soon to obey Harding’s curfew, but they had time for a quick trip.
Joel walked beside Melody, his hands in his trouser pockets, as they strolled toward the campus exit. “I don’t know,” he said. “Why wouldn’t someone want to be a Rithmatist?”
“Well, I know a lot of people think they want to be one,” Melody said. “They see the notoriety, the special treatment. Others like the power, I think. That’s not you, Joel. You don’t want notoriety—you’re always hiding about, quiet and such. You seem to like to be alone.”
“I guess. Maybe I just want the power. You’ve seen how I can get when I’m competing with someone.”
“No,” she said. “When you explain the lines and defenses, you get excited—but you don’t talk Rithmatics as a way to get what you want or make others obey you. A lot of people talk about those kinds of things. Even some of the others in my class.”
They approached the gates to the school grounds. A couple of police officers stood watching, but they didn’t try to bar the exit. Beside the men were buckets. Acid, for fighting off chalklings. It wasn’t strong enough to hurt people, at least not much, but it would destroy chalklings in the blink of an eye. Harding wasn’t taking any chances.
One of the guards nodded to Joel and Melody. “You two take care,” he said. “Be careful. Be back in an hour.”
Joel nodded. “You sure this is a good idea?” he asked Melody.
She rolled her eyes dramatically. “Nobody has disappeared from ice cream parlors, Joel.”
“No,” he said, “but Lilly Whiting disappeared on her way home from a party.”
“How do you know that?” Melody said, looking at him suspiciously.
He glanced away.
“Oh, right,” she said. “Secret conferences.”
He didn’t respond, and—fortunately for him—she didn’t press the point.
The street looked busy, and the kidnapper had always attacked when students were alone, so Joel probably didn’t have to worry. Still, he found himself watching their surroundings carefully. Armedius was a gated park of manicured grass and stately buildings to their right. To their left was the street, and the occasional horse-drawn carriage clopped along.
Those were growing less and less common as people replaced their horses with springwork beasts of varying shapes and designs. One shaped like a wingless dragon crawled by, its gears clicking and twisting, eyes shining lights out to illuminate the street. It had a carriage set atop its back, and Joel could see a mustached man with a bowler hat sitting inside.
Armedius was settled directly in the middle of Jamestown, near several bustling crossroads. Buildings rose some ten stories in the distance, all made from sturdy brick designs. Some bore pillars or other stonework, and the sidewalk itself was of cobbled patterns, many of the individual bricks stamped with the seal of New Britannia. It had been the first of the islands colonized long ago when the Europeans discovered the massive archipelago that now made up the United Isles of America.
It was Friday, and there would be plays and concerts running on Harp Street, which explained some of the traffic. Laborers in trousers and dirty shirts passed, tipping their caps at Melody—who, by virtue of her Rithmatist uniform, drew their respect. Even the well-dressed—men in sharp suits with long coats and canes, women in sparkling gowns—sometimes nodded to Melody.
What would it be like, to be recognized and respected by everyone you passed? It was an aspect of being a Rithmatist that he’d never considered.
“Is that why you don’t like it?” he asked Melody as they strolled beneath a streetlamp.
“What?” she asked.
“The notoriety,” Joel said. “The way everyone looks at you, treats you differently. Is that why you don’t like being a Rithmatist?”
“That’s part of the reason. It’s like … they all expect something from me. So many of them depend on me. Ordinary students can fail, but when you’re a Rithmatist, everyone makes sure you know that you can’t fail. There are a limited number of us—another Rithmatist cannot be chosen until one of us dies. If I’m bad at what I do, I will make a hole in our defenses.”
She walked along, hands clasped in front of her. They passed underneath the springrail track, and Joel could see a train being wound up in the Armedius station to his right.
“It’s such pressure,” she said. “I’m bad at Rithmatics, but the Master himself chose me. That implies that I must have the aptitude. So, if I’m not doing well, it must mean that I haven’t worked hard enough. That’s