The Rithmatist (30 page)

“Either way,” York continued, “I wish I’d never hired Nalizar. He has tenure, however, and firing him would be very difficult—and I really have no proof he is involved. So I ask again: What specifically makes you suspect him?”

“Well,” Joel said, “do you remember what I told you about new Rithmatic lines? I saw Nalizar checking out a book from the library that was
about
new Rithmatic lines and their possible existence.”

“Anything else?”

“He left his building the other night,” Joel said. “The night Charles Calloway was kidnapped. I was out walking and saw him.”

York rubbed his chin. “You’re right,” he said. “That’s hardly compelling evidence.”

“Principal,” Joel said. “Do you know why Nalizar is even here? I mean, if he’s such a great hero at Nebrask, then why is he at a school teaching rather than fighting the wild chalklings?”

York studied Joel for a few seconds.

“Sir?” Joel finally asked.

“I’m trying to decide if I should tell you or not,” the principal said. “To be honest, son, this is somewhat sensitive information.”

“I can keep a secret.”

“I don’t doubt that,” York said. “It’s still my responsibility to decide what I tell and what I don’t.” He tapped his fingers together. “There was an …
incident
at Nebrask.”

“What kind of incident?”

“The death of a Rithmatist,” York said. “Regardless of what many people here in the east claim, a death at Nebrask is
always
treated with solemnity by the war cabinet. In this case, there were lots of fingers pointed, and it was decided that some men—such as Nalizar—would be better off reassigned to nonactive duty.”

“So he killed someone?”

“No,” York said, “he was involved in an incident where a young Rithmatist was killed by the wild chalklings. Nalizar was never implicated, and shouldn’t have been, from what I read. When I interviewed him for his job here, Nalizar blamed political forces for trying to save their own hides from a blemish on their records. That sort of thing is common enough that I believed him. Still do, actually.”

“But…”

“But it’s suspicious,” York agreed. “Tell me, what do these new lines you discovered look like?”

“Can I have a pen?”

York loaned him one, then gave him a sheet of paper. Joel drew the swirling, looping pattern that had been discovered at all three crime scenes. “Nobody knows what it is, but at least we know that it
is
Rithmatic now.”

York rubbed his chin, holding up the paper. “Hum … yes. You know, it’s strange, but this looks oddly
familiar
to me for some reason.”

Joel’s heart skipped a beat. “It does?”

York nodded. “Probably nothing.”

Why would
he
have seen it?
Joel thought.
Principal York hasn’t studied Rithmatics. What do the two of us have in common? Just the school.

The school, and …

Joel looked up, eyes widening as he remembered—finally—where he’d seen that pattern before.

CHAPTER

Joel left the office, giving a rushed farewell to York and Florence. He didn’t tell anyone what he’d just realized. He needed to confirm it for himself first.

Joel took off down the path toward the dormitory building, moving at a brisk walk. He resisted running—with how tense the campus was, that would probably draw more attention than he wanted.

Unfortunately, he caught sight of Melody walking back down the path toward the office, her deliveries apparently finished. He winced, ducking to the side. But of course she saw him.

“Joel!” she called. “I have decided that I’m
brilliant
!”

“I don’t have much time right now…” he said as she rushed over to him.

“Blah, blah,” she said. “Look, I’ve got something
exciting
to tell you. Aren’t you thrilled!”

“Yeah,” Joel said, starting down the pathway again. “I’ll talk to you about it later.”

“Hey!” Melody said, then pulled up beside him. “Are you trying to ignore me again?”

“Again?” Joel said. “I’ve never tried to ignore you.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Look, during those first weeks, weren’t you mad at me because you thought I was
stalking
you?”

“Past, gone, dead,” she said. “No, listen, this is
really
important. I think I found a way for you to become a Rithmatist.”

Joel nearly tripped over his own feet.

“Ha!” Melody said. “I figured that would get your attention.”

“Did you say that just to get me to stop?”

“Dusts, no. Joel, I
told
you, I’m brilliant!”

“Tell me about it as we walk,” Joel said, moving again. “There’s something I need to check on.”

“You’re strange today, Joel,” she said, catching up to him.

“I’ve just figured something out,” he said, reaching the family dormitory building. “Something that’s been bugging me for a long time.” He climbed the steps up to the second floor, Melody tagging along behind.

“I don’t appreciate being treated like this, Joel,” she said. “Don’t you realize that I’ve spent days and days working on a way to pay you back for vouching for me in front of Harding? Now, I come to tell you, and you repay me by running about like a crazy man? I’m starting to take it personally.”

Joel stopped, then sighed, looking toward her. “We’ve discovered new kinds of Rithmatic lines at each of the crime scenes where students were kidnapped.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. One of them looked familiar to me. I couldn’t remember why, but Principal York just said something that reminded me of where I’d seen it. So I’m going to make sure.”

“Ah,” she said. “And … once you’re done with that, you’ll be able to give proper attention to my
stunning, brilliant, amazing
announcement?”

“Sure,” Joel said.

“Fair enough,” she said, tagging along as he continued down the hallway to the room he shared with his mother. He pushed inside, then went to the dresser beside the bed.

“Wow,” Melody said, peeking into the room. “You sleep here, eh? It’s, uh, cozy.”

Joel pulled open the top drawer of the dresser, which was filled with knickknacks. He began to rummage in it.

“Where are the rest of your rooms? Across the hallway, here?”

“No, this is it,” Joel said.

“Oh. Where does your mother live?”

“Here.”

“You
both
live in this room?” Melody asked.

“I use the bed during the nights; she uses it during the days. She’s out today, though, visiting her parents. It’s her day off.”
She takes precious few of those.

“Incredible. You know, this is way smaller than my dormitory room. And we all complain about how tiny they are.”

Joel found what he was looking for, pulling it out of the dresser.

“A key?” Melody asked.

Joel pushed past her, rushing to the stairwell. She trailed behind. “What’s the key for?”

“We didn’t always live in that room,” Joel said, passing the first floor and continuing on to the basement. The door he wanted was at the bottom of the stairwell.

“So?” Melody asked as he unlocked the door.

He looked at her, then pushed the door open. “We used to live here,” he said, pointing toward the room beyond.

His father’s workshop.

The large chamber was filled with shadowed shapes and a dusty scent. Joel walked in, surprised at how familiar the place felt. He hadn’t stepped foot past that door in eight years, yet he knew just where to find the wall lamp. He wound it, then twisted the gear at the bottom, making it begin to hum and shine out light.

Illumination fell on a dusty room filled with old tables, stacks of limestone blocks, and an old kiln used for baking sticks of chalk. Joel walked reverently into the room, feeling his memories tingle and shake, like taste buds encountering something both sour and sweet.

“I slept over there,” he said, pointing to the far corner. A small bed stood there, and a couple of sheets hung from the ceiling, arranged so that they could be pulled to give him privacy.

His parents’ bed was in the other corner, with similar hanging sheets. Between the two “rooms” was furniture—some chairs, chests of drawers. His father had always talked about building walls to split the shop into rooms. After he’d died, they hadn’t been able to fit any of the furniture in the new room, so Joel’s mother had just left it.

Joel smiled faintly, remembering his father humming as he smoothed chalk at his table. Most of the chamber had been dedicated to the workshop. The cauldrons, the mixing pots, the kiln, the stacks of books about chalk composition and consistency.

“Wow,” Melody said. “It feels … peaceful in here.”

Joel crossed the room, feet scraping the dusty floor. On one of the tables, he found a line of chalk sticks running the entire spectrum of colors. He slid a blue one off the table and rubbed the length of chalk between his fingers, the coating on the outside keeping his fingers from getting color on them. He walked over to the far side of the room, the one opposite the beds. There, hung on the wall, were chalk formulas detailing different levels of hardness.

The chalk formulas were surrounded by pictures of the different Rithmatic defenses. There were dozens of them, drawn by Joel’s father, with notations along the sides explaining who had used them and during which duel. There were newspaper clippings about famous duels, as well as stories on famous duelists.

Trent’s voice drifted into Joel’s head from memory. His father reading out loud about those duels, explaining to Joel with excitement about brilliant plays. Remembering that enthusiasm brought back a menagerie of other memories. Joel pushed those aside for the moment, focusing on something else. For in the middle of all those formulas, defenses, and newspaper clippings was a particularly large sheet of paper.

Drawn on it was the looping Rithmatic pattern they’d found at each of the crime scenes.

Joel breathed out slowly.

“What?” Melody asked as she stepped up beside him.

“That’s it,” Joel said. “The new Rithmatic line.”

“Wait, your
father
is the kidnapper?”

“No, of course not. But he knew, Melody. He borrowed money; he took time off; he visited with Rithmatists at all eight schools. He was working on something—his passion.”

Melody glanced to the side, looking over the clippings and the pictures. “So
that
’s why,” she whispered.

“Why what?”

“Why you’re so fascinated by Rithmatics,” she said. “I asked you once. You never answered. It’s because of your father.”

Joel stared at the wall, with its patterns and defenses. His father would talk about them at length, telling Joel which defenses were good against which offensive structures. Other boys had played soccer with their fathers. Joel had drawn defenses with his.

“Father always wanted me to attend Armedius,” Joel said. “He wanted so badly for me to turn out to be a Rithmatist, though he never said anything. We drew together all the time. I think he became a chalkmaker so that he’d be able to work with Rithmatists.”

And he’d done something wonderful. A new Rithmatic line! It hadn’t been discovered by men like Fitch or Nalizar, Rithmatists with years of experience. It had been discovered by Joel’s father, a simple chalkmaker.

How? What did it mean? What did the line even do? So many questions. His father would have notes, wouldn’t he? Joel would have to search them, tracking his father’s studies during his last days. Discover how this was related to the disappearances.

For the moment, Joel reveled.
You did it, Father. You accomplished something none of them did.

“All right,” Joel said, turning to Melody, “what is your big news?”

“Oh,” she said. “It’s kind of hard to declare it properly now. I don’t know. I just … well, I’ve been doing some studying.”

“Studying?” Joel asked. “You?”

“I study!” she said, hands on hips. “Anyway, you shouldn’t complain, because it was about you.”

“You studied about me? Now who’s the stalker?”

“Not about you personally, idiot. It was about what happened to you. Joel, your inception was handled wrong. You are
supposed
to go into the chamber of inception.”