Archimedes's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Archimedes pressed the charcoal stub against the parchment, rubbing carefully over the coin's spiral side. The symbols emerged in gray smudges — curves and lines he'd traced a hundred times but never understood. His grandmother had said the right eyes would read it. He believed those eyes were his. He tucked the rubbing into his blue backpack and reached for the charcoal to try again. But a shadow dropped from above. Claws snatched the pack's straps. A thief — sleek and quick — yanked it free and scrambled up into the canopy. Archimedes launched after him, wings snapping open, but the branches were too thick. The thief disappeared into the leaves. Gone. And with him, the rubbing Archimedes had spent all morning perfecting. Archimedes climbed higher, searching the canopy. Movement caught his eye — a dark blue feather drifting down through the leaves. Then another. The thief was knocking them loose as he fled. Archimedes followed the trail of blue jay feathers from branch to branch, his heart hammering. The rubbing wasn't the coin itself, but he'd made it better than any attempt before. The symbols had come through clearer this time. He couldn't lose it. Not when he was finally learning to see what his grandmother had known he could see. The trail ended at the base of a towering pine that vanished into the thick upper canopy. Archimedes circled it once, twice, scanning every branch. Nothing. No more feathers. No movement. The thief had picked his escape route well — the pine's dense needles swallowed everything above. Archimedes landed on the lowest branch and folded his wings. The rubbing was gone. But the coin still hung cold against his chest, and his claws still remembered how to hold charcoal. He would make another rubbing. He would make a hundred if he had to. His grandmother had chosen him for this, and no thief could steal that.