“Send some of the Gypsies in and out of the gate,” Gwynn said.

The captain shouted some orders down into the courtyard. The wards ignored the Gypsies plodding in and out, though they continued to show the purely imaginary trolls wandering about the courtyard.

Or were they imaginary? Gwynn decided to cast a quick illusion-stripping spell on the courtyard. Permanently dispelling illusions was a job for a master mage, of course, but Gwynn thought that if any magically cloaked trolls lurked in the courtyard, she could probably make them visible for a second or two.

“Watch the courtyard and tell me what you see,” she told the captain and Reg.

And then she gestured.

“I don’t see anything,” Reg said. The captain shook his head as well.

Of course they didn’t see anything, Gwynn thought. The spell had fizzled. And yet, this morning, when she had cast the same spell on the courtyard as part of her tests, it had worked perfectly. The only illusion she’d dispelled this morning was a passing courtier’s toupee spell, but her illusion-stripping incantation had worked, just the same.

What was different now?

“I don’t hold with magic,” Reg said, lounging in the window. “Useless stuff. Never works the way it’s supposed to.”

Gwynn suddenly remembered how the Maestro had been able to sneeze without ill effect when Reg had been in his study. And in the coach, all the way from the college to the duke’s castle.

“I want you to help with something,” she told Reg. She rummaged through her carpet bag and handed him a small crystal. “Here, take this. Go down to the gate, walk out and keep going in as straight a line as you can until I call for you to stop.”

“Whatever you like,” Reg said, with a sneer. He shoved the crystal in his pocket and sauntered out.

“Keep the Gypsies going in and out,” Gwynn told the captain.

Gwynn glanced back and forth between the miniature castle and the outside world as Reg left the castle and ambled toward the edge of the wood.