“Then why do you have a well-thumbed copy of the Diplomatica Diabolica if you don’t converse with demons?”

He was looked at my shelf. The volume’s spine was cracked; it did look well-thumbed. But that was from the time I had been reading it late at night, the night before the demonstration, and had become so terrified I had slammed it shut and it had fallen on the floor. That book gave me the willies.

“One prefers not to talk with demons,” I said. It didn’t seem appropriate somehow to tell him about that demonstration, about how two other wizards were there to help our instructor if they had to, and how when a very tiny demon, maybe a foot tall, had appeared in the pentagram, the room had gone totally dark and some of the students (not me!) had fainted in fear. “But one meets them occasionally,” I continued airily, “and if one does one had better know exactly what to say and how to say it. Otherwise, as you know yourself, one’s immortal soul is in danger.”

“But why practice magic at all?” he cried, his black eyes burning. “You put your souls in danger, and for what? Your predecessor used to entertain us with illusions during dessert, but that’s the only magic I ever saw him do.”

Illusions! Clearly I was falling down already. It hadn’t even occurred to me to produce special entertainment at dinner; I had enjoyed the brass quartet and the food too much to think anything else was needed.

“There’s lots of magic besides illusions,” I said. “You saw the magic lock I have on my door.”

“My door locks with a key. It works just as well.”

He had emptied his wine glass and was spinning it in his fingers. I said two quick words in the Hidden Language and the glass spun away from him, rose majestically, and slid across the air to my own hand. I refilled it and sent it sliding back without spilling a drop.

He had to smile at that. “Very deft,” he said. “But you could also have gotten up.”