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a nice shindig. Want to dance, Boss?”
    “No,” I said. “This party’s only a subterfuge. Setting it up was the easy part of my assignment. You’ve got the hardest part. Can you do it?”
    She moved from foot to foot, but it wasn’t the music making her vacillate.
    “Are you sure this is the only way to find Shilldon?”
    “Yes. We’ve got to draw him out, and you’re the only bait we have. Are you ready?”
    She squared her big shoulders. “I can do it.”
    I had had Valentinius set up a small table all by itself at one side of the courtyard. It was bespelled with one of Massha’s aversion charms so none of the revelers would sit down at it. It had been placed deliberately so it fell into a gloomy shadow between the flickering light of the two nearest torches. With a great heave of her shoulders, she pushed her way past the dancers and musicians, and sat down heavily on one of the two stools. It groaned like a lost soul under her weight, but anything that drew attention to her was good.
    She planted one elbow down on the small table.
    And sighed.
    And dabbed at her eyes with a dainty hanky.
    And sighed again.
    A server, hastily called into service by Aahz, sped to her side with a frothy-headed mug of Affection Day ale. Some of the pink liquid sloshed onto the tabletop. She ignored the beverage, except to draw little designs in the spill, concentrating on them.
    I waited.
    A cheer went up from the contest booth, where Carny had just drawn the winners of the first round of the True Confessions game. Massha watched them with an expression of woe. But no one came to sit down beside her. The revelers polished off their first mugs of ale and went back for refills, laughing and joking with one another. Young men and women paired off, then decoupled and found new partners. Where was Shilldon?
    “Do you see him yet?” Aahz asked.
    “No,” I murmured back, scanning the crowd. “But he could be disguised as anything.”
    “Or nothing,” Aahz said, suddenly. “Watch Massha.”
    I did. She raised her head and looked at me.
    No, not at me. Her focus seemed to be much closer to her. Her eyes went wide with shock, and her mouth dropped open. She was frightened! I started toward her. Aahz pulled me back.
    “No. Watch.”
    I yanked my arm loose from his grasp, but I didn’t move.
    Massha’s eyebrows went up, as though listening to a question. The corner of her mouth crooked upward, and she modestly dropped her gaze. Then she looked up toward me again. Her eyes darted from side to side as though studying something intently. Her lips parted slightly. One of her hands went forward and flattened on the table. She smiled.
    “So that’s how he brought those love notes to her,” I said, enlightenment dawning. “He’s invisible!”
    “That’s a tricky piece of magik,” Aahz said, with a critical glance. “How much power is he pulling down?”
    I opened my mind’s eye and looked at the empty stool. Suddenly, I saw a shimmering outline of a large man.
    “He’s there,” I said. “And there’s something really strange about him. It doesn’t look like a spell. He’s not pulling magikal energy from the force lines below the castle.”
    “Has to be a device of some kind,” Aahz said. “A cloak or a ring.”
    “She’s acting as if she can see him,” I said. “How can we be looking right through him if she can see his face?”
    “That’s one sophisticated piece of hardware, whatever it is. I’ve read about items like that in the catalog from a Pervish manufacturer I know. Doesn’t come cheap. He’s been planning this for a long time. Massha’s in real trouble.”
    I watched her, helplessly. If I hadn’t known better, I would say she was carrying on one half of a flirtation, one that was progressing steadily. She took a stray lock of her lank orange hair between thumb and forefinger and pulled it back over her ear.
    “But what can he do? He can’t just sweep her out of here.”
    “No, that’s the