The Rithmatist

pictures on the walls began to dance and move.
    Estevez himself had described the drawings in great detail. Most importantly, he had insisted that the drawings weren’t scratched or carved, but instead drawn in a whitish, chalky substance. He had even done drawings of the figures and put them in his log, which survived to the present day.
    “Joel, lad,” Fitch said, “you look exhausted.”
    Joel blinked, looking up. Fitch sat at his desk, and from the dark circles under his eyes, Joel figured the man must feel at least twice as tired as Joel did. “I’m all right,” Joel said, battling a yawn.
    Fitch didn’t look convinced. The two of them had spent the past week searching through tome after tome. Fitch mostly assigned Joel the historical books, as the high-level texts were simply beyond Joel’s abilities. Joel intended to learn and to study until he could figure out those books. For the moment, it was better for him to focus on other subjects.
    Inspector Harding was pursuing the investigation to track down the kidnapper. That wasn’t a job for Joel and Fitch; they were scholars. Or, well, Fitch was. Joel still wasn’t certain what he himself was. Other than tired, of course.
    “Anything of note in that book?” Fitch asked hopefully.
    Joel shook his head. “It mostly talks about other reports and comments on their validity. It is a fairly easy read. I’ll keep going and see if there’s anything useful.”
    Fitch was convinced that if there were other Rithmatic lines, there would be mentions of them in such records. Drawings, like Estevez had done, lost in time but now suddenly relevant.
    “Hey,” Joel said, noticing what Fitch was reading, “are those my notes about the census reports?”
    “Hum? Oh, yes. I never did get a chance to go over these.”
    “You probably don’t need to worry about it now. I doubt those death records will be all that helpful.”
    “Oh, I don’t know,” Fitch said, leafing through the pages. “Perhaps this isn’t the first time events like the ones here have occurred. What if there were other such disappearances, but they were so isolated that they were never connected? We just…”
    He trailed off, holding up one of the sheets.
    “What?” Joel asked. “Did you find something?”
    “Hum? Oh, no, I didn’t.” Fitch quickly put the sheet back down. “I should get back to work on my other reading.…”
    Fitch, Joel decided, was a terrible liar. Probably came from the man’s inability to stand confrontation of any type. So what had Fitch seen on that sheet that had caught his attention? And why didn’t he want to mention it to Joel?
    Joel was trying to figure out a way to inconspicuously glance at the stack of sheets on Fitch’s desk when the door at the end of the narrow chamber opened and Melody entered. Her class with Fitch had ended a half hour ago. Why had she returned?
    “Melody?” Fitch asked. “Did you forget something?”
    “Hardly,” she said, leaning against the doorway frame. “I’m here on official business.”
    “Official?” Fitch asked.
    “Yeah,” she said, holding up a slip of paper. “Nalizar still has me running errands after classes, you know. By the way, I’ve realized that my sorry state is completely your fault, Joel.”
    “Mine?”
    “Sure,” she said. “If you hadn’t gotten yourself into trouble visiting all those Rithmatic classes, then I wouldn’t have had to end up running all over campus every afternoon like a windup toy. Here’s your note, Professor—it says the principal wants Joel to come to the office.”
    “Me?” Joel asked. “Why?”
    She shrugged. “Something about your grades. Anyway, I have more menial, tedious, obnoxious busywork to be about. See you at dinner?”
    Joel nodded, and she took off. He walked over to take the note, which she’d stuffed between two books. Grades. He knew that he should have felt alarmed, but something as mundane as grades seemed distant to him at the moment.
    The note had been sealed shut, of course, but Joel could see where Melody had pried it open on the side to peek in. He walked over to grab his book bag. “I’m going to go, then.”
    “Hum?” Fitch said, already absorbed in a book. “Ah, yes. Very well. I will see you tomorrow.”
    Joel walked past the desk—and quickly scanned what Fitch had been reading—on his way out. It was one of the census lists of students who had graduated Armedius in a given year. Joel had marked the ones who had died