As a group, they trooped up the hill, the strawberries quite forgotten, exclaiming all the while about the cleverness of Mr. Vincent and his faculty with glamour. As they neared the top of the hill with still no manifest sign of either Mr. Vincent or the servants, Captain Livingston remarked, “The Admiralty could use skills such as these.”

“Not at sea,” a rough voice proclaimed, and suddenly Mr. Vincent was before them, with easel and the first faint sketches of the scene below. His jacket was off and the top of his shirt was undone, but he gave no notice of the impropriety of either as he continued to paint, all but ignoring the gathered party. His countenance was easy and confident, with no trace of the strain upon it which one would expect from working so large an illusion. Jane turned away from his canvas, involuntarily looking for signs of the glamour that he had dropped in order to ascertain what folds he had used.

“But why not use this to hide our fleets from Napoleon?” Captain Livingston said. “It cannot take so much energy, or you would not be able to keep it up while painting.”

Mr. Vincent’s face shewed no expression, but he briefly glanced at Miss Dunkirk. Jane sensed that he was challenging her to remember her lessons.

Jane kept silent, watching the girl as she pieced the answer together. “It cannot be done because he tied the fold off. A fold tied off is stationary, but the sea is in motion.”

“Correct.” Mr. Vincent turned back to the easel and lifted his brush again.

Melody said, “But where are the servants?”

He pointed with the tip of the brush and gave no other answer.

Jane looked, but still did not see the folds masking the servants. Exasperated, she walked past Mr. Vincent, and then gasped as the servants appeared.

“Jane!” Melody cried, behind her.

The servants looked up, as startled by her sudden appearance, and yet, she could see the landscape around them clearly though she had expected it to be obscured by the glamour with which Mr. Vincent had hidden them. Certainly, all her prior experience with masking glamours indicated that the illusion would be visible even from the center. Jane turned to look back, but Mr. Vincent and the rest of the party had vanished again. It was most perplexing, for she could hear them exclaiming in wonder, but could not see them.

And then Miss Dunkirk was there, without even a ripple in the landscape; she simply appeared between one moment and the next. She, too, gasped in astonishment. The illusion was so seamless that Miss Dunkirk’s passage made no disruption in the ether. She had thought that Mr. Vincent had dropped the glamour when they saw him, but the truth seemed to be more interesting than that.

“Do you know how he is doing this, Miss Dunkirk?”

The girl shook her head. “I am afraid that we are still working on basic colours and shapes. I had hoped you could tell me.”