The Rithmatist

she said. “The prettier the drawing is, the stronger it is and the better it’s able to do what you tell it to. What’s confusing about that?”
    “It’s confusing because it’s vague,” Joel said. “I can’t understand something until I know why it happens the way it does. There has to be an objective point of reference that determines what makes a good drawing and what doesn’t—even if that objective point of reference is the subjective opinion of the Rithmatist doing the drawing.”
    She blinked at him, then took another bite of ice cream. “You, Joel, should have been a Rithmatist.”
    “So I’ve been told,” he said with a sigh.
    “I mean seriously,” Melody said, “who talks like that?”
    Joel turned back to his own ice cream. After how much it had cost, he didn’t want it to melt and get wasted. To him, that was secondary to the flavor, good though it was. “Aren’t those members of your cohort?” he asked, pointing at a group of Rithmatic students at a table in the corner.
    Melody glanced over. “Yeah.”
    “What are they doing?” Joel asked.
    “Looking at a newspaper?” Melody said, squinting. “Hey, is that a sketch of Professor Fitch on the front?”
    Joel groaned. Well, that reporter certainly does work quickly.
    “Come on,” he said, downing his soda and shoving the last spoonful of ice cream in his mouth, then standing. “We need to find a copy of that paper.”



CHAPTER

    “‘Professor Fitch,’” Melody read from the paper, “‘is a little squirrel of a man, huddled before his books like they were the winter’s nuts, piled and packed carelessly in his den. He’s deceptively important, for he is at the center of the search to find the Armedius Killer.’”
    “Killer?” Joel asked.
    Melody held up a finger, still reading.
    Or, at least, that’s what one source speculates. “Yes, we fear for the lives of the kidnapped students,” the unnamed source said. “Every officer knows that if someone goes missing this conspicuously, chances are good that they’ll never be found. At least not alive.”
    Professor Fitch is more optimistic. He not only thinks that the children are still alive, but that they can be recovered—and the secret to their whereabouts might have to do with the discovery of some strange Rithmatic lines at the crime scenes.
    “We don’t know what they are or what they do,” Professor Fitch explained, “but those lines are definitely involved.” He declined to show me these drawings, but he did indicate that they weren’t composed of any of the basic four lines.
    Fitch is a humble man. He speaks with a quiet, unassuming voice. Few would realize that upon him, our hopes must rest. For if there really is a Rithmatist madman on the loose in New Britannia, then it will undoubtedly take a Rithmatist to defeat him.
    She looked up from the paper, their empty ice cream dishes and soda glasses sitting dirty on the table. The parlor was growing less busy as many of the students left for Armedius to make curfew.
    “Well, I guess now you know the whole of it,” Joel said.
    “That’s it?” she said. “That’s all you were talking about with the inspector?”
    “That’s pretty much it.” The article contained some frightening details—such as the exact nature of Lilly’s and Herman’s disappearances, including the fact that blood was found at each scene. “This is bad, Melody. I can’t believe that got printed.”
    “Why?”
    “Up until now, the police and Principal York were still implying that Herman and Lilly might have just run away. Parents of Rithmatists at the academy guessed otherwise, but the people of the city didn’t know.”
    “Well, it’s best for them to know the truth, then,” Melody proclaimed.
    “Even if it causes panic? Even if ordinary people hide in their homes because they’re afraid of a killer who may not exist, and who undoubtedly isn’t going to hurt them?”
    Melody bit her lip.
    Joel sighed, standing. “Let’s get back,” he said, folding up the newspaper. “We have to make curfew, and I want to get this to Inspector Harding, just in case he hasn’t seen it yet.”
    She nodded, joining Joel as he walked out onto the street. It felt darker now, and Joel again wondered at the wisdom of going out when there could be a killer about. Melody seemed to be in a similar mood, and she walked closer to him than she had before. Their steps were quick, their conversation nonexistent, until they finally