Free Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal

carrying her basket for her as she plucked strawberries from the mounds.
    Mrs. Marchand was quite taken with the strawberries. She kept exclaiming over each one she found as if it were the largest she had ever seen—“Never have I seen the like!”—then devoured the berry before anyone else could ascertain the veracity of her claims. Her husband joked, “I declare, I wonder if you are even touching them, or if you are eating them straight from the plant.”
    Mrs. Marchand laughed at that, and colored prettily, but her husband’s comment did not slow her enthusiasm for the strawberries.
    In short order, Mr. Ellsworth returned, face as red as a strawberry from his climb up the hill and back down. He was laughing, his eyes wrinkled small with merriment. “You would not believe what clever Mr. Vincent has done.”
    Jane looked up the hill, but Mr. Vincent was not there. “Has he finished his painting so soon?”
    Mr. Ellsworth chuckled and shook his head. “He is still painting, I daresay. Shall I tell you, or shall you guess?”
    Captain Livingston said, “He has received an appointment to the King.”
    “No. Nor the Prince.” Mr. Ellsworth placed his hands on his waistcoat. “He made the servants and himself disappear, because they marred the view.”
    “What?” “Did he?” “How clever!” The crowd quite forgot the berries. Each stared up the hill, declaring that they could see this sign or that of the servants’ location. Jane studied the hill, stunned both that he could have created such a complex and large fold of glamour in so short a time and that the folds themselves could be invisible, even with her vision attuned to the ether. Of course, many great halls used glamour folds to mask musicians at a ball, but they required constant attention, and were enormously detailed to create an exact duplicate of the room as it would have appeared were it empty. Mr. Ellsworth shook his head, laughing. “Not a one of you is looking in the right place. Come, I will shew you.”
    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