Swamped

It's a compass, you think. But you can't make any sense of the symbols on it, and the needle's snapped in two.

Maybe it comes from the same country the book does. Not that you have any more idea of why a prisoner would leave it here. Surely the Master would search the cell?

No, wait. He wouldn't personally search it, because it's antimagic. He'd send someone without magic to search it instead. All a prisoner would have to do is bribe or fool that servant.

So maybe this book and broken compass are important somehow? Or at least something their owners wanted to keep out of the Master's hands? Seems worth looking into when you get a better chance.

Of course, your main question is how to get that chance. It's not as if Carma trusts you, and she's calling the shots around here. Then again, it's also not as if persuading Ash to let you go somewhere else is out of the question; you just need to convince him it's going to be good for him somehow.

Thing is, you don't even know what you'd be doing if you left, let alone how to sell Ash on it. So maybe you should give that a little thought.