made the red more stark. It was nicely decorated, with fancy-looking floral paintings on the wall. A small chandelier hung from the ceiling; its clockwork mechanism flickered, clicking softly.
“That fool,” Harding said, surveying the bloodied carpet. “If only the knight-senator had listened. Maybe this will make the others listen to reason and send their children back to Armedius.”
Fitch nodded, but Joel could see that the blood had unsettled him. The professor walked on shaky feet as Harding stepped up to one of the ranking police officers at the scene, a tall man with Aztek heritage. “What do we have, Tzentian?” Harding asked.
“Four bodies discovered in the hallway here, sir,” the police officer said, pointing at the bloodstains. “Method of death seems consistent with chalkling attacks. The boy’s room is over there.” The officer pointed at an open doorway in the middle of the hallway. “We haven’t gone in.”
“Good,” Harding said, walking around the bloodstains and moving to the doorway.
“Sir—” the officer said as Harding tried to step through the doorway.
Harding stopped flat as if he’d hit something solid.
“Sir, there’s a Rithmatic line on the floor,” Tzentian said. “You didn’t want us to breach the scene, so we haven’t removed it yet.”
Harding waved for Fitch to approach. The professor walked on shaky feet, obviously trying not to look at the blood. Joel joined them, kneeling down beside the doorway. He reached out, pressing his hand against the air.
It stopped. Something pushed back, softly at first, then harder as he pressed. With a lot of effort, he could get a few hairs closer to the invisible wall, but never quite felt like he could touch it. It was like trying to press two magnets together with the same poles facing.
The hallway had a carpet, but the boy’s room had a wood floor. The Line of Forbiddance was easy to see. It was broken in places, with holes large enough for chalklings to get through. At these points, Joel could reach his hand through and into the room.
“Ah, hum,” Fitch said, kneeling beside Joel. “Yes.” He pulled out a piece of chalk and drew four chalklings shaped like men with shovels. Watching closely, Joel could see the glyphs the professor wrote below each chalkling as he drew it, giving them instructions to march forward, then attack any chalk they discovered.
One at a time, the chalk drawings began to dig at the Line of Forbiddance. “There,” Fitch said, standing. “That will take a few minutes, I’m afraid.”
“Inspector,” one of the officers said. “If you have a moment, you may want to see this.”
Harding followed the officer a short way down the hallway.
Joel stood. “You all right, Professor?”
“Yes, yes,” Fitch said. “I just … well, I’m not good with things like this, you know. Part of why I never did well in Nebrask.”
Joel nodded, then set his bag down and walked over to where the inspector knelt beside something on the floor. The bloodstain was shaped like a footprint.
“The prints lead down that direction,” the officer was saying, “and out the back door. We lose them after that.”
Harding studied the print, which was indistinct because of the carpet. “It’ll be hard to tell anything from this.”
The officer nodded.
“Are all the prints the same size?” Joel asked.
The officer glanced at Joel, as if noticing him for the first time. He nodded.
“That means there’s probably only one person doing this, right?” Joel asked.
“Unless only one of them stepped in the blood,” Harding said.
“What about other chalk drawings?” Joel asked. “Were there any besides the ones in the boy’s room?”
“Actually, there are a few,” the officer said. “One on either side of this hallway.” He led them to a wall, set with the same looping pattern of swirls that had been drawn at the other scenes. Joel waved a hand in front of the pattern, but wasn’t repelled or affected in any way.
“Professor?” Joel called, drawing Fitch’s attention. The professor approached.
“Draw a chalkling on the wall here,” Joel said, pointing. “Have it move through this pattern.”
“Hum, yes.… Yes, very good idea, lad.” Fitch began to draw.
“What is the point of this exercise?” Harding asked, standing with hands behind his back.
“If that pattern is really a Rithmatic sketch,” Joel said, “then the chalkling will have to attack the chalk to get through it. If this pattern doesn’t have any Rithmatic powers, then the chalkling will just be able to walk over it as if it weren’t there.”
Fitch finished his chalkling. The crab crawled across the wall in front of