Joel froze. Then he nodded, wincing. “Yes, of course. I’m not even a Rithmatist. I understand.”
“Don’t be like that, lad,” Fitch said. “I don’t mean to disparage you, but … well, Principal York told me to be very quiet about this. We don’t want to create a panic. To be honest, we don’t even know if foul play is involved—perhaps it’s just coincidence, and those two young people both decided to run away.”
“You don’t believe that,” Joel said, reading Professor Fitch’s expression.
“No,” he admitted. “There was blood found at both scenes. Not a lot of it, mind you, but some. No bodies though. The children were hurt, then taken somewhere.”
Joel felt a chill. He knelt down beside the desk. “Look, Professor, the principal gave me to you as a research assistant, right? Wouldn’t that imply that he expected me to be involved in this project? I know how to keep a secret.”
“It’s more than that, lad,” Fitch said. “I don’t want to involve you in anything dangerous.”
“Whatever is going on,” Joel said, “it only seems to target Rithmatists, right? So, maybe that’s why Principal York sent me. I know a lot about Rithmatics, but I can’t make the lines. I should be safe.”
Fitch sat for a moment in thought. Then he moved his arms to show the notes on his desk. “Well, the principal did give you this assignment. And to be honest, it would be nice to have someone I could talk to about it. I’ve looked these sketches over hundreds of times!”
Joel leaned in eagerly, looking over the drawings.
“They were made by police at the scene of Lilly Whiting’s disappearance,” Fitch said. “I can’t help but wonder if the officers who did the sketches might have missed recording something. The intricacies of Rithmatic sketches should not be left to laymen!”
“It’s the remnants of a Matson Defense,” Joel said.
“Yes,” Fitch said. “Lilly and her parents attended a dinner party the evening of the disappearance. She left the party early, sometime around ten. When her parents got home a few hours later, they found the front door broken in and this chalk drawing in the middle of the living room floor. Lilly was nowhere to be found, either at the house or at the academy.”
Joel studied the sketch. “Her lines were attacked by chalklings. Lots of them.”
“Poor child,” Fitch said softly. “They found blood inside the circle. Whoever did this knew the Glyph of Rending. That implies they were at Nebrask.”
“But she could still be alive, right?”
“We can hope.”
“What are you supposed to do?” Joel asked.
“Discover who is doing this,” Fitch said. “Or at least provide the inspector with as much information as I can about the perpetrator.”
“All from one drawing?” Joel asked.
“Well, there are these,” Fitch said, pulling over two more papers. They were sketches, realistically rendered, much like one might see an art student do of a bowl of fruit. The first was what appeared to be a sketch of a wooden floor, the second a section of a brick wall. Both had fragments of lines crossing them.
“What are those lines?” Joel asked.
“I’m not sure. They were drawn with chalk, the first on the entryway right inside the house, the second on the wall outside the house.”
“Those aren’t Rithmatic lines,” Joel said. The first was sharp and jagged, like spiked peaks. The second was a looping line that spun around upon itself, like a child’s swirl. Something about that one seemed oddly familiar to Joel.
“Yes,” Fitch said. “Why would someone draw these lines? Are they to throw us off and confuse us? Or is there more?”
Joel pointed back at the first sketch, the one that was a reproduction of a Matson Defense. “We assume Lilly drew this?”
“A cast-off piece of chalk was discovered near the circle,” Fitch said. “It was of Armedius composition. In addition, this Matson pattern is one of my own. Each professor teaches the defenses in a slightly different way, and I recognize my students’ work. This was Lilly’s circle for certain. She was one of my best, you know. Very bright.”
Joel studied the circle. “That … was attacked by a lot of chalklings, Professor,” he said. “Maybe too many. They would have gotten in the way of each other. Whoever did this didn’t have a very good strategy.”
“Yes,” Fitch said. “Either that, or his strategy was simply to overwhelm.”
“Yes,” Joel said, “but last week—when you had Melody and me draw for you—you told us that the Matson Defense was strong against Lines of Making. You said that the best thing to use against it was Lines of Vigor. There aren’t any Vigor blast marks on this circle—just chews and claw marks from chalklings.”
“Very good, Joel,” Fitch said. “You do have a good eye for Rithmatics. I noticed that too, but what does it tell us?”
“He couldn’t have drawn that many chalklings quickly,” Joel said. “To get through a Matson, he’d have to have very detailed, strong chalklings. The defender always has an advantage, since the bind point gives their chalklings strength. Considering that, it’s doubtful that the attacker could have completed enough strong chalklings to do this kind of damage in the same amount of time it took the defender to draw a Matson.”
“Which means…”
“The chalklings were already drawn,” Joel realized. “That explains why there was no circle discovered for the attacker! He didn’t need one to defend himself, since Lilly wouldn’t have had time to mount any kind of offense. The attacker must have had his chalklings waiting somewhere, blocked off by Lines of Forbiddance until Lilly was close. Then he let them loose.”
“Yes!” Fitch said. “Precisely what I think!”
“But that would be nearly impossible,” Joel said. Chalklings were very difficult to control—one had to give them precise, simple instructions. Things like: walk forward, then turn right when you hit the wall. Or: walk forward, then attack when you find chalk. “How could someone possibly have managed to break through the door, then guide an army of chalklings at Lilly?”
“I don’t know,” Fitch said. “Though I wonder if it has to do with these other two lines. I’ve spent the last two weeks searching for clues in my texts. Perhaps this jagged line was to be a Line of Vigor, but was drawn poorly? Some lines, if not executed well, will have no Rithmatic properties—they’ll just be chalk on the ground. This other one could be a Line of Warding, perhaps. The chalk does strange things sometimes, and we don’t know why.”
Joel pulled the stool over, sitting down. “This doesn’t make sense, Professor. If chalklings were easy enough to control to do something like this, then we wouldn’t need Circles of Warding. We could just have little boxes of chalklings ready to attack.”
“That is true,” Fitch said. “Unless someone has discovered something we don’t understand. New instructions for chalklings? This almost feels like…”
“What?”
Fitch was silent for a time. “Wild chalklings.”
Joel grew cold. “They’re trapped,” he said. “On Nebrask. That’s hundreds of miles away.”
“Yes, of course. That’s silly. Besides, wild chalklings wouldn’t run off with a body like this. They’d chew it to bits, leaving a mangled corpse. Whoever did this took Lilly away with him. I—”
He cut off as a knock came at the door. “Now, who…?” Fitch said, walking to the door and opening it. A tall man stood in the entryway. He carried a blue police officer’s helmet underneath his arm and had a long, thin rifle slung over his shoulder.
“Inspector Harding!” Fitch said.