Celinny wanted to sneak in as one of the guards? Impressive, if she could do it. She had proven her capacity in stealth, but this venture was almost pure personality. She was getting more interesting by the minute, a feeling some part of him wanted to rebel against, as everything interesting about her so far would have made her a threatening adversary a mere 24 hours ago. But 24 hours ago beheld Jax in a completely different context of life.

Well, if anyone could tell Celinny how to do this successfully, it was Jax. He knew the palace like the back of his hand - and as a swordsman, Jax knew his hands better than most people knew their own faces.

"Follow the curve of this edifice to your right, and pass the first door, the second, and the third, until you come to the fourth - it is never directly guarded, aside from the rounds the guards walk that take them past it, but it will probably be locked from the inside, so hopefully you have means to deal with that. This fourth door is the outside door to part of the servants' quarters, closest to the storage rooms for most uniforms worn in the palace - cleaning staff, cooking staff, personal servant staff, advisory staff, and of course, uniforms for the palace guard and the Queen's Guard. Don't take a Queen's Guard uniform; there are too few of us and everyone knows who all of us are. There are no helmets there, but you won't want one; nobody wears them inside the palace, and you'd draw unnecessary attention to yourself by wearing one. In fact, you'll draw the least amount of notice as cleaning staff.

"Once inside this door, you will be in a straight hallway; the first door on your right is the uniform storage room. Turn left at the second intersection with this hallway, then right at the end of that hallway - it's long. About 20 steps down this new hallway is a door on your right, which should be unlocked, which opens to a spiral stairway leading down to the palace prison cells. The door at the bottom will be guarded by one of the Palace Guard, but it is a normal door for use by the cleaning staff and if you're convincing enough he'll just nod and let you on your way. 

"Turning left once you exit this door with the guard, turn left again almost immediately with the intersecting corridor, and you will be in the passageway that my cell is at the very end of. Please do your best not to hurt anyone if you can get away with it - they have me in prison, but they are good, innocent people. Do you have any questions?" Jax had been drawing in the dust on the floor of his cell as he gave all these directions, so that Celinny could see a rough blueprint of the parts of the palace he was describing while he was describing them to her. Crystal clear directions were crucial if this was going to work... 

...and he found himself hoping more and more that it worked.