“Pinmei,” Yishan said in a wheedling tone, “we’ll get her back.”

“How?” Pinmei said accusingly.

“The emperor wants Amah for her stories, right?” Yishan said. “You know all the stories too. We can figure it out ourselves.”

“Figure it out ourselves?” she said, glaring. “We wouldn’t have to if you hadn’t asked the Paper about… about… the tortoise!”

“Listen,” Yishan said, coaxing her, “I had to ask about the tortoise. We need to save Amah from the emperor, right? Well, how do you think he suddenly became so powerful? He’s captured the tortoise. That’s why it’s still winter and the emperor is invincible.”

If one could make the Black Tortoise do anything, that person would be invincible, Amah had said. Could Yishan be right? If the emperor had the Black Tortoise of Winter, he was invincible, and they knew the emperor had taken Amah because he wanted to be immortal. Did the emperor plan on being invincible forever?

Pinmei looked at Yishan, and his eyes gazed into hers with a rare earnestness.

“It’s not just Amah who needs to be rescued,” Yishan said, and suddenly Pinmei thought of Lady Meng and the slave workers of the Vast Wall, the hollow eyes of the king of the City of Bright Moonlight, the tearstained faces of the village children, and Suya’s emptying rice jar. Pinmei closed her eyes. The emperor. The tortoise. The winter. Amah. Was it somehow all sewn together? And was the Black Tortoise the stitch that needed to be pulled first before it could all unravel?

Pinmei opened her eyes, but she still saw Amah’s face in her mind. Her chest felt as if the weight of the moon pressed against it, but she slowly nodded. “You’re right,” she said, the words dry in her mouth.

Yishan smiled gratefully. He turned to the Sea King, who had been watching them in uncomfortable silence.

“Please, Your Majesty,” Yishan said, handing the Sea King the Paper, “could you read this?”

The king took the Paper with an uneasy look on his face, and he gave Yishan a questioning glance. But he held the Paper over his head. His eyes widened.

“What does it say?” Yishan asked. “How has the emperor captured the tortoise?”

“It says,” the Sea King said as he lowered the Paper, the look of shock still on his face, “with the Iron Rod.”

CHAPTER

60

“That makes sense,” Yishan muttered, more to himself than to the others. “What else could hold the Black Tortoise? It’s the only thing! The Iron Rod!”

“The Iron Rod?” Pinmei asked, the king’s confused look now on her own face as well. “Isn’t that… Nuwa’s hair? Isn’t that here…”

Instead of answering, the Sea King opened his mouth, and a roar, like the rushing of waves, sounded. Before the call could even echo, two figures appeared. They were obviously royal guards or generals, for their heavy copper-colored armor almost completely encased them, with only tufts of fur peeking out. As they bowed low, it was easy to imagine them as transformed crabs.

“Go to the treasury,” the king said, “and see if the Iron Rod is there.”

The two guards bowed again and, with a flash, disappeared.

The Sea King turned back to the children.

“If the Iron Rod has been stolen, it must be found immediately,” he said to them gravely. “It is much too powerful to be misused, as I fear it has been already.”

“The emperor must have gotten it,” Yishan said.

“I do not understand how,” the Sea King said. “We do not heavily guard it, for only an immortal could take it from Sea Bottom. Your emperor must have gotten an immortal to steal it for him.”

“Or he just got lucky,” Yishan said darkly. “The emperor has a bit of an obsession with immortality.”

Pinmei looked at Yishan, a hundred questions silently filling her open mouth. He looked like the same boy she had always known, but he was acting as if he were as powerful as the Sea King. But before she could force out a word, a clicking sounded behind them. The two crab guards had returned.

“The Iron Rod is not in the treasury, Your Majesty,” one of the guards said.

“You checked carefully?” the Sea King asked. “You know the Iron Rod can shrink to the size of a needle.”

The guards nodded.

“Begin a search for it at once, then,” the Sea King said. “Question all the servants and check all who have ever been to the Treasury. Make sure to ask the queen and her handmaids; sometimes they use it for their sewing and other fine work. If the Iron Rod is in the sea, I want it found.”

The guards bobbed and bowed, and with more clicking, they disappeared again. The Sea King looked once more at the children.

“But I think we know the Iron Rod is unlikely to be found in the sea,” he said to them. “So it looks as if the task of retrieving it will be up to you, my small friends.”

“We’ll go immediately,” Yishan said.

“Do you not wish to rest after your travels?” the Sea King said courteously. “It would honor me to host—”

“That’s not necessary,” Yishan interrupted. “We’ve been away long enough, and with time being different down here and everything, who knows what has happened up there?”

“Very true,” the Sea King said. He bowed respectfully and said, “I will take you to the surface.”

“You will take us?” Pinmei coughed.

As if in reply, the Sea King straightened and let out another roar, this one long and thunderous. His robes billowed out in colossal waves, flowing past Pinmei and Yishan. The silk settled onto a massive, powerful shape and transformed into iridescent scales. When Pinmei finally dared to look back at the Sea King, she saw his head had elongated, with deep brows shadowing his glittering eyes and his horns now majestic. The Sea King had changed into a dragon.

“Come,” he said, his voice sounding as if it were coming from the depths of the sea.

Yishan quickly clambered onto the dragon’s back and held out his hand to Pinmei. “Hurry up.”

Pinmei stared. The dragon’s scales shimmered and glistened; he was a gigantic mountain of luminous colors and light. As she hesitated, the dragon turned his head toward her, his impenetrable black eyes piercing her.