I put a few words of the Hidden Language together and in a few moments had created an illusory scarlet dragon. It reared back on its fourth and final pair of legs, roaring silently and growing until it stood ten feet high.

The children seemed oddly unimpressed. “Well, it’s a nice dragon,” said the oldest boy. He reached his hand toward the metallic gleam of the scarlet scales, and a vicious but insubstantial set of claws passed harmlessly through his arm.

Even though illusions are among the first things taught at the wizards’ school, it takes years of practice to be able to do them quickly and consistently. The first time I had ever made an illusory dragon, it had not been nearly this good and yet it had thrown the royal court into a blind panic. Whose illusions had these children been seeing that they could refer to my dragon as “nice”?

“Rather than just an illusion,” continued the boy, clearly disappointed in me but trying to be polite, “could you show us some real magic? Maybe some invisibility, or a cloak of fire?”

Before I had a chance to answer, a woman in a red shawl came hurrying up. Both her front teeth were gold. She spoke quickly in Romney to the children, who dispersed reluctantly, looking back over their shoulders at me and my now dissolving dragon.

“I’m sorry, sir, if the children bothered you,” she said. “They’re just so curious, and they love to see magic. How about if I tell your fortune to repay you for your trouble? I’ll even do it for free!”

I was standing in what I thought of as my wizardly pose, absolutely still except for slow breathing, hands folded and eyes fixed intently on whomever I was facing. I had picked it up from the older wizards at the school and had become quite good at it.

But the Romney woman gave me a good-natured smile. I abandoned attempts at dignity and smiled back. “How will you tell my fortune? You know natural magic is useless for predicting the future, and I hope you aren’t stirring in a little of the supernatural!” I was able to speak lightly because I had already probed delicately for magic and not found any.