The Rithmatist (24 page)

“Is that why you always get so mad at me for not doing well in my classes?”

“That’s part of it. Oh, Joel. Don’t you see? I just want you to have a better life than we did. Your father … he sacrificed so much. He might have made it, too, if his blasted research hadn’t ended up costing his life.”

Joel cocked his head. “He got wounded in a springrail accident.”

She paused. “Yes. That’s what I meant. If he hadn’t been out traveling on one of his projects, he wouldn’t have been on the train when it derailed.”

Joel eyed her. “Mother,” he said. “Father
did
die from a springrail accident, didn’t he?”

“You saw him in the hospital, Joel. You sat with him while he died.”

Joel frowned, but couldn’t dispute that fact. He remembered the sterile rooms, the physicians bustling about, the medications they gave his father and the surgeries they did on his crushed legs. Joel also remembered the forced optimism they’d all displayed when telling Joel that his father would get better.

They’d known he would die. Joel could see it now—they’d all known, even his mother. Only the eight-year-old Joel had hoped, thinking—no,
knowing
—that his father would eventually wake up and be just fine.

The accident had happened the third of July. Joel had spent the fourth—the day of inception—at his father’s side. His stomach twisted inside. He’d held his father’s hand as he died.

Trent hadn’t ever woken up, despite the hundred prayers Joel had offered during that day.

Joel didn’t realize he was crying until a teardrop splatted to the black stone in front of him. He wiped his eyes quickly. Wasn’t time supposed to dull the pain?

He could still remember his father’s face: kindly, set with affable jowls and eyes that smiled. It hurt.

Joel stood up, putting his brush back in the bucket. “Maybe I
should
go get some sleep,” he said, and turned away, worried that his mother might see his tears.

“That would be for the best,” his mother said.

Joel walked for the exit.

“Joel,” she called after him.

He paused.

“Don’t worry about things too much,” she said. “The money, I mean. I have it under control.”

You work yourself half to death,
he thought,
and spend the rest of the time worrying yourself sick. I have to find a way to help you. Somehow.

“I understand,” he said. “I’ll just focus on my studies.”

She turned back to her scrubbing, and Joel left, crossing the green to their dorm. He climbed into bed without changing, suddenly exhausted.

Hours later, sunlight shining on his face, he blinked awake and realized that—for once—he’d fallen asleep with ease. He yawned, climbed out of the bed, and made it for when his mother got done with work in an hour or so. He changed into some clothing from the small trunk at the end of the bed.

The room was basically empty, otherwise. A dresser, the trunk, the bed. The room was so small that he could almost touch the walls opposite one another at the same time. Yawning, intending to make his way to the restroom at the end of the hall, he opened the door.

He stopped in place as he saw people rushing about in the hallway outside, talking excitedly. He caught the arm of one woman as she hurried past.

“Mrs. Emuishere?” he said. “What’s going on?”

The dark-skinned Egyptian woman eyed him. “Joel, lad! Haven’t you
heard
?”

“Heard what? I just woke up.”

“A third disappearance,” she said. “Another Rithmatist. Charles Calloway.”

“Calloway?” Joel said. He recognized that name. “You mean…?”

She nodded. “The son of the knight-senator of East Carolina, Joel. The boy was kidnapped right out of his family’s private estate late last night. They should have listened to the principal, I say. Poor kid would have been far safer here.”

“The son of a knight-senator!” This was bad.

“There’s more,” she said, leaning in. “There were deaths, Joel. The boy’s servants—ordinary men, not Dusters—were found at the scene, their skin ripped off and their eyes chewed out. Like…”

“Like they were attacked by wild chalklings,” Joel whispered.

She nodded curtly, then bustled off, obviously intent on sharing the news with others.

The son of a knight-senator kidnapped or killed,
Joel thought numbly.
Civilians murdered.

Everything had just changed drastically.

PART

THREE

CHAPTER

Joel ran across the campus to Professor Fitch’s office. He knocked on the door and got no answer. So he tested the doorknob, and found it unlocked.

He pushed it open.

“Just a moment!” Fitch called. The professor stood next to his desk, quickly gathering up a bunch of scrolls, writing utensils, and books. He looked even more disheveled than usual, hair sticking up, tie askew.

“Professor?” Joel asked.

“Ah, Joel,” Fitch said, glancing up. “Excellent! Please, come help me with these.”

Joel hastened to help carry an armful of scrolls. “What’s going on?”

“We’ve failed again,” Fitch said. “There’s been another disappearance.”

“I know,” Joel said, following Professor Fitch toward the door. “But what are
we
doing about it?”

“Don’t you remember?” Fitch said, closing the door behind Joel, then hurriedly leading the way down the steps. “You suggested that we needed to see the crime scene before it was contaminated by police officers. As good as they are, they have no realistic understanding of Rithmatics. I explained this to Inspector Harding.”

“Will they actually wait until we get there to look things over?”

“They can’t start until Harding arrives,” Fitch said. “And he’s here at Armedius. The disappearance wasn’t discovered until just a short time ago. And so, if we—”

“Fitch!” a voice called from ahead. Joel looked up to see Inspector Harding standing with a group of police officers. “Double-time, soldier!”

“Yes, yes,” Fitch said, quickening his pace.

Harding gestured, and his police officers scrambled away. “I’ve told the engineer to hold the springrail,” Harding said as Fitch and Joel joined him. “My men are securing the campus—no more Rithmatic students are going to leave this place without police protection until we know what is happening.”

“Very wise,” Fitch said as Harding and he strode toward the station. Joel hurried along behind, carrying the scrolls. Students had gathered on the green nearby to watch the police, and Joel caught sight of some familiar red curls among them.

“Hey!” Melody said, pushing through the students and rushing up to Joel. “What’s going on?”

Joel winced as Professor Fitch turned. “Ah, Melody, dear. I left some defenses for you to trace in my office. You can work on that today while I’m gone.”

“Tracing?” Melody demanded. “We’re in the middle of a
crisis
!”

“Now, now,” Fitch said. “We don’t have all the facts yet. I am going to go see what is going on. However,
you
need to continue your education.”

She glanced at Joel, and he shrugged apologetically.

“Come on, soldiers!” Harding said. “We must move quickly while the crime scene is still fresh!”

They left Melody behind. She watched with hands on her hips, and Joel had a feeling that he was going to have to listen to another tirade when he got back.

They arrived at the station, a large brick building that was open on the ends. Joel had rarely ridden one of the trains. Joel’s grandparents lived on the same island, and a carriage trip to see them was cheaper. Other than them, there was little reason for him to leave the city, let alone the island.

He smiled in anticipation as he walked up the ramp behind Harding and Fitch. They had to fight traffic as the usual morning crowd of students moved down the ramp around them.

“You haven’t shut down the station, Inspector?” Fitch asked, looking at the flood of students.

“I can’t afford to,” Harding said. “If this campus is going to become a haven for the students, we need to let them
get
here first. Many of the non-Rithmatists live off campus. I want to let as many of them as possible come here for refuge. Now that civilians have died, we don’t know for certain if ordinary students are safe.”

The three of them stepped into the rectangular brick station. Springrail trains hung beneath their tracks, and so the track was high in the air, about ten feet up; it ran through the building and out the ends. The train cars were long and slender, designed like ornate carriages.

The vehicle’s clockwork engines sprouted from the tops of the first two train cars, wrapping around the track above like large iron claws. A group of workers labored above on catwalks, lowering down and attaching an enormous, drum-shaped spring battery onto the first engine. It had been wound in another location; it could take hours to wind a single drum. The powerful springs inside had to be strong enough to move the entire train. That was why chalklings to do the work were preferable.

Harding hurried Fitch and Joel onto the train, and they were followed by a set of policemen. The officers cleared out a few annoyed people from a cabin at the very front of the train, and there made space for Fitch, Harding, and Joel.

Joel sat down eagerly. The situation was gloomy—another student kidnapped, innocent people murdered—yet he couldn’t banish the thrill of being able to ride the springrail. And in his own cabin, no less.

The train clanked and shook as the workers attached the spring drum above. Outside, Joel saw annoyed people leaving the train and going to stand out on the platform.

“You’re evacuating the train?” Fitch asked.

“No,” Harding said. “My men are just informing everyone on the vehicle that it will be canceling all stops until we reach East Carolina. Anyone who doesn’t want to go there will have to get off and wait for the next train.”

The drum locked into place with a powerful clamping sound. Then the workers moved down to the second car, and similar sounds came as they began to attach a second drum to the gearwork engine there. Joel imagined the massive springs and gears inside of the drums, incredibly taut with power just waiting to be released.

“Inspector,” Fitch said, leaning forward. “Was it
really
Sir Calloway’s son who was taken?”

“Yes,” the officer said, looking troubled.

“What does it mean?” Fitch said. “I mean, for Armedius and the isle?”

The inspector shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve never understood politicians, Fitch. I’m a fighting man; I belong on the battlefield, not in a conference room.” He turned to meet Fitch’s eyes. “I
do
know that we’d better figure out what’s going on, and quickly.”

“Yes,” Fitch said.

Joel frowned. “I don’t understand.”

Fitch eyed him. “Haven’t you had classes on government?”

“Of course I have,” Joel said. “Government was … uh, the class I failed last year.”

Fitch sighed. “Such potential wasted.”

“It wasn’t interesting,” Joel protested. “I mean, I want to learn about
Rithmatics,
not politics. Let’s be honest, when am I
ever
going to need to know historical government theories?”

“I don’t know,” Fitch said. “Maybe right
now.
”

Joel winced.

“It’s more than that, of course,” Fitch said. “Joel, lad, school is about learning
to
learn. If you don’t practice studying things you don’t like, then you’ll have a very hard time in life. How are you going to become a brilliant Rithmatic scholar and attend university if you don’t learn to study when you don’t feel like it?”

“I never really saw it that way.”

“Well, perhaps you should.”

Joel sat back. He’d only recently learned that there were liberal universities where non-Rithmatists studied Rithmatics. He doubted those universities would admit a student who had a habit of failing at least one class every term.

He gritted his teeth, frustrated with himself, but there was nothing he could do about years past. Perhaps he could change the future. Assuming, of course, the recent troubles didn’t lead to Armedius getting shut down. “So why would New Britannia be in danger because of events at Armedius?”