The Rithmatist (12 page)

Joel crossed the lawn toward the dining hall. The campus wasn’t very full; over half of the students would be gone for the summer. Many of the staff took the summers off too, and even some of the professors were gone—off in France or JoSeun Britannia, doing research and attending symposiums.

Still, lunch was likely to be a little crowded, so he rounded the building and ducked through a back door into the kitchens. They were normally off-limits to students, but Joel wasn’t just a student.

Hextilda herself was supervising the lunch duties that day. The large woman nodded to him. “Joel, lad,” she said in her thick Scottish accent, “you enjoying your first day of summer?”

“Spent it trapped in a professor’s dungeon,” Joel said. “He had me reading census records.”

“Ha!” she said. “Well, you should know that
I
have news!”

Joel raised an eyebrow.

“M’son has gotten our whole family a traveler’s permit to visit the homeland! I’ll be leaving in a month’s time!”

“That’s fantastic, Hextilda!”

“First time any McTavish will have set foot on our own soil since my great-grandfather was driven out. Those dirty Sunnys. Forcing us to have a permit to visit our own land.”

The Scots had lasted a long time in their highlands, fighting the JoSeun invasion before being driven out. Trying to convince a Scot that the land was no longer theirs was next to impossible.

“So,” Joel said, “want to celebrate by giving me a sandwich so I don’t have to wait in line?”

Hextilda gave him a flat look. But less than five minutes later she delivered one of her signature, well-stacked sandwiches. Joel took a bite, savoring the salty flavor of the wood-smoked haddock as he left the kitchens and started across campus.

Something was going on—the way Principal York had acted, the way Fitch had closed the notebook when Joel approached … it was suspicious. So how could he get more involved?

Fitch did warn me that the life of a Rithmatist wasn’t glamorous,
he reminded himself.
But there has to be a way.

Perhaps he could figure out on his own what Fitch was researching. Joel thought for a moment. Then he looked down at the last few bites of sandwich in his hand, an idea forming in his head. He rushed back to the dining hall.

A few minutes later, he left the kitchen with two more sandwiches, each in a small paper sack. He ran across the campus green to the office.

Florence and Exton looked up when Joel entered. “Joel?” Florence said. “Didn’t expect to see you today. It’s summer!”

“I’m not here to work; I’m just here to say hello. What, you think that because it’s summer I’m never going to drop by?”

Florence smiled. Today she wore a green summer dress, her curly blonde hair tamed in a bun. “How thoughtful. I’m sure Exton will be pleased for the diversion!”

Exton continued to write at one of his ledgers. “Oh yes. I’m excited to have yet another item striving to distract me from the two hundred end-of-term grade reports I must fill out and file before the week is over. Delightful.”

“Ignore him, dear,” Florence said. “That’s his way of saying he’s happy to see you.”

Joel set the two packages on the countertop. “Well, I have to admit that it’s not
just
a social visit. I was in the kitchens, and the cook thought you two might want something for lunch.”

“
That’s
sweet,” Florence said, walking over. Even Exton grunted in agreement. Florence handed him a bag, and they immediately began to work on the sandwiches. Joel got out the remnant of his own meal, holding it and taking small bites so that he wouldn’t look out of place.

“So,” he said, leaning against the counter, “anything exciting happen during the four hours since summer started?”

“Nothing much,” Florence said. “As Exton already pointed out, there is a lot of busywork this time of year.”

“Dull, eh?” Joel asked.

Exton grunted into his sandwich.

“Well,” Joel said, “we can’t have federal inspectors visiting
every
day, I suppose.”

“That’s the truth,” Florence said. “And I’m glad for it. Quite the ruckus that one caused.”

“Did you ever figure out what it was about?” Joel asked, taking a bite of his sandwich.

“Maybe,” Florence said, lowering her voice. “I couldn’t hear what was going on inside the principal’s office, of course.…”

“Florence,” Exton said warningly.

“Oh, hush you,” she said. “Go back to your sandwich. Anyway, Joel, did you hear about that Rithmatic girl who vanished a few days back? Lilly Whiting?”

Joel nodded.

“Poor dear,” Florence said. “She was a very good student, by the look of her grades.”

“You read her
records
?” Exton asked.

“Of course I did,” Florence said. “Anyway, from what
I’ve
heard, she didn’t run away like they’re saying in the papers. She had good grades, was well liked, and got along with her parents.”

“What happened to her, then?” Joel asked.

“Murder,” Florence said softly.

Joel fell silent. Murder. That made sense—after all, a federal inspector was involved. Yet it felt different to have it spoken out loud. It made him remember that they were talking about a real person, not just a logical puzzle.

“Murder,” he repeated.

“By a Rithmatist,” Florence said.

Joel stiffened.

“Now, that’s just useless speculation,” Exton said, wagging a finger at her.

“I heard enough before York closed the door,” Florence replied. “That inspector thinks a Rithmatist was involved in the killing, and he wanted expert help. It—”

She cut off as the front door to the office behind Joel opened and closed.

“I delivered the message to Haberstock,” a female voice said. “But I—”

Joel groaned.

“You!” Melody snapped, pointing at Joel. “See, you
are
following me!”

“I just came to—”

“I don’t want to hear your excuses this time,” Melody said. “I have
evidence
now.”

“Melody,” Florence said sharply, “you’re acting like a child. Joel is a friend. He can visit the office if he wants.”

The redheaded Rithmatist huffed at that, but Joel didn’t want another argument. He figured he’d gotten as much out of Florence as he was going to be able to, so he nodded farewell to the clerks and made his exit.

Killed by a Rithmatist?
Joel thought once outside.
How would they know?

Had Lilly died in a duel gone wrong? Students didn’t know the glyphs that would make a chalkling dangerous. Usually a chalkling drawn with a Line of Making would be unable to harm anything aside from other chalk drawings. It took a special glyph to make them truly dangerous.

That glyph—the Glyph of Rending—was only taught at Nebrask during the last year of a student’s training, when they went to maintain the enormous Circle of Warding in place around the Tower. Still, it was not outside of reason that a student could have discovered it. And if a Rithmatist
had
been involved, it would explain why Fitch had been brought in.

Something
is
happening,
Joel thought.
Something important.
He was going to find out, but he needed a plan.

What if he got through those census records as quickly as possible? He could show Fitch how hard he was willing to work, that he was trustworthy. Professor Fitch would have to assign him another project—something more involved, something that gave him a better idea of what was going on.

Plan in place, he headed back toward Fitch’s to ask for a few of the census ledgers to take home with him tonight. He’d been planning to read a novel—he’d found an interesting one set during the Koreo Dynasty in JoSeun, during the first days when the JoSeun people had turned the Mongols to their side. It would wait.

He had work to do.

CHAPTER

By the end of the week, Joel had discovered something important about himself. Something deep, primal, and completely inarguable.

The Master had
not
meant for him to be a clerk.

He was tired of dates. He was fed up with ledgers. He was nauseated by notes, cross-references, and little asterisks beside people’s names.

Despite that, he continued to sit on Fitch’s floor, studying page after page. He felt as if his brain had been sucked out, his lips stapled shut, and his fingers given a life of their own. There was something about the rote work that was mesmerizing. He couldn’t stop until he was done.

And he nearly was. After one week of hard work, he was well over halfway through the lists. He had started taking records home with him each day, then worked on them until it grew dark. He’d often spent extra hours after that, when he couldn’t sleep, working by the light of lanterns.

But soon, very soon, he would be done.
Assuming I don’t go mad first,
Joel thought, noting another death by accident on one of his lists.

A paper rustled on the other side of Fitch’s office. Each day, Fitch gave Melody a different defensive circle to trace. She was getting better, but still had a long way to go.

Each night at dinner, Melody sat apart from the other Rithmatists. She ate in silence while the others chatted. So he wasn’t the only one to find her annoying.

Fitch had spent the last week poking through old, musty Rithmatic texts. Joel had sneaked a look at a couple of them—they were high-level, theoretical volumes that were well beyond Joel’s understanding.

Joel turned his attention back to his work and ticked off another name, then moved on to the next book. It was …

Something bothered him about that last list—another list of graduates from Armedius, organized by year, for checking off those who had died. One of the names he hadn’t checked off caught his attention.
Exton L. Pratt.
Exton the clerk.

Exton had never given any indication that he was an alumnus. He’d been senior clerk in the office for as long as Joel could remember. He was something of a fixture at Armedius, with his dapper suits and bow ties, sharp clothing ordered out of the Californian Archipelago.

“All right, that’s it!” Melody suddenly declared. “I, Melody Muns, have had enough!”

Joel sighed. Her outbursts were surprisingly regular. It seemed that she could only stand about an hour or so of silence before she simply
had
to fill it with a dramatic eruption.

“Hum?” Professor Fitch asked, looking up from his book. “What is that?”

“I have had enough,” Melody said, folding her arms. “I don’t think I can trace another line. My fingers won’t do it. They will sooner pull themselves free of my hands!”

Joel rose, stretching.

“I’m just
no good
at this,” she continued. “How bad does a girl have to be at Rithmatics before everyone will simply give up and let her move on?”

“Far worse than you are, dear,” Fitch said, setting aside his book. “In all my years here, I’ve only seen it happen twice—and only because those students were considered dangerous.”

“I’m dangerous,” Melody said. “You heard what Professor Nalizar said about me.”

“Professor Nalizar is not the expert in everything he claims,” Fitch said. “Perhaps he knows how to duel, but he does not understand students. You, my dear, are far from hopeless. Why, look at how much your tracings have improved in just one week’s time!”

“Yeah,” she said. “Next time you need to impress a group of four-year-olds, you can send for me.”

“You really
are
getting better,” Joel said. She still wasn’t great, but she’d improved. It seemed that Professor Fitch really did know what he was doing.

“See, dear?” Fitch said, picking up his book again. “You should get back to it.”

“I thought you were supposed to be
tutoring
me,” she said. “Yet all you do is sit there and read. I think you’re trying to shirk your duties.”

Fitch blinked. “Tracing Rithmatic defenses is a time-tested and traditionally sound method of training a student to focus on basic techniques.”

“Well,” she said, “I’m tired of it. Isn’t there something else I could do?”