The Rithmatist

“Lad, are you sure you’re all right?”
    Joel nodded, then took a sip of his drink.
    “I’m sorry, Son,” said his mother. “I’m a bad mother. I shouldn’t stay out all night!”
    “You act like it’s your fault,” Joel said quietly.
    “Well, it—”
    “No, Mother,” Joel said. “If you’d been there, you might have been killed. It’s better that you were away.”
    She sat back on her stool, still looking troubled.
    Harding dismissed his officers, then approached Joel. “Soldier, we found the patterns you mentioned. There were five—one on the wall outside your room, then four spaced along the ground in the direction you ran. They ended in a box of Lines of Forbiddance. If you hadn’t thought as quickly as you did, you would have been trapped.”
    Joel nodded. His mother began crying again.
    “I have the entire campus on alert, soldier,” Harding said. “You did well tonight. Very well. Quick thinking, bravery, physical adeptness. I’m impressed.”
    “I nearly wet myself,” Joel whispered.
    Harding snorted. “I’ve seen men twice your age freeze in combat when they saw their first chalkling. You did an amazing job. Might well have just solved this case.”
    Joel looked up with surprise. “What?”
    “I can’t speak now,” Harding said, raising a hand. “But if my suspicions prove to be correct, I’ll have made an arrest by the morning. You should get some sleep, now.” He hesitated. “If this were the battlefield, son, I’d put you in for highest honors.”
    “I…” Joel said. “I don’t know that I can go back to the workshop to sleep.…”
    “The lad and his mother can stay here,” Fitch said, rising. “I’ll stay in one of the empty rooms.”
    “Excellent,” Harding said. “Ms. Saxon, I will have ten men with acid guarding this doorway all night, two inside the room, if you wish.”
    “Yes,” she said, “please.”
    “Try not to be too worried,” Harding said. “I’m sure the worst of this is through. Plus, as I understand, you have an important day tomorrow, Joel.”
    The inception ceremony. Joel had almost forgotten about it. He nodded, bidding the inspector farewell. Harding marched out and closed the door.
    “Well,” Fitch said. “You can see that the bed is already made, and Joel, there are extra blankets underneath for you to sleep on the floor. I hope that’s all right?”
    “It’s fine,” Joel said.
    “Joel, lad,” Fitch said. “You really did do well.”
    “I ran,” Joel said quietly. “It’s the only thing I could do. I should have had acid at the room, and—”
    “And what, lad?” Fitch asked. “Thrown one bucket while the other chalklings swarmed you? A single man can’t hold the front against chalklings—you learn that quickly in Nebrask. It takes a bucket brigade, dozens of men, to keep a group of the things back.”
    Joel looked down.
    Fitch knelt. “Joel. If it’s any help, I can imagine what it feels like. I … well, you know I never did very well at Nebrask. The first time I saw a chalkling charge, I could barely keep my lines straight. I can’t even duel another person and keep my wits. Harding is right—you did very well tonight.”
    I want to be able to do more, Joel thought. Fight.
    “Exton is a Rithmatist,” he said out loud.
    “Yes,” Fitch said. “He was expelled from the Rithmatic school his early years at Armedius for certain … complications. It happens very rarely.”
    “I remember you talking about that,” Joel said. “To Melody. Professor, I want you to draw that new line we found, the one with swirls.”
    “Now?” Fitch asked.
    “Yes.”
    “Honey,” his mother said, “you need rest.”
    “Just do this one thing, Professor,” Joel said. “Then I’ll go to bed.”
    “Yes, well, all right,” Fitch said, getting out his chalk. He knelt to begin drawing on the floor.
    “It makes things quiet,” Joel said. “You have to know that. It sucks in sound.”
    “How do you know…?” His voice grew much quieter when he finished the drawing.
    Fitch blinked, then looked up at Joel. “Well, that’s something,” he said, but the voice sounded far diminished, as if he were distant.
    Joel took a deep breath, then tried to yell, “I know!” That was dampened even further, so it came out as a whisper. When he whispered, however, that sound came out normally.
    Fitch dismissed the line. “Amazing.”
    Joel nodded. “The ones we found at the crime scenes no longer worked, so the line must