I agree and am almost certain the masked man is Eldor, the Elven adviser influencing the king. If you compare the page 'The Tower In The Sky 020' with 'Shadowdancers 038', It's the same guy. Maybe what he is trying to do is now that he basically controls the king, he is trying to get rid of powerful...

Viviana: How can we smuggle a handful of wands past Reginald’s detector? I agree with suggestion 1. Maybe they can hide some wands in a hollowed out sword hilt with a crystal on it, like Illias'. That way if it's picked up on the detector, they might just assume it went off because of the crystal Wi...