.
‘Any idea what she meant?’ Philip asked Jake. ‘Two princes of Egypt?’
‘No,’ he replied. ‘I was hoping that you might know.’
As the fleet started to file into the port, word spread around the town, and the harbour was soon full of people gawping at the great flagship that wallowed into the bay. They hadn’t received a royal visit in over a hundred years.
Suddenly a firework shot up from an unseen backyard, high into the dark sky. It exploded in myriad blue and pink stars. A minute later, another joined it, gold and orange this time. Soon they were rocketing up from all corners of the town.
Zhu clambered onto the listing platform at the prow, smiling regally. When the townspeople saw who it was, they cheered and clapped, finally breaking into song. The young prince waved back, even doing a little dance for their benefit.
Nathan turned to Jake and raised his eyebrows. ‘Flamboyance? Are we responsible for that?’ he whispered. ‘Next thing we know, he’ll be throwing a fancy-dress ball with a rococo theme.’
Hong Wu, the thin man in black who had first accompanied the History Keepers onto the ship, came to ask what should be done with the commander’s coffin. Yoyo quickly took charge, supervising the sad task as it was transported to the Thunder, which was still moored at the pier. When the History Keepers went to say their goodbyes to Zhu, the smile left his face, and he looked them up and down.
‘I will not allow you to go back to England now,’ he said sternly, making Jake glance at Topaz in alarm. But then his face relaxed into a smile. ‘You will have dinner with me first.’
Chinese lanterns were lit all around the deck and the large map table in the centre was laid out for a feast (one end had to be adjusted to compensate for the slope). More lanterns lit up the rigging, red globes with golden tassels luminous against the dusky sky.
Hong Wu came scurrying up to Yoyo and whispered something in her ear. She looked over her shoulder and Jake did the same. They could just make out, laid on the deck of the Thunder, a glint of green – Galliana’s jade coffin, with a platoon of soldiers standing guard. Then Jake saw something else that made his heart quicken: a solitary figure standing at the end of the pier. He had a spindly moustache and a long white beard, and Jake realized that it was the fortune-teller they had met earlier.
One of you will die, he had said.
He had been right.
The History Keepers set off at first light. They had decided to take Xiang’s submarine back to Point Zero with them; it could be added to the fleet. No one really wanted to crew it – Philip volunteered first, followed by Jake; but Yoyo said that they had been through enough – she would take it. Nathan insisted on accompanying her. To his surprise, she agreed.
Topaz and the Djones brothers watched them go off together, chatting amiably.
‘They seem to be getting on better,’ Jake noted.
‘Maybe they have more in common than they realize,’ Topaz replied.
They climbed aboard the Thunder, pausing for a moment in silence beside Galliana’s coffin, then prepared to set sail. Ship and submarine went in tandem, skirting around the flotilla, across the bay and out to sea, heading towards Vietnam.
When it came to taking the atomium, Jake asked what they should do with Galliana. Topaz reminded him that inanimate objects were carried through the time flux by living things: they simply had to stay close to her.
‘Yes – yes, of course,’ Jake stammered, suddenly finding it difficult to breathe. Just yesterday Galliana had been commander of the service; now she was no longer a living thing. Philip put his arm around him as Topaz went off to write a Meslith to Point Zero. She needed to pass on the good news about Philip – and the bad . . .
As they approached the horizon point, just after lunch, Nathan came up through the hatch of the submarine and called across the choppy waters, ‘Good luck, you three. See you on the other side.’
They all waved back, and within moments they were taking off out of their bodies, soaring high over the earth, into the silence of the upper atmosphere. Jake could see the islands of Indonesia, the expanse of the Indian Ocean, and across to the eastern coast of Africa. Then everything spun out of focus, like a wheel suddenly accelerating. The next thing Jake knew, he was flying, his brother and Topaz close by. It felt as if they were moving at the speed of light, but still the Earth took a long time to come back into focus. At last they fell towards the pale seas of the eastern Atlantic – and Jake caught sight of the Thunder, north of the Spanish coast. Closer still, he spotted himself on deck, next to Philip and Topaz, standing guard over the green jade box.
He returned to his body with such a jolt that he stumbled back and would have fallen if the others hadn’t caught him. He noticed a change in the weather: the breeze was fresh here. A few moments later, a little way off, the sea started foaming; there was a hiss of air, a sharp flash of light and the submarine surfaced.
They were on their way home.