Besides, she was a little worried about what would happen when Justinian saw the warding spell’s control device: a perfect little miniature of the duke’s castle, complete with a working drawbridge and portcullis. Justinian’s intense passion for disassembling small mechanical objects was matched only by his complete inability to reassemble them. What if the Maestro decided he needed to take the model apart to repair the spell? Gwynn tried not to think about it.

If she hadn’t been so worried, she’d have found the model castle fascinating herself. You could keep track of everything that went on in the castle-outdoors, at any rate-by watching the small, ghostly figures that moved around in it. Gwynn spotted the tiny image of Master Justinian standing on one of the ramparts and paused to watch. From the slumped set of his shoulders, she deduced that things were still going badly. She sighed, turned her back on the model, and tried to think.

“There really doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with it,” Gwynn muttered.

“Useless things, these magical devices,” said Reg, from the doorway. Gwynn jumped; she hadn’t heard him come in. And his presence was the last thing she needed. He had a personality like a cold, wet drizzle.

Suddenly the bells began ringing. Gwynn and the captain ran to the front of the miniature castle. They could see a group of small, ghostly figures entering it. A troop of wood trolls, armed with scythes and machetes. And yet, glancing out of the window of the guardhouse, which overhung the real gate, they saw no trolls entering the castle. Nothing was entering the castle, not even a chipmunk.

“It was working fine a minute ago,” the captain said.

“If you say so,” Reg said, with a shrug. “I’ve never seen it work right myself.”