The Rithmatist

that satisfy you?”
    “For now, I suppose,” Melody said, folding her arms.
    “Then go with the Master’s blessing, child,” Father Stewart said. Then, under his breath, he added, “And whatever demon sent you my way will likely be promoted in the Depths for giving me such a headache.”
    Melody grabbed Joel’s arm and towed him away. His mother stood a short distance down the aisle between the pews. “What was that about?” she asked.
    “Nothing, Mrs. Saxon,” Melody said perkily. “Nothing at all.”
    Once they had passed, Joel glanced at Melody. “So, that was your big plan, eh? To throw a tantrum?”
    “Tantrums are a noble and time-tested strategy,” she said airily. “Particularly if you have a good set of lungs and are facing down a crotchety old priest. I know Stewart; he always bends if you make enough noise.”
    They passed out of the cathedral. Harding stood conferring with a few of his police officers on the landing. A couple of springwork gargoyles prowled across the ledge above the door into the building.
    “Father Stewart said he’d ask for permission,” Joel said. “I don’t think we’ve won.”
    “We have,” Melody said. “He won’t want me to make another scene, particularly considering the tensions between Rithmatists and ordinary people right now. Come on; let’s go get something to eat. Being irate sure can build a girl’s appetite.”
    Joel sighed, but let himself be towed across the street and toward the campus.



CHAPTER

    The circle is divine, Joel read.
    The only truly eternal and perfect shape, it has been a symbol for the Master’s works since the ancient Egyptian Ahmes first discovered the divine number itself. Many medieval scholars used the compass—the tool by which a circle is drafted—as a symbol of the Master’s power of creation. One can find it scattered throughout illuminated manuscripts.
    Before we landed on the American Isles, history entered a dark period for the circle. The Earth was shown to not be a flat circle at all, but a sphere of questionable regularity. The celestial planets were proven to move in ellipses, further weakening belief in the divine circle.
    Then we discovered Rithmatics.
    In Rithmatics, words are unimportant. Only numbers have meaning, and the circle dominates all. The closer one can come to perfection in its form, the more powerful one is. The circle, then, is proven to be beyond simple human reasoning. It is something inherently divine.
    It is odd, then, that something man-made should have played such an important part in the discovery of Rithmatics. If His Majesty hadn’t been carrying one of Master Freudland’s new-style pocket watches, perhaps none of this would have ever occurred, and man might have fallen to the wild chalklings.
    The chapter ended there. Joel sat in the empty workshop, back against the wall. A few thin ribbons of sunlight crept through the windows above, falling through the dusty air to fall in squares on the floor.
    Joel flipped through the pages of the old tome. It came from the journal of one Adam Makings, the personal astronomer and scientist of King Gregory III, founder of Rithmatics. Adam Makings was attributed with discovering and outlining the principles surrounding two-, four-, and six-point Rithmatic circles.
    The book came from Joel’s father’s collection, and was apparently quite valuable, since it was a very early copy. Why hadn’t Joel’s mother sold it—or any of the books—to pay debts? Perhaps she hadn’t known the value.
    The book contained Makings’s theories on the existence of other Rithmatic figures, though he’d never come to any definite conclusions. That last part, however, proved more interesting to Joel than any other.
    If His Majesty hadn’t been carrying one of Master Freudland’s new-style pocket watches, perhaps none of this would have ever occurred, and man might have fallen to the wild chalklings.…
    Joel frowned, flipping to the next chapter. He was unable to find anything else on the topic of the pocket watch.
    Very little was known of how King Gregory discovered Rithmatics. The church’s official position was that he had received the knowledge in a vision. Religious depictions often showed Gregory kneeling in prayer, a beacon of light falling around him and forming a circle marked with six points. The inside cover of the book had a similar plate in the front, though this one showed the vision appearing in front of Gregory in the air.
    Why would a