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 suspiciously. There were two of these, but Joel didn’t recognize either name as being all that important. Why, then …
He almost missed it, just like last time. Exton’s name was at the top of the list, among the graduates from the general school that year. Was that what Fitch had noticed, or was it just a coincidence?
Outside, Joel crossed the green, heading toward the office. Armedius had changed during the last seven days. The police were far more plentiful now, and they checked identification at the front gates and the springrail station. Rithmatic students weren’t allowed off campus without an escort. He passed several nearby, grumbling that Armedius was starting to feel like a prison.
He also passed a group of regular students playing soccer on the field. Their efforts seemed subdued, and there were far fewer of them than before. Most parents of ordinary students had pulled their children out of the academy for the summer, and they were being allowed to continue to do so. While non-Rithmatists had been killed now, it was clear that the Rithmatists were still the targets. Normal students should be safe off campus.
There hadn’t been another disappearance since Charles Calloway. A week had passed, and everyone just seemed to be waiting. When would it come? What would happen next? Who was safe and who wasn’t?
Joel hurried along, passing closer to the front gates. Outside them was one of the other big changes at the academy.
Protesters.
They carried signs. GIVE US THE TRUTH. DUSTERS ARE DANGEROUS! SEND THEM TO NEBRASK!
Numerous editorialists around the Isles had decided that the deaths of the four Calloway servants had been the fault of the Rithmatists. These editorialists saw some sort of hidden war—some called it a conspiracy—between sects of Rithmatists. There were even those who thought that all of it—the existence of Rithmatists, the inception ceremony, the fight at Nebrask—was a giant hoax used to keep the Monarchical Church in power.
And so, a small—but very vocal—group of anti-Rithmatist activists had set up a vigil outside the front of Armedius. Joel didn’t know what to make of such nonsense. He did, however, know that several homes of Rithmatic students—all of whom were now staying full-time at the school—had been vandalized in the night. The policemen at the gates, fortunately, kept most troublemakers away from Armedius. Most of them. Two nights ago, someone had tossed in a series of bricks painted with epithets.
Joel didn’t stop to listen to the protestors, but the sounds of their chanting followed him. “We want the truth! Stop Rithmatist privilege! We want the truth!”
Joel hurried up the path to the office. Two rifle-bearing policemen stood at the sides of the doorway, but they knew Joel and let him enter.
“Joel!” Florence said. “We didn’t expect you to come so quickly.” Despite the grim circumstances on the rest of the campus, the blonde clerk insisted on wearing a bright yellow summer dress, complete with a wide-brimmed sun hat.
“Of course he came quickly,” Exton said, not looking up from his work. “Some people don’t ignore their responsibilities.”
“Stop being such a bore.”
Joel could see over the counter to a newspaper lying on Florence’s desk. CRISIS IN NEW BRITANNIA! the top headline read.
“The principal is seeing someone right now, Joel,” Florence said. “I’m sure he’ll be done soon.”
“How are things holding up here?” Joel asked, glancing out the window toward the police officers.
“Oh, you know,” Florence said. “Same as always.”
Exton snorted. “You seem perfectly willing to gossip other times. Why the coy face now?”
Florence blushed.
“The truth is, Joel,” Exton said, setting down his pen and looking up, “things are not good. Even if you ignore those fools at the gates, even if you don’t mind tripping over a police officer every other step, things are bad.”
“Bad how?” Joel asked.
Florence sighed, folding her arms on her desk. “The islands without Rithmatic schools are talking about starting their own.”
Joel shrugged. “Would that be such a disaster?”
“Well, for one thing, the quality of education would plummet. Joel, hon, Armedius isn’t just a school. It’s one of the few places where people from all across the Isles work together.”
“Jamestown is different from most cities,” Exton agreed. “In most of the world, you don’t see JoSeun people and Egyptians mixing. On many isles, if you’re a foreigner—even an American from just a few isles over—you’re considered an outsider. Can you imagine what will happen to the war effort in Nebrask if sixty different schools—each training Rithmatists in different ways—begin squabbling over who gets to defend what section of land? It’s hard enough with eight schools.”
“And then there’s the talk of what these schools should be like,” Florence said, eyeing her newspaper. It was from Maineford, one of the isles to the north. “The editorials make Rithmatists sound like they aren’t even really people. A lot of people are calling for the Rithmatists to be pulled out of ordinary classes and be trained only to fight at Nebrask. Like they’re nothing but bullets, to be wound up in a gun and then fired.”
Joel frowned, standing quietly beside the counter. From her desk, Florence tsked to herself and turned back to her work.
“Brought it on themselves, they did,” Exton said from his place, speaking almost to himself.
“Who?” Joel asked.
“The Rithmatists,” Exton said. “Being so exclusive and secretive. Look how they treated you, Joel. Anyone they don’t deem worthy enough to be on their level, they simply shove aside.”
Joel raised an eyebrow. He sensed some pretty strong bitterness in Exton’s voice. Something having to do with his days as a student at Armedius, perhaps?
“Anyway,” Exton continued, “the way the Rithmatists treat others makes the common people—who pay for this place—begin to wonder if the Rithmatists really need such a fancy school and pensions for the rest of their lives.”
Joel tapped the counter with his index finger. “Exton,” he said, “is it true that you went to Armedius?”
Exton stopped writing. “Who told you that?”
“I saw it,” Joel said, “in the graduation records when I was working on a project for Professor Fitch.”
Exton sat quietly for a moment. “Yes,” he finally said. “I was here.”
“Exton!” Florence said. “You never told me! Why, how did your family manage to pay for your tuition?”