This occurs when:
1) You're a neutral mage.
2) The guildmaster is good-aligned.
3) The wand in question happens to involve killing a good-aligned mage for retrieval. (Good-aligned mages will never draw these spots.)

The dialogue has been updated so it is more obvious that the guildmaster doesn't trust you enough to help you out. In that case, you only get a very short hint timer.

You can avoid this by only asking neutral guildmasters (who have no such qualms), but you do retain the option to ask a good guildmaster and see if you'll get help. Most of the time you will-- in part because two of our six wand-using classes are evil-only, NPCs who hold wands tend to skew evil.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com