Fortune's Fool - Mercedes Lackey [102]
Suicide, she suspected. Not unlike the Rusalkas, then, these Wili. “Oh, you poor thing—” Katya left her hand atop the girl’s despite the chill. “Can you tell me your name?”
“Guiliette.” She sighed. “I should not be here—I can only walk by night. I do not know how this Jinn managed to capture me—nor how he keeps me walking by day—” A faint blue flush suffused her cheeks. “Nor how he keeps me from what I am cursed to do.”
Katya sighed. “Murder young men, is it?” she asked.
The Wili started. “How do you know?” she gasped.
“Because the Rusalkas of my Tradition are much the same.” She gave Guiliette a long and measuring look. “And I think that there is an escape for you, not only from here, but also from your curse, so you can go on.”
Now the Wili went so pale she was almost transparent. “Why do you tell me this?”
“Because if any of us can escape from here, we should. Because I don’t think you are happy with what you are. Because—” She shrugged. “Because, Guiliette, you should stop being a Wili, and—and go on. I know that this works for Rusalkas, so it should work for you. This won’t be an easy thing,” she warned. “But it’s deceptively simple. You have to forgive, really forgive, the man who betrayed you.”
The blue flush suffused the Wili’s cheeks. “Ne—!” she began, enraged—
—then stopped herself.
“That is the point, isn’t it?” she replied slowly. Katya nodded. “Forgiving the one that betrayed me…forgiving all that pain, the despair…it is almost impossible.”
“That is why so few Rusalkas manage,” Katya said gently.
“I…will think on this,” Guiliette said, and sighed. “But I can do one thing that none of you can. I can still pass myself through things. So—”
She lifted her hand, and it passed right through Katya’s with a feeling of terrible chill and a vague nausea. Katya repressed her shivers.
“I can look for hidden passages, hiding places, in the walls,” the Wili continued. “And I do not sleep. So I will do this. Yes? And whatever betides I will not leave you all until you have found that bottle.”
“Yes, please,” Katya said, and smiled warmly at her. “You are a treasure to us, Guiliette. Thank you.”
“It is little enough I can do, and none of you deserve to be here,” Guiliette replied. Then out of nowhere came a tiny little smile, the first that Katya had seen on her face. “It is good to feel useful again.”
“Yes it is,” Katya said softly, watching the ghost-girl drift out of the room in search of the castle’s secrets. “It always is.”
There were Tritons and Mer-folk in the waters closest to the Jinn’s desert, waiting to hear if there was anything that the rescuers needed that the Sea King could provide. Sasha had gotten his ride on a dragon, much to his terror and delight. Take the ride in Baba Yaga’s mortar and add to it the ride on the Goat, and the result might be half of the experience of riding on a dragon. When he slid shakily down off Adamant’s back once they were on the mainland, it was with two conflicting feelings inside. He wanted to do it again immediately. He never wanted to do it again, not under any circumstances.
But right now they had some other priorities. Sasha needed clothing that wasn’t crusted with salt, and food and drink. Gina scouted him a village, although he would have been willing to swear there couldn’t be any such thing here, and Adamant put him down near it while the two flew off to scout conditions around the Castle of the Katschei. If there was any way to reach it without being seen…
He went into the village, after beating the worst of the damage out of his clothing. It was too bad about the boots; they’d need oiling and oiling and re-oiling to get them fit to wear. There were, fortunately, people here who, if not actual merchants, were still willing to sell him things. He still had the Queen of Copper Mountain’s coins, and silver spoke a universal language—though he could make himself understood,