Lidia had stayed in far more jail cells than the average upstanding citizen. Without chains or jailors, this one was the most pleasant.

The floor was wooden, once polished but now worn in the center, and a bench resting against the slatted side walls gave her a place to sit. The door was locked, but not as sturdy as it could be; after gently rapping on it a few times, she guessed that it was only made of one layer of wood. A small barred window in the door gave her a place to peek out.

Down a hallway immediately to her left were a few doors similar to hers, and to her right was one more door about twenty feet away. The door was covered with the same sigil the guards wore: six gold stars around an embroidered pearl, set upon black.

She now had time to think, and she remembered: it was the symbol of the city of Athkatla. She was almost certain that she'd emerged in the great market of Waukeen's Promenade. She sunk her head into her hands, leaning against the wall. In her old home, in the library-fortress of Candlekeep, she'd overheard the monks complain about this country's harsh restrictions on magic. She'd gotten hints that they were being held here. If she'd thought about her plan for escape a little more, perhaps -

She descended to the floor, took a deep breath, and turned her mind from regret and anger, from things that were now out of her hands. The Cowled Wizards had somehow captured Irenicus. Wherever Imoen was, he could no longer hurt her. She prayed to the Crying God that Imoen could survive the wait until things could be set right. And, whatever else happened, the others had gotten away.

The guards still had her sword, but her small leather pack had remained on her back. She removed it, loosened the fastening, and gently placed the contents on the floor. She hoped nothing was broken from her tumble down the rubble.

She only had a few things with her. A leather drawstring bag no bigger than her palm, holding a few copper and silver pieces that were stamped with the symbol of Amn. A small water bottle. A hard, grainy biscuit, wrapped in one of the cleanest cloths she'd scavenged. A mostly empty blank book and a crude pencil, taken from Irenicus's library. Several spell scrolls. She'd counted on selling them to get by, at least to start; she realized now that finding a buyer probably wouldn't be that easy.

Each minute seemed to last longer than it had any right to, but she found ways to pass the time. First, she moistened the biscuit with some of the water and ate it slowly; it was the first food she'd had in at least half a day. Then she removed the long strips of cloth wrapped tightly around her arms and legs. She had no other protection besides an ill-fitting leather breastplate, so it was the best she could have done for her limbs. Good thing she'd taken the extra step, too: without the bindings, the rubble would have marked a lot more on her way down.

It was said that everyone had their fates decided at birth by a flip of a coin. Beshaba, the goddess of bad luck, called either one side of the coin or the other, and Tymora, goddess of fortune, tossed it. The game's victor could decide someone's destiny. A hermit had once told Lidia that she was free to choose her own fate, for her coin had landed on its edge. Even if that were true, she still suspected both goddesses of constantly trying to tip it over.

But at least for the moment luck had been on her side. She could have easily been burnt, petrified, or disintegrated from the spells flying like snowflakes in a blizzard, and if she'd fallen a different way she could have broken a limb or something worse. As it was, the only gash that really hurt was a large scrape on her left hand.

She stared at it, trying to decide if it was worth the spell. She settled for gently cleaning it with some water; she'd heal it later tonight if she remained out of danger. She brushed off as much dust as she could from everywhere else; it stung the other scrapes and scratches on her limbs until it settled to the floor.

She remembered something that she had wanted to examine more closely. She shuffled closer to the door. The barred window allowed for a chink of light to pass through. She held up the underside of her right arm in the light for a closer look.

Her eyes hadn't been playing tricks on her, then. Four inches long and starting at her wrist was a thin white scar, breaking the usual pattern of pale skin and freckles. It was neat and precise; it had to have been the work of a surgical knife.

She tried to think back to when she and her five companions were ambushed in camp, taken from the dead of night to the darkness of Irenicus's underground laboratory. She'd tried keeping up the others' morale and measuring the days by Irenicus's cycles of work, but the effort was doomed from the start.

Irenicus had a purpose in mind for each of them, and had coldly dealt each fate. Two were drugged and imprisoned. Two were killed: one in the ambush, the other on Irenicus's operating table. Lidia suspected that Khalid had been used to test unspeakable methodologies, which Irenicus had then refined upon Imoen.

And Imoen...there hadn't been enough time to understand what had happened to her. From what Lidia could gather, she had been tortured; she only hinted at how or why. Normally, her friend was cheerful and irrepressible, the self-designated Morale Officer on their long campaigns. But during their escape through the lab, Imoen was either drifting back to some atrocity visited upon her or fighting an overwhelming terror.

Lidia herself had been kept in a drug- or magic-induced haze most of the time. Still, right before every experiment, right before Irenicus gave her another round of whatever cloud he'd cast over her mind, she'd been awake and alert. Sometimes, as she waited for him to finish preparing for the next surgery, she'd glance over to the tray of little tools he used. She could picture them now - carefully polished, gleaming steel with white bone handles.

It was a game she'd played with herself: anytime she could think clearly, she had plotted a possible escape. She considered what door to use, which route to take, which improvised weapon to wield first. For example, if Irenicus was ever careless in tightening the leather straps on his wooden operating table, she had picked one of his knives to take when his back was turned. They could effortlessly slice through limbs.

Unfortunately for her, Irenicus was never careless. The scar was proof of that. It was the only sign a cut had been made, with no sign of infection or irregularities in the skin around it. And it was only the second one she'd found; there was a shorter but similar one under the base of her left ear. Why he made them, and what he hoped to accomplish, was still a mystery.

She turned her attention back towards her open pack. She put everything away, with one difference: she rolled up the spell scrolls and wrapped the leftover strips of cloth around them, concealing them in a hidden pocket inside her pack. Once that was done, she waited, sitting on the empty floor. The light wasn't enough to write or draw by; her journal would have to wait.

After what seemed like an age, the door finally opened. A guard, wearing the same helmet and livery but with a different voice, called to her. "Ma'am. Come with me."

Lidia took her pack, got to her feet, and followed her out of her cell.