For a long time Ildri sat by herself in the dusty, flickering light and tried to plan what she might do to free herself. There were so many questions in her mind. She had no idea where she was. She did not know what would happen, or how long they would leave her there. She had nothing to use, they had clearly searched her while she slept as her potions were no longer tied to her arm. Her cloak was missing, too. None of them would likely have gotten her out of the cell even if she did have them.

There was not much in her cell, either. The floor was covered in straw, there was a hard pallet in the corner and a pot next to it. No ingredients for potions, nothing that she could possibly use.

Ildri told herself that she would somehow find a way.

* * * * *

Time dragged by and Ildri began to worry that she had been thrown down into the cell to die. It did not make sense, because surely it would have been easier for Saul to just kill her there. Why take her to a prison to die? Unless he had meant to let her live and someone else had decided differently. She remembered clearly how casually they had decided to get rid of her before. But surely there were more efficient ways to go about it...

It was impossible to know. But she was getting thirsty and her stomach was growling. Surely they would at least feed her? What was their plan for her?

Ildri thought she would go mad by the time someone came down to her. She scrambled to her feet and looked at her company. He did not look much older than she was.

"Here you go," he announced as he set a tin dish and cup through the bars.

"Thank you," Ildri said. The dish had the most disgusting, watered down swill she had ever seen. Her stomach rolled.

"So you're awake," he commented with a little smile. His clothes made him look like a soldier but his face still looked like a boy's.

"I am," she agreed. He seemed surprisingly nice. How odd, she had imagined all of Scelus to be terrible, but he seemed so much like herself. Maybe it would be okay to ask him questions. "Where am I?"

"I don't know if I should tell you that."

"But I am in Scelus, right? In a prison?"

"I guess."

"So do you know how long I'll be here for?"

"No idea."

"Can I at least know your name?" she asked.

He shrugged. "I guess that would not hurt. I'm Landon."

"I'm Ildri," she told him.

"Yeah, we were told."

"Hurry up, Landon!" snapped a voice from somewhere above.

"Got to go," he said and headed up.

Ildri sighed. She wondered if there was some way to trick him into helping her. Probably not. Maybe she could convince him that she was helpless. It was not far from the truth.

Ildri gingerly picked up the spoon in the thin gruel. Just looking at it made her feel like throwing up again. She set it back down, drained the cup of water and sat down in the middle of the floor.

Ildri tried to think of something to do. In the end, all she could think of was that she needed something, an ingredient, a tool. She scoured the cell, stone by stone and bar by bar looking for something that might be loose or that she could pry free to use as a weapon when she escaped. She found nothing.

After a while the wall sconces burned themselves out and she was plunged into total blackness. Ildri huddled in the corner with her arms wrapped around her legs and tried to keep panic from setting in. She was going to find a way out of this mess. She was not going to be helpless.

But she did not even know what time of day it really was. For all she knew she might be deep underground and the idea of creeping things and unknown monsters made her hair stand on end. There were probably all sorts of vermin in the dark with her. She rubbed her arms and tried to think of better things.

Keziah was probably really upset. Ildri hoped that she was not biting anyone. Everyone was probably really worried. Ildri wished that she had done everything differently. Why had she not simply pretended to go along with Saul's plans until she was safely back in the castle?

There was no changing the past, but she would escape. She would. There was no question about it. She might not know where she was, or what time it might be, or anything else, but she would find a way. She could not let herself lose hope. All sorts of bad things had already happened to her and she had always come through them.

Ildri lay for a long time, trying to convince herself that everything would be okay. She did not quite know when she finally fell asleep.

* * * * *

A noise woke Ildri and her eyes flew open, fearing it was a rat. Instead she saw a flair of light as the young guard lit one of the torches.

Ildri blinked as her eyes adjusted. "What time is it?" she asked him.

"About noon," Landon told her.

Ildri's shoulders slumped. She wanted to see the sun and it was hard not to feel that she would never see it again. It had only been a day she had been trapped down here, how would she endure longer? She breathed deeply to calm herself as best she could. She needed to take advantage of Landon's presence. There were probably other guards and she doubted that they would be so forthright.

She tried to think through her spinning thoughts and blurted the first thing that came to her mind. "Why am I here?"

Landon shrugged as he turned to light another of the torches. "The commander brought you."

"And how long will they keep me here?" she asked.

"No idea. Rhys will be coming here, I think, but I don't know when."

The name was horribly familiar. He was the one who would have just stood by while they killed her. "And what about Saul?"

"Yeah, he'll come and see you, I think. As far as I know. Anyway, I've got to get going."

"Can you just tell me where I am? What is this place? Are we underground? Please, Landon, I'm really scared."

He nodded sagely. "You should be scared. Not many people ever leave here. It's not a good place."

"Please, help me," she begged.

He shook his head. "You know I can't and I wouldn't even if I could. Everyone thinks they can trick me 'cause I look young, but I'm not stupid."

"You look the same age as me."

He shrugged again. "I just do what I need to. But I'll give you some advice. I wouldn't try talking to most of the guards. They don't like that, not at all. I'm way nicer than the rest."

"Thanks," she said even though she wanted to scream at him.

How could they all just ignore that people were being kept in inhuman conditions? She slumped down onto her bed and buried her face in her hands. They probably thought that she deserved it.

She had thought the same when Anya was locked up. The one time Ildri saw Anya she had refused to listen to her words. Anya had tried to kill Lord Wildwood, and Ildri had not thought she deserved mercy. But Lord Wildwood had forgiven her once he understood that she was being coerced.

He was a better person than she was. She could remember Anya sitting in the cell in the deepest part of Wildwood with a magic inhibitor around her neck and Ildri had felt nothing. She had not even felt sorry for her former friend.

Ildri felt sick. Anya had been left alone to take care of everything. Ildri had almost always had someone to save her even after she lost her parents. Ildri felt like the wretch she was.

If she saw Anya again, she would...

And then Ildri thought about something else. The collar. They had been careful to prevent Anya from casting any spells because they knew that she might be able to help herself.

Saul, for all his smug arrogance and condescending attitude, did not know everything.

Not that it would help her, but it felt like a small victory.

Anya had also been able to do wizard magic even though she was a witch. Ildri wondered if she could somehow manage.

They might be able to sense that she was trying if she did. But if she did not try, then she would be stuck here until she died or until Saul decided to appear on his convenience and torture her further. She did not want to be in the little cell a moment longer than she had to.

Ildri sat in the middle of the floor and started to try to use magic the way that she had on the wretched bottles.

* * * * *

Unknown hours later Ildri had managed to produce immense amounts of frustration and disappointment, but little else. She had tried to hurl her magic at the lock on her door and at anything else that was in the room with her, or anywhere. She had managed to stir the straw on the floor and make the torches outside her cage flicker, but nothing else.

She sat down, feeling exhausted. It felt so pointless, but she was not going to give up! Because if she gave up, it was over, and she was not ready for it to be over.

She heard a noise from the stairs and she quickly sat down and tried to look helpless and defeated. It was not hard. She hoped they had not detected what she was doing.

She saw that it was just Landon, carrying another disgusting meal in a tin containers. "What time is it?" she asked when he came into sight.

"It's evening," he said as he put down the food.

Ildri nodded. She was not surprised. She had always had difficulty with magic. Why could it not come easy for her, just this once?

"So, do you ever get to go and sleep?" she asked him, trying to sound concerned. Even if he would not help her, her life would be easier if he stayed nice to her.

"I'm done in a few hours. Remember what I said about the other guards."

"Thank you, Landon, I appreciate it a lot," she said.

He smiled a bit. "No problem."

"Is your job hard?" she wondered.

He nodded. "Yeah, it can be. Some of the prisoners are nasty. Like I said, they think they can push me around because I'm young, so they try hard. It's not bad right now, though. There's only four of you right now, and a couple of them are in such bad shape they can barely move."

Ildri was disgusted that he did not care about their condition besides how it made his life easier, but she wanted to keep him talking. "I don't see why they think that they can push you around. Being young doesn't mean that you can't take care of things."

He nodded, looking pleased by her assessment. "Yeah. I can't be much older than you, and you're in here. What did you do, by the way?"

"I don't know. I knew Saul and I thought he loved me."

Landon's brow furrowed. "That's odd. We generally have political prisoners in here or enemies. It's not often we get girls like you."

"Well, Saul did want me to spy on my people and I said no."

"Yeah. I would not want to get on Saul Rhys bad side, that's for sure."

Ildri sighed. Saul's real name.

"Is Sir Rhys his brother?"

Landon looked surprised. "You know him?"

"I had a little run in."

"And you're alive. Impressive."

"Are they from Scelus?"

"Nah, they're from here."

"So he really is a traitor," Ildri said, not feeling surprised. She glanced over to Landon. "I thought we loved each other, but I didn't know anything."

Landon looked both uncomfortable and sympathetic. "Well, eat up. You might need your strength. Occasionally people do leave here," he said.

"You really are nice. Thanks."

"Don't think you'll be getting special treatment."

"I won't," she said.

He moved away.

Ildri turned to the food. It looked even thinner than yesterday. She wondered if whomever was cooking even tried to make it palatable, if you could even call it cooking. She or chef could make something more edible in their sleep. Surely they were not so low on food in Scelus that they had nothing else to eat.

Of course, she was a prisoner so they probably did not care if she thought their menu was sadly lacking.

Ildri shrugged. One thing Landon was right about was that she needed to keep up her strength because she was not going to stay here for the rest of her life. One way or another.