She sat with her chin in her hands, thinking back to their conversation. He’d been pleased when she’d told him she wasn’t afraid of the magic. Well, she thought, why should she be afraid of it? She didn’t believe it. Any of it.

“Seeing is believing” the old saw went, except that it wasn’t.

Evelina had known the truth of that from the time she was a very small girl and she’d watch her father swindle the gullible with a bean under a walnut shell. See the bean? I’ll put the shell over it. Three shells. The bean’s under one of them. See it? Yes, there it is. Now, I’ll just switch the shells around. Are you following the one with the bean under it? Yes, sir, I can see that you are. You are a man of perception, sir. Now, I’ll bet you money, sir, that you can’t tell me which shell the bean is under. Of course, I’ll lose, you being so very perceptive, sir, but it’s an honor playing with someone so keen-sighted. That shell, sir? Are you sure, sir? Well, well, well . . . I guess you weren’t watching so closely after all, sir. You owe me .. .

Of course, the secret was that the bean wasn’t under any of the shells. Ramone had palmed the bean before the game started and slipped it back before it ended, sliding it under one of the walnut shells as he lifted it to shift it about. A trick to fool the gullible. Nothing wrong with it. All men and women were tricksters and liars. One had to be to survive—even Marcus, a prince, the man Evelina loved as she’d never loved anyone else in her short life (with the exception of Evelina). She had no illusions about him.

Evelina had seen all manner of fantastic things in Dragonkeep: a monk with hands made of blazing fire, snow falling on a warm day in the morning sunshine, Marcus bringing down a building by pointing at it. She’d seen herself walk through a solid stone wall. Wonderful tricks, all of them. She could make a fortune with such fakery by taking it on the road like that poor sod, Glimmershanks. She’d didn’t know how the tricks were done, but that didn’t matter. Before Ramone had taught her the secret of the shell game, she’d thought the bean had really vanished.

Evelina didn’t know or care how Marcus’s tricks worked. She was determined to win this game of love, and if this meant that she had to pretend to believe the bean disappeared, it was a small price to pay for the jewels and the castle and her son being an abbot.