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Chapter Text

Beltane Night

To and fro in the seven chambers there stalked, in fact, a multitude of dreams. And these – the dreams – writhed in and about, taking hue from the rooms, and causing the wild music of the orchestra to seem as the echo of their steps. And, anon, there strikes the ebony clock which stands in the hall of velvet. And then, for a moment, all is still, and all is silent save the voice of the clock. The dreams are stiff-frozen as they stand. But the echoes of the chime die away… the music swells and the dreams live, and writhe to and fro more merrily than ever…

The Masque of the Red Death, Edgar Allan Poe

PART I

It's only forever…

The gold clock face wavered and swam in front of her vision, the hands gliding unremittingly forward in a sweeping movement of dark imminence. The rhythmic strokes underscored the lilting cadences of his voice, now raised in anger.

I have reordered time, I have turned the world upside down, and I have done it all for you.

The scene of their final, dramatic confrontation receded and now she was stood gazing out across the Labyrinth once more, his resonant warning hovering over her in the arid wasteland like some poised bird of prey.

Time is short…

And something else, something familiar yet strange, from another encounter, another time. He was facing her, just as she remembered him from so long ago: pale, perfect, pitiless. Weaving strands of light illuminated his face and hair that shone with white fire. He was smiling.

I've seen children no older than your brother trapped forever in their own nightmares without recourse to escape –

And still the memories-not-memories persisted.

He was swinging a timepiece before her; an antique device with a face of glass, hands of ebony and a rim of gold – it was beautiful –

… and then tell me what forever feels like…

And over it all the chimes of a clock striking the hour with a resounding clarity, and wild, triumphant laughter –

Sarah Williams awoke with a start. The remnants of a terrible dream hovered on the edges of her consciousness, blurring and becoming indistinct, a dream she would no longer remember. Her head was lying at an uncomfortable angle sideways across her arms. She pulled herself upright, feeling the crick in her neck as she did so. How long was I asleep, she wondered vaguely, rubbing her eyes without noticing the mascara that smudged onto her fingers. She blinked several times, adjusting to the dim light that brought the University College library into sharp focus.

She sat up a little straighter in her chair, realising with a start where she was. A glance at her watch told her it was twenty-five minutes to midnight; not particularly late – after all, she had done all-nighters in the library before – but nevertheless, she was the only one she could see on her floor, unusual for a weeknight. Her half-finished literature essay sat on the table in front of her ('Compare the role Magic plays in William Shakespeare's "The Tempest" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream"') and she stared down at it a little guiltily, realising she must have been more tired than she'd thought.

I must be the only person sad enough to be in the library on the night of their twenty-first, she thought wryly. And I wonder why I haven't had a relationship in the last six months.

Her friends had insisted on throwing her a party, but she had been adamant they wait until tomorrow. Her assignment was due by the end of the week, and already accepting her actual birthday as a write-off as far as any work was concerned, she wanted to get the bulk of it out the way. Be as that may, she had a sneaking suspicion that the moment she got in, her housemates would be waiting up for her, drinks at the ready. Sarah grinned reluctantly at the thought, and stared down at her essay, divided between the prospect of having to trawl her way through a pile of secondary sources and making the necessary citations, or going home and beginning her birthday celebrations a few minutes early. Two packages had arrived at her house this morning, one from her Dad and Karen, the other with Toby's recognisable scrawl across the label. The sight of it had given her a small pang, as she hadn't seen any of them since her last vacation. And Toby was getting so tall –

Shit.

Sarah almost jumped out of her chair in shock. A barn owl had flown past outside, so close it had almost crashed into the window. Leaning across the table, she gazed out of the window, for a moment only able to see her own reflection; pale faced and intent, before the view outside became gradually clearer. A sliver of moonlight illuminated the view from the second floor window. It was a cold night for spring, moonlit and cloudless; a chilly gust of wind rattled the glass in its weathered frame. The wood that bordered the edge of campus came even so far as the library; she need only reach outside the half-open window for her hand to brush against one of the evergreen branches –

She blinked, frowned, and looked harder.

The barn owl was perched on a branch outside her window, unmoving and… staring at her. Sarah pushed her dark hair away from her face, releasing a slow breath. I've been in here too long, she decided. She swallowed and pushed her chair back slightly. The bird continued to gaze at her unblinkingly. It was a beautiful creature, rich, snowy plumage, razor-sharp beak that was honed with predatory precision and enormous slanting eyes that looked oddly silver in the moonlight…

The fluttering tension in her body she attributed to the espressos intended to carry her through a night of study rather than any other cause. Any reminders of that chapter in her life she would not entertain. Not tonight. Yes, she had spent a couple of months on edge after her return, jumping at strange noises, but the Labyrinth had long ago dwindled into the background as real life concerns occupied her. By now she had grown accustomed to the oddness that occurred at certain times of the year, not to mention the dreams. And to this day she wouldn't eat peaches. But all this she accepted as a matter of course. The otherworldly events had faded like a half-forgotten dream, barely remembered unless triggered by certain things –

Like a barn owl.

Yes, perhaps it was time she called it a night. Pulling a hair band from her bag, she loosely tied her hair back and glanced in her pocket mirror, trying to wipe away the vestiges of mascara that had clumped under her eyes. She might be exhausted, but returning home to a birthday gathering meant she didn't particularly want to look it. Gathering her books together, Sarah piled them into her bag rather haphazardly, and swung the satchel over her shoulder, wincing slightly at the weight of it. Remembering to turn off the small desk lamp, and with one last fleeting glance out the window (the owl was still there), she hurriedly left.

The moment she stepped outside, she shivered, wishing she had worn more than a thin shirt. When she'd arrived at the library in the afternoon, it had been warm and sunny. Wrapping her arms around herself, she pushed on through the woods, following the progress of the winding path. The lights that had been put up along the walkway were broken – obviously the result of a student prank – but having made the journey so many times, Sarah could have done it blindfolded, and tonight there was a clear moon. Occasionally, when the gaps between the trees permitted, she had a view of the night sky, scattered with stars. The library was behind her, but the lights from the biology block were visible through the trees; in the distance, she heard a drunken laugh.

There was always something she had liked about the night: the solitude, the quiet, which, on campus was rare enough to find. The bout of chill air had woken her up far more effectively than the hours huddled over black coffee, staring at her Complete Works of Shakespeare. Perhaps she had overdone it today; her eyes were behaving oddly. Every now and then, something seemed to dance on the edges of her vision. Sarah blinked several times, attributing it to over-tiredness. She ran a hand over her eyes, and looked around her. The dark boughs of the trees glowed silvery-pale where the moonlight managed to penetrate the dense foliage. Through the soles of her rather worn trainers, the grass was slightly damp underfoot. She slowed her naturally quick-paced walk to a leisurely amble. Her housemates weren't expecting her home until after midnight, and she wanted some time to herself when she officially turned twenty-one.

The house she was renting was only a few minutes walk from campus, but all the same, she knew Karen wouldn't be too enthusiastic at the thought of her stepdaughter wandering around alone at night. It was a good three hours drive from home, but the thought of Karen that flared up so suddenly and so vividly made it seem a little less far, somehow. The days when Sarah – a fiercely withdrawn and imaginative teenager – had violently resented her stepmother for occupying her father's attention and expecting her to baby-sit her brother were long gone. The two of them had developed a comfortable sisterly bond, and as she had become older, Sarah had begun to appreciate having another woman in the house when she returned home between semesters.

Sarah shivered again.

There was definitely something odd in the air. She wondered if there was going to be a storm, but it hadn't been hot enough for that… But still there was a distinctive something that caused an odd prickling across her skin. It felt… magical. Sarah frowned. She used that word with caution now. She had felt it before too, last time on the winter solstice when she had attended a carol concert during the Christmas vacation. She felt a thrill of apprehension at the memory that unwittingly surfaced.

The sharp, heady scent of pinecones mingled with incense infiltrated the Church porch that was filled with parishioners picking up Hymn Books. Toby was tugging at her gloved hands, wanting to get a seat near the front, talking eagerly in the hushed whispers instinctive within Church walls. Sarah looked around appreciatively, only half listening. The parish had outdone itself this year. Although she only ever attended Mass at Christmas and Easter, she loved churches; the archaic feel of them, their imposing grandeur, the ambience. The entrance was lit with candles, throwing mingled light and shadow on the wooden nativity scene that had recently taken residence there. The ceiling was adorned with ivy and mistletoe, the dark evergreen disappearing into shadows of impenetrable black.

Toby poked her painfully in the ribs. "Look, they've got a little baby Jesus and everything – "

His voice sounded strange, as though it came from very far away, and the smell of pine needles was almost overwhelming. Sarah shivered violently. When had it become so cold?

She looked down at her watch. It was only twenty past seven. "Music's started a bit early, hasn't it?"

Toby looked at her oddly. "What?"

The melody came again: clear as water, yet elusive, a sweet and piercing sound.

"Can't you hear –?"

She glanced up again. The wreaths above her seemed to be swaying – but there's no wind – coiling and intertwining together to form an archway. The leaves rustling together sounded like whispers. She could no longer hear the bustle of sound in the vestry, only the haunting music and the soft murmuring that sounded like someone saying her name, over and over. The air was razor sharp, and the light was different altogether – no longer the dusky half-light of the candles, but paler, lambent, glowing with invitation.

Sarah… the leaves whispered. Sarah…

The twisting wreaths that opened outward seemed to stretch into infinity, and she thought she stood in a forest, while the air pulsed and shimmered around her, and the cold pierced her to the core. The pale boles of the trees shone with the diamond glint of frost. Icicles dripped glass-like onto the evergreen leaves. And the white fruit of the mistletoe shone brighter somehow, two pinpricks of light that became eyes, eyes that had challenged her so long ago, filled with such fury and despair –

Sarah…

Sarah…

Sarah…

"Sarah, I said are you alright?"

She blinked hard, and Karen's concerned face slowly swam into focus. The noise of her surroundings returned to her, and someone jolted against her in an attempt to get past. "Sarah? Your Dad and Toby are waiting for us."

"Hmm?" She said vaguely. A few small branches detached themselves from the overhanging display and fell crashing to the floor, missing her by a fraction. She jumped in alarm.

Karen frowned. "You look pale. You're not coming down with something, are you? I know the flu's been going round Toby's school –"

"No…" The ivy overhead rustled and something small seemed to move within its dense leafy depths – She looked away quickly and flashed her stepmother a falsely bright smile, while linking arms and hurriedly ushering her through the glass doors. "No, I'm fine."

Sarah shook away the memory she had so forcefully suppressed, her sense of unease growing. That scent, almost like –

You're being ridiculous, she told herself sternly. So what if someone's been smoking something in the woods? It would hardly be the first time.

Yet that didn't quite explain the stillness, or the hushed expectancy; and out of the corner of her eye, she thought she could discern a faint rippling that made her think of glass melting. And such a strange, almost throbbing sensation in the atmosphere, like electrical energy.

Sarah began to walk a little faster.

Her friends were at home waiting for her; what they would say if they saw her now. The thought restored some measure of calm. Sarah swung her bag onto her other shoulder, mind going back over what she had discussed with Professor Redgrave at the end of last week's lecture.

"Sarah, I was very impressed that you brought up More's Utopia in your argument for human nature making the concept of the island as a paradise impossible."

"Thanks," said Sarah, smiling as she tucked an excerpt of Montaigne's Of Cannibals back into her bag. The bustle of students leaving echoed around the lecture theatre. "I wasn't sure if it was entirely relevant, but one of my housemates had the book lying around the house so I thought it might be worth a look."

Professor Redgrave nodded and looked at the girl thoughtfully. "You know, you made some good points in this week's seminar. Have you thought of doing this as your assessed essay topic? You already have most of the texts to use as reference, as well as the lecture notes."

"Oh, I've already decided what I'm doing my assessment on."

"Yes…" The older woman glanced down the list. "The comparison of magic wasn't it? Are you quite sure you wouldn't be better off doing the essay on nature and civilisation?"

Sarah kept her tone polite, although her shoulders stiffened slightly. "No, I've got a few ideas about this one. I just found the question on magic more… interesting."

In hindsight, maybe the presentation of Nature and Civilisation would have been the safer option. After all, writing what she really knew of magic would hardly stand her in good stead with the University's board of assessment. Distractedly trying to recall the lines of Prospero's speech, the sound of wings fluttering overhead passed her by unnoticed. She said aloud to herself, with a confidence she did not fully feel:

"Now my charms are all o'erthrown,
And what strength I have's mine own,
Which is most faint: now, 'tis true,
I must be here confined by you –"

As she paused to remember the remainder of the quotation, a voice – low, silken and metallic – interrupted her recital.

"Well now, that sounds more promising than I had hoped."

Sarah felt her very blood freeze as those haunting, half forgotten tones whispered through the trees and caressed her skin, causing her arms to erupt in goosebumps. She stopped dead. Her college bag fell to the ground with a muted thud.

"Who's there?" she said, hearing the quiver in her own voice.

Silence.

Cold unease slithered through her as she suddenly recalled an incident a few months ago where a girl had been assaulted on campus; many of the trees in the wood had been cut down as a result, but she couldn't remember if the attacker had ever been caught… why the hell did I decide to walk back on my own? Heartbeat thudding in her ears, she looked around in every direction, trying to discern any signs of movement around her, but the overwhelming silence and clear view through the trees persuaded her she was quite alone. Be jumping at my own shadow next… Shaking her head slightly, she reached down to pick up her bag.

"Surely you haven't forgotten me already?"

His voice. Smooth as rippling glass, with a clear, hard edge like the facet of a diamond. The sound of it, the barn owl, the electric atmosphere all led to one awful conclusion… No. Impossible. Not here. Not now. She wanted to run but her feet seemed weighted down with lead, she couldn't move –

A soft sigh that was definitely not the wind brushed the back of her neck.

It's nothing.

Nothing? Nothing, nothing, tra la la!

Her heart banged against her ribs.

This is a trick; someone's playing a joke on me…

"Is this any way to greet an old friend?"

This isn't happening, this isn't happening –

Sarah didn't turn around; refusing to acknowledge what every rational part of her mind fought against, at what simply could not be –

"Look at me, Sarah."

His voice was a low inexorable command.

And slowly – very slowly – Sarah turned and found herself facing the figure she had defeated six years ago.

He was the same – exactly the same as she remembered. The stark, bone-white face characterised by its harsh beauty: the sharp planes and angular lines unsoftened by any hint of tenderness. His thin lips were parted in a half-mocking smile, pearly teeth flashing in the surrounding gloom. The moon formed a halo around his silvery hair that stuck out like fine wires. And his eyes… those strange, parti-coloured eyes had haunted her dreams for years. Eyes so pale they were almost white, sharp and piercing as ice crystals – or were they grey? The hard cold grey of a winter's sky that was so merciless and forbidding. Sarah averted her gaze; it hurt to look at him for too long.

"Well, Sarah," he continued in those same delicate glassy tones; it reminded her of wind chimes tinkling together – wind chimes underpinned by the jarring dissonance of nails scraping down a blackboard. "Have you missed me?"

The power of speech had left her entirely. She could only stare. He was dressed in an elegant ruffled shirt beneath a fitted leather waistcoat, giving him a vaguely Period air, though Sarah somehow doubted it was the fashion to have metallic shoulder plates soldered outwards in the shape of outstretched wings or what looked like netted stars flashing through the gauzy fabric of their clothing. The effect was dazzling; again, she had to look away.

The threads knotting her vocal chords together seemed to break apart a fraction, enough for her to form two unsteady words.

"Goblin King."

Jareth continued to smile at her with a deadly sort of amusement. "Hmm. I would have hoped by now we knew each other well enough to move onto first name terms." He paused, lashes sweeping downward in a fringe of pale gold, as he said reflectively, "I think I should like to hear you use my name."

In the mind-numbing paralysis of disbelief, Sarah was still able to comprehend from the dancing childlike glee in his eyes, that the mind games had begun again. It all came back to her in a rush: the fear, the uncertainty, the desperation, the strange relationship with the Goblin King that had ranged from the outright antagonistic to the strangely flirtatious –

Flirtatious? Now that wasn't the word she would have used. Sarah frowned, her lip caught between her teeth. He was her enemy, the fey trickster that had stolen her brother from her and put her through a gruelling quest to reclaim him, and tried to distract her with lies and illusions. She would not bow down and play his game. Not anymore. The old defiance reasserted itself in her straightening posture and the shiver of tension that ran down her spine. She glared at him in stony silence.

Jareth's eyebrows almost disappeared into his hairline, but the infuriating smile did not leave his face. His hand reached into his breast pocket and she automatically tensed, half expecting him to draw out a crystal, and so was completely bemused when instead he produced a gold pocket watch. It sat in the centre of his palm, elaborately carved and inlaid with symbols, but with that one irregularity she had seen reproduced on his clock in their last encounter: there were thirteen hours.

"Still the same foolish headstrong child you were then, Sarah. And I had such high hopes for you. You may keep up this wilful disobedience as long as you like. I have time – an eternity of time to be reordered at my will, so you must see how futile it is to disobey me." His expression hardened, all semblance of lightness gone. "My name Sarah. Say it."

Sarah closed her eyes, willing her heartbeat to slow. How could she have thought he was the same? He had often been aloof, yes, cruel in his way, but there was something ruthless about him that warned her he had not taken his last defeat lightly. She sought refuge in indifference.

"Jareth," she said, very quietly and with all the dignity she could muster.

The Goblin King replaced the pocket watch with an almost ostentatious slowness. With his white-gold hair and fiery eyes he looked almost like an angel, only angels didn't smirk.

"There," he said breezily. "That wasn't so hard, was it?"

Sarah didn't say anything. Only reminded herself to keep breathing from one moment to the next. This is insane, her mind kept saying, over and over. The whole situation felt unreal. Every moment she was expecting to wake up and find herself in the library again, but another oddly detached part of her was all too aware of this being reality; the cold air against her skin, the giving pressure of damp grass beneath her feet, and most insistent of all, the heightened physicality of his presence… no, this was no dream.

"So quiet, Sarah," he remarked, a smile curving around his words. "Have you nothing to say to me?"

What does he want? His face gave away nothing. Bland and inscrutable as polished marble, so unnaturally perfect that she knew no one could possibly mistake him for human. He looked at ease, as he had ever done, but there must be an ulterior motive for his appearing here, with him, there was always a motive...

Her hands clenched into fists as she grimly resolved not to play the role of naïve child. If he wanted a confrontation, he would find the rules had changed. You won, remember, she reminded herself. Even in his own kingdom when he had every power at his command, you overcame him. Toby is safe. He has no hold over you, not anymore.

Her voice rang out, direct and blunt in its surety.

"I defeated you once before. It's over. You have no place here, Goblin King."

He drew back a little, eyebrows arching in faint surprise. "My, my… so you have changed, after all. Quite the grown woman now, aren't you? No longer the self-absorbed, immature girl complaining about how unfair everything is." His beautiful eyes narrowed. "And you don't fear me – not like you used to."

She frowned, pushing her hands deep in the pockets of her jeans. "You're right," she said thoughtfully. "I'm not afraid of you. And you know why? Because I've grown up. And you haven't." She saw his eyes flare at that, flashing with malevolence, but didn't allow herself to stop. "You still carry on playing your childish games, and it might have impressed me then, but it doesn't now. All you have is smoke and mirrors, and you'll have to do much better than that to make me afraid of you again."

He smiled, a slow, lazy smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "All things in good time, my dear."

Sarah looked away, staring deliberately through the trees. It was strangely quiet. For the moment. An awful thought suddenly occurred to her. What if someone walked past? Would they be able to see Jareth? Would they just assume he was in a band, or on his way to an eccentric fancy dress party? Oh God, what if she saw someone she knew? She could picture it now. Hey everyone, have you seen Sarah Williams's new boyfriend? Guess she's still on the rebound from her ex, judging by the seventies throwback she's hooked up with.

Oh wouldn't the Goblin King just love that?

Several possibilities flashed through her mind. She had the awful feeling that if she tried to leave he would follow her. No, perhaps it was best to just see what he wanted, then get rid of him as soon as possible. With that objective in mind, she asked, rather abruptly: "What are you doing here?"

Jareth's eyes widened in what she would have taken as innocence in anyone else. "It was a pleasant night. I thought to take a stroll."

Sarah felt the old irritation beginning to emerge that was gradually quelling her shock and unease. "What, you took a wrong turn in Goblin-land and just happened to end up on my college campus? I highly doubt it."

She saw, with a sting of half-painful pleasure that his nostrils flared slightly at her mocking use of the phrase 'Goblin-land'. She pushed forward her advantage before he could throw her off-balance again. "I mean what are you doing here? In my world?"

"Your world, Sarah? Are you quite sure about that? I find your powers of observation falling rather short of my expectations." He spread a gloved hand outwards in an elaborate sweeping gesture. "Look around you, child."

Sarah looked – and swallowed hard.

They were still, to all intents and purposes, stood in the wood in the university grounds, but the lights and buildings of campus that should have been clearly visible had vanished entirely. And that sharp scent, it reminded her of – pine needles. A thin film of mist had stolen across the ground and was rising upwards in a translucent veil. And the air felt different – she waved a hand and felt a faint resistance greet her outstretched fingers like gauzy cobwebs or finely spun silk. It wavered and swam around her like the hazy somnolence of a hot summer's day, only the night was cold. Sarah remembered the odd occasions she had drunk too much and then set foot outdoors; it was that same peculiar sensation of the world being strangely removed from herself, yet being able to view it with a heightened clarity. And all the while, Jareth standing there, clearer than anything: his angular profile standing out against the pale moon. And he was pale himself; all wild hair and gleaming eyes and that uncanny grace that no human could possess…

"Where are we?" she said, no longer trying to fight down the rising panic in her voice. "Are we there – at the –" she half choked on words she had not uttered for six years in fear of having her sanity questioned. "The Goblin City?" She glanced around as though expecting to see turrets rise from the damp grass at any instant.

"Not exactly."

She turned to face him, hands splayed against her hips. "Don't play games with me, Goblin King. I'm not a child anymore. Tell me where we are."

"As for you not being a child…" His eyes flickered downwards and he paused. The curve of his sensual mouth made her realise just how cold the night was. Sarah instinctively wrapped her arms around herself, and was furious at herself for blushing when he laughed quietly. "I think that is fairly evident."

He glanced away suddenly, and it was as though the heavy, cloying tendrils of fog that had wound about her withdrew slightly.

"We are not," he continued, as though nothing had happened, "Anywhere, precisely. Or rather, we are Between."

She frowned. "That's not an answer."

He flicked something off his sleeve – a speck of dust? Dust didn't have such an opalescent sheen…

"Do you know what day it is today?"

Of course I do. It's my birthday in a few minutes. She shrugged, her tone matching his for coolness. "It's the thirtieth of April. What about it?"

"For someone who studies literature, you have no sense of culture. Have you never heard of the festival of Beltane?"

She shook her head, refusing to let him rile her, or ask just how he knew what College course she was taking.

"Did it never occur to you, my dear Sarah, after our previous encounter, that it might be wise to read up on your folklore? If you had, you would realise that Beltane night is regarded in Gaelic culture as the beginning of summer; just as Samhain marks the start of winter – both noted as times of the year in which the boundaries between this world and the Otherworld waver, thus making it easier for beings such as myself to move more freely between realms. The hours between dusk and dawn make the liminal state particularly apparent, and so – here I am." He looked upwards, musingly, and the moonlight slanted across his sharp profile. "You are fortunate to have your birthday fall on such a night."

"How did you know it was my birthday?"

"I know – that's sufficient. I've been waiting a long time for this day."

She watched him suspiciously. "Why?"

In response, he plucked one of the stars from his pearly shirt, and she watched with increasing unease as it expanded in his hand, its shape becoming circular, glinting light growing gradually more transparent as it took the form of a ball, a crystal…

"I've brought you – a gift."

No. Not this. Not again…

"Remember what I offered you, Sarah."

She glared at the crystal dancing on the tips of his fingers, refusing to be drawn into its glowing promise. "I remember you turning that into a snake."

His pale eyes darkened several shades. "Only when you defied me. And I know you would not be so foolish as to do anything like that again."

"Is that why you're here? To try and tempt me into your warped fantasy again? If so, you're wasting your time. The answer's no."

"Oh, my fantasy? Is that what you've been telling yourself? That the nasty Goblin King played tricks with your mind and conjured up things you didn't want to see? Nothing so easy, Sarah. Everything you went through in the Labyrinth came from that pretty little head of yours."

She could see nothing but the shimmering ball in his hands and the fear reflected in her grey-green eyes. But the longer she gazed into its smooth glass surface, the clearer her reflection started to become. She looked away, quickly.

"Everything?" she repeated. Curiosity was beginning to overcome her unease. She realised that for the first time she was able to receive some answers to the events that had haunted her adolescence. "What about Hoggle? Sir Didymus? I didn't imagine them, did I?"

"Oh no. They're quite real. And have had sufficient cause to regret it. You can be assured that my retribution for their disloyalty was both swift and merciless." His voice sank to a whisper. "Do you still feel like the hero now, Sarah?"

A cold iron fist seemed to have closed itself around her heart. She stared unseeingly at the crystal in his hand as her mind cast itself back to the Oubliette where she and Hoggle had run into Jareth. His mocking threats… It had seemed almost light-hearted at the time… but what if –? She had never thought, never even considered…

Your fault, her mind kept whispering in chanting accusation. Your fault, this is your fault...

"No…" The breath hitched in her throat. He's lying, you saw them as soon as you came out the Labyrinth and they were fine, he's only saying it to shake you up –

She looked up, anger brimming at the tips of her fingers. "I don't believe you."

He shrugged. "And I don't particularly care."

"Then what about you?" she demanded harshly. "If it was all my imagination, do you really look like – you?"

"Why? Do you find something about my appearance objectionable, Sarah?"

She felt suddenly as though someone had doused an ice-cold bucket of water over her. Jareth was standing directly in front of her, tall lean figure emphasised by the tight fitting waistcoat, white sleeves billowing out in gorgeous, expansive material. Knee high boots of black leather hugged legs that seemed to go on and on. Polished silver buckles gleamed in the moonlight, and there seemed to be jewels subtly woven into his shirt, visible only at certain lights and angles. The combined effect should have been ridiculous, but on him it worked… instead of appearing foppish or dandified, it was powerful – unsettling so. His skin had taken on an oddly translucent sheen in the otherworldly light. His hair and eyes glowed. He was undoubtedly the most beautiful man – being – she had ever seen, and he knew it too, if the sly satisfaction in his expression was anything to go by.

"So I may conclude you find my appearance favourable?" There was now undeniable hunger in his gaze. "The feeling is mutual."

He's actually enjoying this, damn him, she thought with a sense of outrage. To avoid looking at the insufferable conceit on his face, her eyes fell on the crystal again. She didn't even know her own dreams (or those that extended beyond graduation and hopefully landing an editing job while doing her own writing on the side) so how could he possibly know? Curiosity overcame her. She saw herself, but now realised it was no reflection. The Sarah in the glass was smiling and seemed older, somehow, though she couldn't exactly define what made her think so. Her dark hair was let loose in rippling waves and something glittered on her brow – a crown? No, a star…

Just as she tried to decipher what it meant, the crystal vanished from his hands with a rapidity that made her blink. "What was –?"

He tapped a couple of fingers to his mouth. "Curious?"

"No," she lied.

He laughed at the unconvincing denial. "I could show you what you wish to see – and more. You need only come with me."

She immediately backed up a step. "I don't want to know that badly."

"Oh, I think you do. Still the dreamer, Sarah. Still burying your head in books. I can give you so much more." His voice was low and silken. "I can give you your dreams." Sarah closed her eyes tight. His lilting tones entwined her, persuasive, compelling. "Wouldn't you like to see your dreams? You could have them forever."

Sarah opened her eyes. "Not without a price," she said.

"Everything has a price."

She knew what that price was.

Fear me, love me. Do as I say and I will be your slave.

No, Goblin King, she thought. I would be yours.

Yes, she would have her dreams, whatever they might be. But it came at the expense of being under his power: completely and absolutely. Living in a world of whatever elaborate fantasies he chose to entrance her with, trapped in a beautiful prison, while the world above went on without her being a part of it. Then he would truly have defeated her, and so prevailed over any humiliation of his former loss. Whatever he might choose to tell her, she knew that was the real reason he was here. She took a deep breath and looked up at him; not even needing to find the words before the muscles in his face tautened with barely restrained anger.

"Sarah, do not attempt to resist me. I am giving you a second chance which you would be foolish to turn down. I offer you everything."

"Illusions," said Sarah. "Empty shadows. You couldn't satisfy me with fantasies when I'd know their falsity. I couldn't live like that."

"Persist in this defiance and you may not live for much longer at all," he flared, at last incited to showing real emotion.

"You can't hurt me," she said, with more conviction than she felt. "You have no power over me – not unless I go with you." She thought again of her friends in the Labyrinth and cringed.

"You talk of power so lightly. You don't have any comprehension of what real power is – nor what you could do with it, if it fell into your hands."

She shrugged. "You're the one who gets off on power, Goblin King."

"That," he said. "Among other things."

He gave her a meaningful look, daring her to ask what those 'others things' were. She didn't dare. Instead, she decided to change the subject before he felt obliged to explain it to her.

"So," she said slowly, hearing the tremor in her own voice, "you can give me anything I want?"

"Anything."

"Then leave me alone," she said.

He grinned widely at her. "Except that." He watched with evident enjoyment as she sighed in frustration. "Really Sarah, did you think it would be that easy?"

"Don't," she said sharply.

"Don't what?"

"Don't keep saying my name like we're friends."

"Friends? Oh no, my precious child, I hope we shall much more before long."

"What are you talking about?" demanded Sarah, although she had a feeling she knew.

Jareth tilted his head to one side, not shifting from his lounging, indolent pose. In the hyper-real light, his face was almost as pale as the ivory shirt he wore, the phosphorous glow of his skin not reflected, but seeming to come from within. The corner of his mouth quirked upwards in an audacious smile that sent a shiver down her spine.

"It seems I made you my offer too early. It is of little concern – you had merely caught me off guard by entering my castle with such apparent ease. I sought only to waylay you by whatever means I had left at my disposal. But you were too young to realise the full extent of what entering my realm would entail. Now, however, you can be in little doubt of the other, more enticing considerations to take into account, those certain privileges that I would demand from you in exchange…"

His eyes that had been so cold were now full of white-hot fire as they scrutinised every inch of her, slowly, savouringly… It was as though she could already feel his hands running over her bare flesh. She released a hiss of breath, unnerved at the unexpected flare of heat that suddenly coursed through her.

She glared up at him in rising disgust. "Is that what this is about?"

"So suspicious of me still." A smile ghosted over his features. "But I would be lying if I said that wasn't a part of it." His face was bleak suddenly, frightening. "Eternity is a very long time to be alone, Sarah." A white, long-fingered hand reached outwards, hovering a hair's breadth away from her face.

She jerked backwards. "Don't touch me."

He lifted an elegant brow. "Why so defensive?"

"Because I don't like you."

This didn't appear to concern him. "Plenty of time to overcome that."

Sarah stared at him. "You're not joking, are you?" she finally said weakly.

"I assure you, I'm quite serious."

She was becoming steadily more puzzled by the minute. What was he really doing here? Jareth: an immensely powerful Goblin King come all this way after so many years just to see her? It wasn't very likely. Yes, she had defeated him, but it hardly seemed to have injured him in any noticeable way. The only thing that had suffered appeared to be his pride. Is that what had brought him back to her? Simply injured pride? Or was it something stronger? Hatred. Revenge. Both seemed powerful enough motivations.

She shivered, and summoned up the courage to ask.

"Why me?"

"You challenged me. No one else has ever come so close – and to think it should be a perfectly ordinary fifteen-year-old girl with no special powers or abilities – that she could defeat my Labyrinth? I never forget an injury, Sarah. You should have known I would find you again some day. Why do you think I waited until such a singular night, when the time was so –" again, that hunger in his gaze – "Ripe?"

"Revenge," she said emotionlessly.

"Far from it, dear one. I offer you a sweeter reward than any imaginable. You cannot comprehend what awaits you. A realm of unparalleled magnificence, more terrible and beautiful than anything you could imagine."

"A dirt infested village populated by pygmies? I don't think so."

Jareth burst out laughing; Sarah jumped as though she had received an electric shock. His laughter rang in her ears; silvery and musical, but with a faint jarring undercurrent like the ringing of glass. "Oh Sarah. Have you learnt nothing? Surely you don't still believe I rule over that – that rabble you blundered your way through? Dear, dear. Perhaps I should have made things a little clearer for you. Let me assure you, that if you returned to me now, the Labyrinth would look vastly different to when you left it."

She frowned. "The Labyrinth's changed?"

He smiled indulgently. "No, precious thing. You have."

"I'm not sure I understand," she said slowly.

"No," he said in a patronising tone. "You never did, sweet. Blundering into my realm enflamed by the romantic notions of your crusade, giving no thought to the consequences that would arise from your actions."

Her mouth was suddenly very dry.

"Consequences?"

"Are you telling me that in almost six years, you've never questioned the marks your experience left upon you?"

"What do you mean marks?" Sarah demanded. "I haven't been –"

"Oh yes, you have. Did you think that after rescuing baby brother you could return home unscathed?"

Sarah swallowed hard as fear, gut-wrenching fear, slid through her stomach.

"What have you done to me?" she whispered.

"I? Nothing, precisely. I've ruled over the underworld for thirteen hundred years, but there are certain ancient magics that even Imust adhere to. Magics that have been in place since time immemorial. Understand that mortals do not enter the Labyrinth lightly, Sarah. Humans are not meant to cross the threshold into the world of the Fey, although I may pass time in your world if I so wish – times like tonight being easier, of course. But straying into my realm leaves its mark upon all who do so unwarily. The type and the extent of the effects depend largely upon the character and mettle of the mortal in question." He cast her a long, scrutinising look; she shivered as though a snake had slithered across her skin. "You, I confess, surprised me. You displayed a courage and tenacity I had not expected from you, and so the – shall we say – magical enhancement you took away was to your advantage. Did you not notice within weeks of leaving my realm that your sight and hearing seem heightened on occasion? Do you ever dream things before they came to pass?"

"Coincidence," said Sarah hoarsely. "I bet everyone –"

"Do you sometimes – at certain times of the year in particular – this night of Beltane being a prime example, sense a strange energy in the air or imagine you hear music – beautiful music? You are fortunate to be so endowed with an insight into the lighter aspects of my world. There are, however, other consequences which your moral fortitude and loyalty, on the whole, preserved you from."

"What consequences?"

He grinned, flashing very white, very pointed teeth. "Suffice it to say they are… less than pleasant."

"Tell me."

He shrugged carelessly. "As you wish. Those other children that enter my Labyrinth – the vain and ungrateful and cowardly – those who willingly wander into my realm and turn it into a mockery through their foolish desires and then are unworthy enough to solve it, may return to the world above if they wish; but such freedom comes at a price."

Sarah couldn't speak. She could feel her heart beating in low, sickening thumps. And Jareth was smiling, smiling with that thin, cruel mouth of his, as though he derived genuine pleasure at the thought of young and innocent children being harmed –

"They may leave the world of the Fey, but the magics they tapped into do not abandon them so easily. It will come back to haunt them, somehow. Creeping shadows, things lurking in the night their parents told them didn't exist, paralysed with fear by visions that no other human is able to see – and a personal favourite of mine – being disrupted in the linear progression of time and having to relive their worst moments again and again." He smiled as though relishing a particularly pleasant memory; Sarah felt her insides turn over. "I've seen children no older than your brother trapped forever in their own nightmares without recourse to escape."

She shuddered. "That's horrible."

"They brought it upon themselves."

"And you can't do anything to help them?"

"That isn't exactly what I said."

"But you said – certain magic – you can't –"

"Oh, I cannot stop the influence of the Fey becoming manifest in a mortal, but that doesn't mean I can't add a few touches of my own in the way they experience the after effects."

Sarah choked, horror and anger fighting for mastery, rendering her almost incapable of speech. Her voice, when it finally came, was cracked and rasping. "You devise the tortures for those children?"

"But of course. They have the audacity to demand that I grant their wishes – their trite, crass, selfish wishes – as though I exist only to accede to their demands! It gives me pleasure to teach them how little deserving they are of my notice; how much better it would be for them had they not come to my attention."

"You could stop it!"

He looked frankly bewildered. "And why would I want to do a thing like that?"

"Because they're children! Children say things all the time! They don't mean it, it isn't real –"

"It's real enough to them. That's all that matters."

"But that's – " she struggled to find the words, "That's sick."

"They accepted the challenge and they failed. I have a right to punish them as I see fit. Even the world of magic must have its balance and natural order. For everything given, something must be sacrificed or taken."

"I didn't sacrifice anything."

Jareth's voice was very quiet. "Didn't you?"

His face before her. The deep glow of a crystal. Look, Sarah. Look what I'm offering you. Your dreams.

She closed her eyes, hard.

"No," she said shortly. "I didn't."

"Somehow, I'm not quite convinced."

She couldn't bring herself to look at him. The memory of Toby lay like a dark shadow across her mind. Jareth could think what he liked, but she wasn't going to forget what he had almost done to her brother – sickening guilt assailed her – what he had possibly done to her friends in the Labyrinth. She had a sudden, horrible image of Hoggle lying in a cell somewhere injured, possibly dead.

Is that why he came back now, she wondered in sudden dismay. Did he wait until I was old enough to understand the consequences of what I've done, and when it's too late to put it right?

She couldn't stand this anymore. Sarah whirled round, to leave, to go anywhere far, far away – but found herself surrounded only by still and lifeless white trees that disappeared into opalescent mist. Perhaps, if she looked hard enough, she might find a path. Even being lost would be preferable to this. Anything would be better than remaining with him.

She could sense the Goblin King stood behind her; imagine the grim satisfaction curving his mouth. Her shoulders sagged with silent despair. He was expecting to flee, hoping for it if only for the amusement of watching her realise that there was nowhere to run.

Once again, he was the centre of the Labyrinth, all paths led back to him.

He had been her antagonist before, but this was the first time she had ever hated him.

She said, very slowly, "Why did you choose now?"

"Isn't that rather obvious?"

Sarah turned back to face him. "I want you to tell me."

"Tonight is the night you turn twenty-one, when you leave your childhood behind forever. The fact that your birthday coincides with Beltane, which makes the transference between worlds easier, is simply an intriguing coincidence. When you entered my Labyrinth, you were too young to fully realise what I offered, neither would you have taken it if you did understand. I acceded only to your less complex demands – to cast me in the trite and tired role of pantomime villain. That is the reason I waited." Although his expression did not change, dressed in a thin shirt as she was, Sarah suddenly felt very exposed. "And you haven't disappointed me. The years have improved you beyond even my expectations."

She could have said the same. The time apart had served only to enhance his otherworldly beauty – or perhaps she had just never really noticed it before. It didn't soften her towards him. On the contrary, it made him seem even more horrible.

He paused, watching her, sly, considering.

"So, Sarah. What do you say?"

Chapter Text

PART II

Three years ago, on her eighteenth birthday, Sarah dreamed.

The earth was rough under her bare feet, the harsh scrubbed grass breaking into the tender skin of her heels. But still she walked onward until she reached the spot where the gnarled tree stood, its bark now blasted and blackened. Beyond, she could see where the Goblin City stood, but it looked different, she knew that even from this distance. Above her, the sky was burning.

"Not quite how you remember, is it?"

Sarah stiffened. Of course he would be here. He was stood beside her, pale and regal as ever, the bloodshot sky daubing his face with crimson streaks, darkening his hair to fiery gold.

"I'm dreaming this," she said.

Jareth nodded, following her gaze across the darkened ramparts. "Of course you are. But that doesn't mean to say the dream can't be true."

"What happened here?" whispered Sarah.

"I thought you didn't care? Isn't that why you've stayed away so long? Your friends… they missed you, Sarah… they've been calling for you, but you turned away…"

"Stop it!" she hissed, clawing her palms that were slick with perspiration. "I've grown up. I have no obligations here, not anymore –"

He moved with the speed of a striking snake, tugging her arm sharply and pulling her against him. She half fell into his chest, the black feathers of his cloak folding against her in a suffocating embrace. She tried to fight them off, feeling his hollow laughter resonating through her body.

"Leaving so soon?" His voice glided across her mouth like red wine, vivid and potent and intoxicating. "I think not."

She twisted against his birch-thin body, shuddering as his arms slid around her waist, burning through the thin fabric of her nightgown.

"You were the only one who ever escaped me," Jareth murmured against her cheek, and she could imagine the feel of those razor-sharp teeth hovering inches from her skin. "And your brother was such a pretty child… I wanted him greatly. I still haven't forgiven you for that." Her body was humming at his closeness, as though wired to an electric current. "I have lived a long time, Sarah. I'm afraid I have been rather unaccustomed to losing, especially to a child as wilful and unremarkable as yourself. How should I punish you?"

Her mind seemed to have jerked back three years. There was a tang of metal in her mouth, but the words came as though by instinct. "Through dangers untold, and hardships unnumbered –"

He laughed softly and she felt the heat of his breath against her skin. "Still singing that same old tune? Surely you realise by now that the ante has upped considerably? You can see already that the Labyrinth is no longer a realm of your childish self-indulgence. You'll find defeating me will not be such a – how did you put it? – a 'piece of cake'?"

"I can defeat you," she said fiercely. "I will."

"Oh no, precious thing. I won't give you the chance to – not this time."

Jareth caught her by the shoulders. Sarah inhaled in fright. He suddenly bent his head and kissed her hard on the mouth. Before she could think, act, move, he had pulled away, eyes dark and heavy.

"Look on that as a prelude of things to come."

She stood shaking, eyes fixed on the fluttering movement of his black cloak as he retreated, his echoing voice sending a chill through her spine.

Soon, my sweet…

So Sarah. What do you say?

She thought of a crystal iridescent with the promise of desires, she thought of a snake entwining itself around her throat in a murderous caress; she thought of a hall lit with stars and glass where dreams danced in tangible forms, she thought of a voice screaming with anger and defeat and despair that would pursue her into the years of tomorrow… The memories, both beautiful and terrible, pierced her with sharp clarity; a double-edged sword that told her the past was only buried, never forgotten.

She had never regretted refusing his offer of her dreams. Even with all the selfishness that was inherent in childhood, she had never hesitated. She knew that Toby was the most important thing in her life. That had never changed, never would change. Rescuing her brother from the Labyrinth had only augmented her protective instincts towards him. Sometimes, when she held him close to her – despite his squirming protests – she was overcome by such a degree of love that it was an almost physical pain. And to expect her to overlook what he had done to her brother and accept his offer a second time?

Never, she thought fiercely. I haven't forgotten the things he's done – the things he's probably going to do. I haven't forgotten for a second.

Sarah was pacing up and down, rubbing her arms in an effort to cause some friction against her numb skin. Jareth didn't seem to notice how cold it was. She frowned. Did he even exist beyond a child's imaginative wish fulfilment? Was he merely the physical embodiment of residual guilt harboured since her fleeting treacherous desire to be rid of her brother?

Nothing so easy. He was all too real.

Doesn't he realise that I have family, friends, an entire life that has nothing to do with him? Was his ego so monumental that he simply expected her to drop her entire life and go off with him?

Apparently so.

A small part of her couldn't help but grudgingly admire his audacity. He had asked or begged or pleaded. He had simply turned up, assuming her total compliance because he was so used to getting everything he wanted the thought of her refusal hadn't even crossed his mind. And even that hadn't appeared to shake him; he had merely treated her as he might a wilful child, as though she were the one being unreasonable. Sarah cast a surreptitious glance at him. He was leaning back on his heels slightly in a lazy, indolent pose, looking up through the trees, a haughtily bored expression etched on his features. She wondered if he had ever heard of the concept of insecurity. It was extremely irritating.

She hadn't accepted his offer when she was a girl who lived on books of fairytales and romance, what possible inducement would make him think she would accept his offer now? She thought suddenly of his heated looks and shook her head in sheer disbelief at his nerve. Not only was he an all-powerful King of an enchanted realm, he had the arrogance to go with it. But she wasn't some swooning schoolgirl. She was old enough and experienced enough to know what sort of men she was attracted to, and it wasn't a childhood fantasy.

Not even one as devastatingly handsome as Jareth.

Sarah looked at her watch, but it didn't seem to be working properly. The hands kept jumping haphazardly from one number to the next. Oddly enough, this didn't really surprise her. She knew without it that it must be long past midnight. Even now, her friends were at home waiting for her. Probably wondering where the hell she was. Sarah tried to picture herself framing an excuse. Yeah, sorry I'm late, guys, I ran into an old friend. You'd really like him. He's king of the goblins and steals babies for a living. She was overwhelmed by the sudden, crazy desire to laugh.

"I haven't got all night, you know," Jareth called out suddenly, causing her to jump. Then he paused, and she could hear the smile in his voice. "Well actually, I have. But my patience is wearing thin."

Again, Sarah looked over towards the trees. He was sprawled elegantly on the grass – she had never seen anyone sprawl elegantly before, but somehow he managed it – he seemed to have arranged himself just so the dappled silver light would fall perfectly on the braid of his cloak and cause his metal-capped boots to gleam, and illuminate his hair with a contrast of shades ranging from white to burnt gold. He certainly didn't look impatient. On the contrary, he appeared perfectly relaxed and careless, one leg tucked beneath him, the other stretched out as he leaned back on one elbow, watching the shifting movement of the leaves.

"Jareth," she said, trying to suppress the quaver in her voice.

He jerked his head towards her. "Hmm? What's that? Something you want to say?"

She tried to swallow the stone that had become jammed in her throat, and nodded tightly.

He leapt to his feet, light and graceful in his bizarre get-up. "Excellent!" he said briskly.

The hairs along her arms prickled sharply. There was no reason for her to feel so nervous. Oh, to hell with that. There's every kind of reason. The Goblin King had told her enough tonight to have her justifiably cowering under her bed for the next five years. He was approaching her with all the predatory movement of a hunting-cat. She was the one who wielded the power of choice so why did he always seem to have the upper hand?

"And now, Sarah – dear Sarah – what was it you wanted to say to me?"

She straightened her shoulders, clenched her jaw.

"I gave you my answer once before. It hasn't changed."

"You were only a child then," he reasoned, with infuriating patience.

"That doesn't matter!" she cried in sudden frustration. "Children make choices, Jareth! It doesn't matter how young they are, they are still valid."

He tilted his head to one side, one eyebrow slightly raised. "Didn't you tell me just now that the choices of the unworthy children didn't stand for anything because they were too young to comprehend what they said and did? Why should it be any different for you?"

Sarah swallowed hard and lifted her chin in a gesture of defiance.

"I defeated you."

Jareth merely looked at her.

"So?"

At that one word of casual indifference, Sarah felt a rising scream build up in her throat as she realised in one great sweeping rush of hopeless despair that none of it mattered – everything she had undergone in the Labyrinth – it meant nothing as he was merely here to challenge her again and this time she had no power over him –

Immortal and invulnerable; he had been unperturbed by her breaching his city, was unaltered by her victory, no part of him had suffered, except his pride. He seemed more powerful than ever. Whatever magical quirks he might ascribe to her, she was only a girl of twenty – twenty-one now, she realised with a jolt – who had no weapons against him. No magical words from a storybook, no friends to come to her aid, and there was no Toby standing between them this time, there was only herself –

Only herself –

Wait a minute –

It had been so long ago, she couldn't be sure of the words, or how they had precisely gone. She had barely skimmed over them in passing, which was possibly a fatal oversight.

Damn. Why can't I remember that line?

Yes, she had it now.

But what no one knew was that the King of the Goblins had fallen in love with the girl.

Sarah released a slow breath.

Could it be possible?

Even if it was, he'd never admit it, not in a hundred years. She looked up, slowly, her heart pounding in her chest.

The Goblin King was still staring at her, eyes flickering with some secret amusement, but, in the rush of dark triumph, she didn't care. She felt a broad smile beginning to spread over her face and didn't even try to hide it. She would overcome him using his one weakness –

Me –

"Why does it matter to you so much?" she asked abruptly.

"What?" he snapped, and she saw that, perhaps for the first time tonight, she had caught him off guard.

"Why do you care if I come with you or not?" she persisted.

"Think a lot of ourselves, don't we?" he returned with a sneer. Sarah felt herself flush and began to doubt her own surety "But then, humility was never one of your strong points."

Bit rich coming from you, Sarah thought, and was about to say so when she realised he was deliberately trying to distract her. Instead of rising to the bait, she merely said coolly, "You didn't answer my question."

His slanting eyes half closed, feline-like, as he regarded her a moment, appearing to measure his words. "You intrigue me – and I desire you. Make of that what you will."

"And is that the only reason?"

"It's the only one you'll be getting. And as I've been rather generous with what I've chosen to divulge tonight, perhaps it's time for you to return the favour and explain why I am rejected so crassly. Come now, no need to be shy."

"Isn't it obvious?" she said, mirroring his own words.

"I'd prefer to hear your unique spin on it, sweet."

Hot anger pounded through her veins; he was acting as though she were some entertainment, some toy for his amusement –

"What you're doing to those children, for a start – it's wrong. It's sick and it's cruel."

"Oh yes, Sarah, do take the moral high ground. Such protective instincts over countless children you've never even met. It couldn't possibly be guilt, could it?"

"I least I have morals," she spat.

"Hmm." He sounded uninterested. "When you've lived as long as I have, you'll learn that all morality is entirely subjective. I torment those children because it's my prerogative, and it amuses me to do so. And it's almost worth it just to see you so indignant with righteous anger. Did anyone ever tell you you have eyes like a cat – a cat in the dark?"

"Stop trying to distract me," she gritted.

"Distract you?" he echoed, laughing. "Haven't you realised, Sarah, that you yourself are a most pleasing distraction – but there's my immorality speaking again. Where were we? Ah yes, your reasons for turning down everything your heart could desire. And so far, I'm not hearing any particularly convincing arguments."

She felt the controlled edges of her temper beginning to fray. "You want to know why? Because you're nothing but an arrogant, presumptuous, egotistical –" she couldn't think of a bad enough word – "goblin!"

Sarah mentally cringed as a snide inner voice whispered, 'goblin?' That's the best you could come up with?

Jareth was now looking highly amused. "Pray, continue."

"And –" she braced herself for the coup de grace, feeling a quiver pass through her nerves – "You have no power over me."

The Goblin King's reaction was instantaneous. The reminder of his last defeat caused his face to contort in an ugly mask. She remembered suddenly his warning that she had not truly taken heed of at the time. I have been generous with you up until now. I can be cruel. She found herself involuntarily taking a step backwards until her feet collided with her discarded college bag, halting her progress.

"Is that so?" Jareth's voice was laced with quiet anger, all semblance of humour gone. "Do you really think that you're a match for me? That your fleeting glimmers of enchantment, or your cat's eyes and your borrowed phrases pose any threat whatsoever? I have taken defeat once before at your hands, Sarah, surely you wouldn't expect me to do so again?"

"You have to," she said, unable to contain the triumph in her voice. "You can use deception, fear –" she almost choked on the word – "desire – you can control everything else – but not me."

"Desire?" he repeated softly; eyes alight with a strange new gleam. His irises were like silver moons, or stars. They burned her. "I wasn't aware I was using… desire." He unfurled an elegant hand, fingers skimming lightly along her forearm; she shuddered at the contact. The sense of his otherness crawled across her flesh. "Perhaps, dear Sarah, you have not forgotten me so much as you would like to believe."

It was becoming hard to think clearly with the icy tips of his fingers dancing along her skin. Queer little shuddering bolts of energy passed through her nerves every time he touched her. There was that shivering, uncoiling sensation of pleasure unfurling in her lower stomach – a feeling she hadn't experienced since she'd split up with her last boyfriend – but this was different, there was something else that caused a high-pitched ringing in her ears… What is he?

Sarah realised she had spoken those last words aloud when Jareth drew back slightly. His hand withdrew, leaving her skin burning.

"I doubt mortals have a term to define what I truly am, although many – far more intelligent than you – have tried. My predilection for appearing around Beltane had me for a long time described as Belenus – the Shining One." He crowed with mocking laughter at this. She didn't entirely understand why. In the half-light, he did indeed seem to shimmer. "I have no use for hackneyed labels, Sarah. Faery, Goblin, Sidhe, not one of those names even comes near to comprehending the full extent of my powers." He closed his eyes and chanted in a half sing-song:

"For all the hillside was haunted

By the faery folk come again

And down in the heart-light enchanted

Were opal-coloured men…"

He stopped and closed his eyes appreciatively. "There's such poetry in those lines. And I know how much you like poetry."

A cold thrill passed across her skin. He was so close she could feel the slender muscles of his shoulders pressing sharply against her, and something else… a strange rippling almost like an electric current that caused the hairs along her arms to prickle.

Magic.

The mist – surely it had thickened? Soft as whispers, it wound about her arms and legs in pearl-grey coils. The night air, in contrast, pricked her like needles. Sarah blinked; the first thing to come into focus was the pearly whiteness of Jareth's shirt, a shade completely at variance with the almost translucent pallor of his skin. The heavy fog had blotted out even the rays of the moon, but light from some unknown source highlighted his aquiline features, and she found herself wondering whether it was some mystical convergence of the time of year that made him appear so much like a fallen angel, or whether he really had changed from her childish perception of him.

"Can you feel it?" His voice was hushed with intensity. "The magic wants you back, sweet. It yearns for you." A strange twist turned the corner of his mouth upwards. "As do I."

"Well I don't want it," she said fiercely. "I don't want any of it, not anymore – whatever I might have wished once – I take it back. All of it."

He shook his head with a terrible kind of satisfaction. "If only it were that simple. But there are irrevocable ties that bind you to my realm, and their resonance is felt even now. Your summons brought me to you, and I do not forget. The force of it rings as potent as though it happened yesterday. Your secret wishes and unfulfilled longings, your guilt and your dreams…"

Jareth gave a smile that was cold and beautiful as winter. "And your remembrance."

His lips touched her forehead.

Sarah gasped.

She was aware of pain, and a deadly, piercing cold lancing through her skin. It burned bright as a star, and when he moved away, and her fingers brushed the place he had kissed, the arctic point remained, like an icicle on her brow.

She recoiled in disbelief. "You scarred me."

"But of course. Did I not tell you the touch of the Fey leaves its imprint?" The star in the crystal, she thought weakly. "My Sarah, my lovely Sarah. You bear my mark for all to see; a brilliant star shines upon your brow, binding you to me, marking you as my queen, my princess…"

His head lowered towards hers.

"My love…" he breathed.

His kiss was lightning.

Sarah's startled gasp was swallowed by his mouth against her own; kissing her with an energy that seemed to drain her very life force. Through half-closed eyes, she could see the severe line of his profile, sharp and white as a fragment of bone. She felt the searing cold of the metallic shoulder plates contrasting with the heat of his closeness and his hands on her like shards of stars. Then everything began to dissolve in a swirling dizziness. Her nerves were singing. She was falling, falling off the edge of the world into a place of ice and fever. And there was pain – sweet, piercing pain. It felt like liquid metal was running through her veins.

Through the exquisite darts of shock that pierced her at his touch, something stirred in the back of her mind for an instant.

Jareth's fingers were sliding under her shirt, coming into contact with bare skin; she instinctively arched against him in an agony of pleasure…

This is wrong…

The thought became harder to hold onto when his hands caught her waist, lifting her fully against the line of his body and she felt him across every inch of her. Her skin hummed with fire.

There was a reason – a reason why she should resist –

– but reason, like everything else, no longer existed, had slid away when the world tilted. There was Jareth and only Jareth, the sensation of lace and leather and night and magic. His shoulder plates digging into her skin hurt and his mouth on hers hurt as he parted her lips and his tongue met her own, and it was like wine laced with poison, or forbidden fruit –

Or a peach –

She suddenly went rigid in his arms.

The Labyrinth – Toby – oh my God –

Sarah shoved him away from her as hard as she could – not very far, as it turned out, considering he was still holding onto her.

"I am not your love!"

Jareth's expression didn't change, but one hand tensed slightly on her shoulder, as he said coolly; "So you won't come, then?"

"Never." She gritted her teeth against the sparks his touch ignited. "None of your tricks will work on me this time."

He only smiled at her. Sarah became suddenly aware of a sound coming from above her – a strange rending, cracking noise – he had stepped away from her, and that should have served as a warning –

She looked up at the interlaced canopy of branches above her, and –

Last Christmas, remember –

– threw herself out of the way as the wood snapped with unnatural cleanness and a cascade of leaves and twigs rained down in an avalanche around her. For a moment, nothing but a choking myriad of vegetation and her hands pressed over her eyes, then ringing silence. She opened her eyes. The Goblin King was stood some feet away, wearing the expression she knew best; one of ironic amusement.

"Whoops," he said softly.

Groping her way upright and shaking twigs from her hair; Sarah felt her face burning, as much from anger as the indignity of the situation.

"You're not scaring me, Jareth," she snapped.

His jagged teeth flashed. "That's because I'm not trying. Yet," he added ominously.

She cringed at the dark suggestion in his voice that always seemed to imply an imminent threat. It was late, too late, and the strain of having to be constantly on her guard, of having to read meaning into every action and utterance was taking its toll. She felt dizzy, as though she had stood up too suddenly after lying down. Sarah pressed a hand to her mouth, trying to gather her fragmented thoughts. Her lips were still numb from his soul-searing kiss.

Jareth's angular figure stood clear through the mist, relaxed as she had ever seen it, but she sensed him watching, waiting. The veiled half-threats and subtle implications… she had never been good at those finer intricacies in the Labyrinth, those that led her to briefly fall for a lie concealed within the skin of a poisoned peach or temporarily cause her to forget her purpose. Give her a city to breach or bog to cross and she would do it. She wanted to know what she was facing. Better to know the worst at once, then at least I can fight him on a level playing field. However, Jareth wasn't the sort to play true confessions. She would have to draw it out of him.

Come on, Sarah. Think. You defeated him before.

She already knew his one weakness – pride – and knew exactly how to exploit it. Provoke him. Who cared that it was courting peril? The prospect of taking him down a notch or two was simply too delicious to be passed up. The old reckless, childish defiance had leapt back into her eyes. She was dancing along a knife's blade and could have laughed out loud. "I think you're all talk. If you really wanted to do something, you would have done it already."

"All talk, Sarah?" Tongue darted over his pale lips as his eyes mocked her. "I wouldn't say that, exactly."

She was grateful for the lateness of the hour as her face flushed in the darkness. Clearly, he wasn't going to let her forget that momentary weakness. Like it or not, she had let down her guard, even if it had been only for a second. Or five minutes. "This isn't your playground here, Goblin King." She laid the faintest hint of scorn on his title. "You can't do anything."

She could see that she had provoked him at last, could hear it in the terse, clipped tones of his voice. "You really haven't listened to a word I've said tonight, have you?"

Oh she had listened, all right. She just didn't want to believe it. Not only the children who failed the Labyrinth, but her friends… and she suspected now that the punishments Jareth's devious mind could devise would be far worse than a Bog of Eternal Stench. Memory, like the blade of a knife, slid through her brain. She heard Toby's cries of fear terribly silenced and saw the shadows dancing around his room and bed, the laughter that both taunted and accused.

Night-time and terror. No comfort of a parent's embrace. The monsters under the bed were real.

There had been fear in her eyes and desperation in her voice and he still hadn't cared. What's said is said. And Toby gone, just like that.

She had never found out what happened to her brother in those hours he had been held in the Labyrinth.

And he was just a child. We were both just children.

"How –" she said, and she could still (foolishly) remember the residual pleasure of his touch. The memory of it sickened her. "How can you be so cruel?"

It was the first time she had seen him lose control. The Goblin King stiffened, raising his lean frame over her, and Sarah saw, with a crawling sensation of fear, that his body was shaking with spasms of rage. Gloved hands curled into fists; he was breathing hard. His mouth had narrowed so much it resembled a gash across his too-perfect face. "I cruel?" His voice flicked across her skin like a whiplash. "You have the nerve to speak to me of cruelty? You, who took my kingdom in your mindless, childish hands as though it were any other toy, and cracked it in two, with no thought as to what you were doing? You are nothing but a naïve, stupid girl, and to endure the humiliationof being subjugated to your will? No, Sarah. I said you had no regards for the consequences of your actions." His eyes glittered with real hatred as he gripped her wrists tightly, fingers digging painfully into the delicate bones. "Consider this a consequence." His hands were like knives cutting into her skin.

"Stop that." She spoke through clenched teeth. "It hurts."

"Yes," he said softly. "Yes, it really does, doesn't it?"

She knew it wasn't her hands he was talking about.

His hold on her tightened, almost cutting off her circulation. Sarah's chest pounded with terror that was rooted like a black creature inside her ribs, but she still sought refuge in denial. He wouldn't… Even in the Labyrinth, Jareth had never, never resorted to physical violence. Mind games and trickery, certainly, but he had never physically laid a hand on her. He had sent the Cleaners after her, yes, but even then she had escaped relatively easily and unscathed. Was this then merely some new tactic designed to scare her? Or was it some horrifically twisted example of what he would call upping the stakes?

She twisted her wrists in a vicious, unexpected movement, wrenching herself out of his grasp. Faint surprise flickered across his expression for an instant, and then he pulled away, laughing quietly. "Sarah, Sarah, Sarah…" he said at last, shaking his head. "How you do like to rile me."

She knew what had happened. He had briefly lost control, and was now trying to compensate. It didn't make her any less angry and – could it be – betrayed? The ache pulsing beneath the skin was almost enough to make her cry, but she wouldn't. She wouldn't cry in front of him. "What the hell was that? You sick, twisted –"

"Such melodrama," he chided her gently. "Why, there is nothing wrong with you."

"Nothing wrong? You –"

"Sarah." His ringing voice cut through her furious protestations. "You are fine."

Half cautiously, she flexed her hands, and found - to her surprise - that she could do so without pain. The deep throbbing had receded. Unconvinced, she examined the skin with an untrained eye, but there was no bruising or swelling. But he – he hurt me – Her skin was still buzzing with the undercurrent of strange magic that always accompanied his touch…

She stammered out the first clear thought that surfaced in her head.

"You're insane."

Ethereal light slanted off the plates of metal across his shoulders as he shrugged. "Treat me with appropriate respect, and you'll find me as reasonable and considerate as you could desire. Anger me and –" His long fingers traced a line along her cheek; she flinched and jerked her head away. His voice softened. "Sarah. Dearest. I have no wish to hurt you."

Sarah drew away from him, wrapping her arms around herself protectively.

He's mad, she thought remotely. Whether it's because my defeating him turned his mind, or because he's above ground when he shouldn't be – he's crazy.

Her eyes followed him warily, as she was just beginning to realise how truly dangerous he was. The fleeting encounter six years ago had only shown her a surface facet of the Goblin King whom she had, to her disadvantage, hopelessly underestimated. This was not the eccentric trickster her naïve imagination had conjured from the pages of a book. This was something much darker. She should have known – the subtle expressions, the ruthless quality she had noticed at times – that she was getting into something much bigger than she had realised.

Could she have guessed – then? There were moments that should have warned her, should have persuaded her to tread more carefully…

Sarah. Don't defy me.

She traced a finger unconsciously across her lower lip.

You tried to intimidate me before, Jareth.  But I'm not fifteen years old anymore.

Perhaps that was the problem.

She savagely fought down the urge to rub her wrists, and made her question seem like a challenge, rather than a plea. "Why can't you leave me alone?"

Jareth locked his hands behind his back, and looked down at her, eyes gleaming. "I'll tell you why. Because a part of you doesn't want me to." He overrode her fierce denial. "How do you think I found you so easily? Deep down, you loved playing the crusader for your brother. You missed it, Sarah – the thrill, the challenge. My brave, brilliant girl, you thrive on this."

Sarah flinched away from his words. She stared down at her pale unmarked hands, remembering the brutal force of his grip, as though he would break her at any moment. Then she remembered the bitter intoxicating sensation of his mouth on hers and fought down a shudder.

Is he right, she wondered. Did I really want him back?

Not him, maybe. But the magic… did I want that?

Impossible. Those days had long gone.

"You're wrong," she said.

He lowered his gaze demurely. "As you like."

"Why are you doing this?" she demanded. God, I'm sounding like a child. "Do you hate me that much?"

"Hate you?" He paused and looked at her consideringly. "Yes, perhaps I do hate you a little. After all, you are a constant reminder of my failure, the chink in my armour. Your very presence stands as an embodiment of my vulnerability and weakness. I think that justifies any certain… resentments I may harbour against you."

"So I was right," she said faintly. "You are here for revenge."

"Revenge – well. That's all relative. Some might say I'm giving you a chance few mortals ever have." His voice dropped until it was feather-light, misting against the side of her face.

"You might even enjoy it."

And then he started to laugh.

No, Sarah tried to say. No, I wouldn't. I hate you –

– but somehow, she couldn't utter the words. Her throat felt somehow raw, as though clogged with smoke. Vague panic stirred beneath the lassitude spreading through her. Her body seemed oddly weightless.

What's happening to me?

She opened her eyes – when had she closed them? – and saw only more grey space, as though all the colour had been washed out of the world. It reminded her of the black and white photographs of her mother, or the view out of her window on a rainy day.

Jareth… where was he?

Right in front of her: she could feel the heat of his body, the languorous surge of blood in her veins responded with a quickening frenzy. She felt, rather than saw the force of his gaze, his breath warm against the exposed hollow of her throat.

"Jareth –"

"Yes," he murmured. "Say my name." Hands brushed aside the wayward strands of hair, cold against her neck, and she shivered under the slow sensation. His voice, low and soothing, wrapped around her like a silken cloak, with the undercutting abrasion of unravelled threads. "Away, come away: Empty your heart of its mortal dream… isn't that how the poem goes?"

Some of the greyness seemed to break apart an instant.

No…

Her world had narrowed down to those slanting, hard-edged eyes with their cold authority. His gaze was searing into her like ice, or fire; she couldn't decide which – A soft whisper in her ear.

It's only forever…

The mist was rising; its lavender-grey wisps undulating around her like the coils of a snake, and again that heavy, dragging sensation of knotted cobwebs enmeshed with crystalline splinters…

I won't go with you, I won't –

How was he doing this? He had no power over her –

Pale face, pale eyes glowing like crystals, and her dark hair had come loose, falling over her shoulders in a heavy curtain, intricately braided with threads of silver that shone in the sunlight –

Sunlight?

There was a rich, heady smell becoming gradually stronger: the perfumed fragrance of long summer days, of heat beating down on ripened crops and the deep loam of the woods. And she could hear water rushing nearby, streams of water cascading into silvery pools that flashed like mirrors, reflecting turrets of a wall, a castle…

"Watch," he whispered, and for all its silken tones, his voice had lost none of its ringing command. "Watch your dreams unfold… your beautiful dreams…"

Is it me?

Am I the one doing this?

"Yes, Sarah," he hissed in her ear, arms tightening around her in a hold from which she could not escape. "This is all you, precious thing. You must have missed the magic badly to come so willingly into my world. You must have wanted it."

She tried to twist away from his grasp, but he held her fast.

"I don't –" something soft brushed her now-bare shoulders, and she saw Jareth was dressed differently, and he seemed taller somehow – "I don't want –"

"My dear…" His laughter sounded like hail rattling against glass. "All evidence to the contrary."

The scene that had before seemed to appear to her through a veil was becoming gradually clearer, like fog rolling back, while at the same time she was very aware of Jareth in front of her, where they stood on damp grass in a forest of night between here and there. The two worlds blurred in confusion, and images swirled before her eyes with the vague uneasiness of a half-remembered dream. Silver moonlight and golden sunlight, blazing stars wheeling overhead above a crowning lacework of branches and lofty towers piercing a sky of endless, cloudless blue. Sarah felt herself falling like an angel cast out of heaven, but if this was hell, it was beautiful –

And Jareth the serpent –

An unexpected memory of her irregular church visits flashed through her mind, briefly distilling the sensation of weightlessness. The vivid scent of candles and polished wood, the sonorous intonations of the priest and the bone-dry cold in winter. She thought of Karen's hissed reprimands to stop talking, and Toby's indiscreet whispers that he wanted to get home –

She closed her eyes, overcome with a sudden, piercing ray of emotion.

That's where I want to be – home – with dad, and Karen, and Toby –

Toby.

Toby, whom she had fought so hard for, whom she loved more than anything in this life –

That what was he didn't understand, never could understand, and that was why he would always underestimate her –

Sarah's eyes snapped open.

For a moment, her fierce resolve faltered. Her gaze had fixed on Jareth who was looking down at her with an expression of searing intensity, the ice of his eyes melting with lust and possession. His hands were at her waist, thumbs tracing circles round her hipbones, leaving a trail of static electricity crackling along her skin. She could no longer hear his voice but feel it, his whisper brushing her with the lightness of a butterfly's wing.

She gritted her teeth, the force of self-will sending reverberations through her, the image of marble-hewn towers still seared into her retinas. Remember Toby. She could taste blood in her mouth and was unsure how it came to be there. Think of Toby. The Goblin King's body was taut, shaking with surety of his own triumph.

That galvanised her. The silvery threads of wire that ran through her body were excruciating, but she forced her hand upwards to Jareth's face, running her fingers along his hollowed cheekbone in a soft caress. She tilted her chin up, baring her throat to his heavy lidded gaze and looked up at him, she hoped, submissively. Swallowing hard, she willed the tension to leave her body and relax into his hold.

He clearly felt her change in stance and smiled softly at her compliance. "You see," he murmured. "How much easier it is when you cooperate."

"Tell me what to do," she said. Her entire body was keyed to a fever pitch.

She felt the silk of his hair slide against her skin as he lowered his head toward her neck, and her mind almost jumped out of her body when his mouth caressed the hollow at her throat…

– oh God –

"Just let the dreams come, Sarah…" he breathed, and she felt the nip of his teeth and it hurt, but it was a tearing pain that brought ecstasy with its agony, sharp and beautiful as the point of an icicle. His lips soothed the hurt a moment later and it was all she could do to prevent her hands entwining in his hair to hold him there.

"There needn't be pain," he continued softly, his breath ragged heat against her flesh. "But only beauty… and pleasure…"

Pleasure. Oh, there was pleasure, all right. His hands at her waist began to move upwards with slow deliberation, and she bit her lip hard to stifle a moan. Her mind was becoming fogged. When he traced the curves of her breasts, she jerked in his hold.

Say something; say something now, before he –

"Jareth…" Her voice was softer, breathier, than she would have liked.

His hands halted their insistent caresses.

"Yes, my dear?"

"Go to hell," said Sarah.

His yell of outrage exploded in her head like a glass vial shattering; its fragments slicing through her brain, the flicker of triumph had left her and in its place was searing agony –

She stumbled out of his hold, ears ringing. He rose up tall, towering, white fire pulsing around him, rending the mist apart with its rippling heat. The cold fury in his voice caused her to flinch. She felt her very bones jolt. "You dare you talk to me in such a manner? I, who have ruled the underworld for over a millennia – you think I would take such insolence from a foolish, immature mortal?"

Sarah summoned all her courage. "I think you would," she said.

"I think," he said softly. "That you don't know me very well."

She threw all the mockery she could into her voice. "What are you going to do? Kill me?"

His eyes remained cold and watchful, but he did not move towards her. "Oh, Sarah, you are on very thin ice."

A bubbling hysteria was rising up inside her. She fought back a wild shriek of laughter. "You can't kill me," she said, her voice shrill with realisation. "You could have before and you didn't – it wasn't you who healed me, was it? You can't hurt me here. These injuries – they're just illusions, aren't they? They'll only become real if I believe in them, or if I go with you."

He leaned back on his heels, watching her through slitted eyes. "Clever, clever girl," he said, his light voice poisonous. "I was wondering if you would guess. I have learnt it pays not to underestimate where you're concerned. But you needn't be so hasty in your conceit. I may not be able to harm you in any physical sense, but that doesn't mean I can't make my presence felt mentally." The colour drained from Sarah's face at the honeyed sweetness in his tone. She was about to pay for defying him, and pay dearly. "Imagination can be a curse, as well." His gaze was flat and curious. "I wonder if your mind is as resistant as your body?"

Flaring light erupted from the tips of his fingers, and she knew what she would see before it had fully formed – a crystal, larger than the one he had summoned previously and shimmering with a beautiful radiance. It reminded her of snow under moonlight, or the drops of dew glinting on a spider's web.

She felt her mind cast itself back six years, to that fatal night in her bedroom; gazing at the crystal with a child's eyes. Jareth before her, black feathered cloak dark as a shadow in contrast to the white curtains fluttering behind him. The strange tang in the air, her first taste of it: of aura, of magic…

This is not a gift for an ordinary girl…

Her gaze moved upwards. Jareth's face reflected the light, arresting in its very simplicity of angular features and hollowed lines. The only complex thing about him was his eyes: at times colder than the furthest north, now liquid and molten. She wondered if he was still angry with her. If he was, his rhythmic lilting voice betrayed nothing. "So my offer of your dreams wasn't good enough for you? Then perhaps I should show you a few dreams of my own." He leaned over her, silver hair falling into his eyes. He smiled with that beautiful mouth of his, but there was nothing beautiful about him now. "Although perhaps you would call them nightmares."

Sarah's mouth was dry – painfully so. Her mind felt as slippery as oil as she struggled to detain him somehow, anyhow…

"I thought you said you didn't want to hurt me."

"I said I had no wish to hurt you. I never said I wouldn't."

"What are you going to –?"

Before the question had fully left her lips, he had seized the back of her head, hands twisting in her hair and pushed her down until her eyes were level with the crystal.

"Look Sarah," he hissed. "Look hard."

And Sarah looked.

Chapter Text

PART III

Her eyes opened onto darkness; but the darkness was not absolute. A wavering grey light from no visible source flickered around her intermittently. Stone walls, stone floors, she was in a crypt, a vault –

A cell.

Imprisoned.

Chains rattled along the cold floor but did not bind her. Some other, older power weighted her limbs and she could not move. The realisation brought no terror, for her mind seemed enmeshed with cobwebs. She tried to pick apart the strands, but weariness had become a part of her being; it felt like her body was carved from stone. But there was pain – that she knew; deep, pulsing, throbbing through every inch of her. The metallic taste of blood in her mouth. And it was cold. Her bones ached with it.

Through the hazy veil of half consciousness, her eyes moved round the dungeon-crypt. She felt the grating chill of a stone wall pressing into her back where she was bound by an invisible force. There were no doors or windows she could see; only walls, and that strange ethereal light formed of whispers and frost and moth wings.

Vague thoughts, like dead leaves caught by wind, fluttered through her head.

Where am I?

Why am I here?

Who am I?

The answer to the last question came slowly.

Sarah. She tried to say the word aloud and it sounded strange on her tongue. "Sarah. Sarah Williams."

So she had a name and she could speak. But how old was she? How long had she been here? Memories hovered around the edge of her consciousness, but if she concentrated too hard, they eluded her, trickling away like ice turning into water. Searching for some clue, she glanced down at her clothes. She was wearing an elaborate gown that would have once been white, but was now faded to antique yellow. Heavy brocade weighted the skirts that were embroidered with old lace and silk turned starch. Jewels were embedded on her bodice and adorned her fingers, jewels no longer bright, their light faded with age. She wanted to touch them, run her fingers over them, but the paralysing ice bound her prisoner in her own body. She could only look, and wonder.

"Beautiful." Her voice was rasping and bitter with the tang of blood. "And horrible." The words echoed in the empty silence.

Sarah frowned, feeling the gauzy mesh of her mind part a fraction.

These aren't my normal clothes… I was wearing a shirt…

But where? She had never been anywhere else. There was only here, in this place of cold and loneliness and eternity.

Was she a prisoner here? And if so, what had been her crime? It must have been heinous indeed to have her trapped down here in this sepulchre of time. Her eyes fell again on the jewels she wore, their fires long burned out. It bespoke of ancient grandeur and gave her pause. Perhaps then, she was no prisoner, but a guardian, or a monarch, left to rule over a city of ashes and a castle of bones.

The air around her seemed to thicken for a moment, humming with its own consciousness, and she heard the sound of a door opening and closing, although there was still no visible entrance to the room.

And he was standing there. Jareth. Yes, she knew that name. Just as she recognised him by his languorous grace and the aura of power and magic that settled over his lightly muscled shoulders like a cloak. She could never have forgotten how beautiful he was, or how his silver hair spilled down into his glittering eyes and over his shoulders. No longer wild, it was smooth and sleek; it would glide like water through her fingers. He was dressed as extravagantly as she had ever seen him; in a delicately embroidered white and gold jacket with a cream coloured cloak thrown over one shoulder, pinned with a star. A crown adorned his head.

"Well now, Sarah," he said softly. "Do you know me?"

"Yes," she said.

But from when? And where?

"And who am I?"

She knew the answer to this, too. "The king. You're the Goblin King."

His fingers brushed her forehead and she felt a star flare with a responding fire." I am your king."

"How –" Her voice was dry and rasping as sandpaper. "How long have I been here?"

A smile curved his thin mouth. "How long do you think?"

Sarah looked into his eyes that stretched into wells of emptiness.

"Forever," she said.

He drew close to her, so close that she could feel the heavy material of his jacket pressing into her, and caught his scent – dark and spicy, yet at the same time citrus sharp and light as sunshine. It reminded her simultaneously of Christmas and midsummer… How did I know about Christmas? Or midsummer? His raised arm brushed her hair as he rested his elegant fingers along the line of her cheek. "And how do you feel?"

A shudder would have passed through her – if she had been able to shudder. "Cold," she whispered.

"Are you in pain?" His tone was gentle, inquiring.

Pain? No, pain wasn't the word for it. Nothing could describe the chains that dragged at her body, exhaustion bound in agony. The veil of semi-consciousness had receded, but the fine threads that blocked her memory were as intact as ever. It suddenly struck her as very important that she break through them.

"Jareth?"

He was tracing the line of her jaw in a slow movement.

"Hmm?"

"Why can't I move?"

His smile became seductive. "And why would you want to move? I think I rather like you just –" His hand slid downwards into the bodice of her dress; she drew a sharp intake of breath – "As you are."

She wanted to press herself further into his languid caress or hold him there, but still there was that haunting residue that lingered in her brain that she could not define…

What is it, what is it?

The need to know, to understand was becoming stronger, drowning out the insistent pressure of Jareth's hand against her, restoring warmth to her frozen skin.

"Where are we?" she asked, her low voice thrown against the walls by the surrounding echoes.

"A place I found," he replied absently. "A long, long time ago. A place where even the most defiant are rendered helpless and bound to my will."

Her breathing sounded heavy in her own ears. His touch sent a rippling through her veins like a river of cold metal. His eyes on her were lit by the elusive gleam surrounding them, and by a hotter fire of their own, their intensity was too much to bear. She looked down; her eyes fell on his jacket and followed the intricate threads of gold that spread outward in a swirling, coiling pattern that reminded her of a maze, or a labyrinth –

A Labyrinth.

The cobwebs in her head ripped apart.

"Oh God!"

Sarah's body instinctively tried to jerk back, but the unseen chains that bound her flesh tightened, links of glaciers cutting into her skin. She was immobile and completely helpless. It frightened her more than anything else ever had.

Jareth paused a moment, to look at her consideringly.

"Ah," he said. "Sarah. Welcome back."

She tried to scream, but could produce no sound.

Jareth's tone was musing. "I suppose the memory loss was pleasant while it lasted – a mere transitory side-effect, I'm afraid. But after all, this is supposed to be a nightmare to you, and being unable to remember why this would be so unbearable rather diminishes the experience, don't you think?"

Again, she tried to pull away even though it was futile.

"I'm paralysed," she choked.

"'Yes," he agreed. "An interesting addition of my own. I was becoming rather tired of hearing 'you have no power over me.' You seemed so dependant on those words. This struck me as a pleasant irony. You'll notice you can still talk, though." He gave a smile that made her insides churn. "So you may be as vocal as you like. In fact –" his voice slithered across her face like something alive. "I'm counting on it."

He placed his hands on the wall either side of her, and pressed his body hard against her. She felt his belt buckle digging in to her ribs, and his ragged breathing stirred the hairs on her forehead. Sickening fear almost choked her.

"What – what are you doing?"

He sighed, sounding faintly amused. "Do I really need to explain? You're not a child."

Primal terror slammed into her chest with full force. It rose up in her throat, strangling her. She couldn't breathe.

"Get away from me," she gritted.

Jareth started to laugh. The mirthless sound reverberated with hideous echoes. "Yes, because that's going to work."

Nausea rolled over her in a wave. He leaned over her, eyes flat with anger even as his fingers tugged the faded ribbon at her neckline.

"Do you still think I'm only capable of 'childish games'?" he hissed, and his voice flayed her skin. "Do you still think that I can only conjure 'smoke and mirrors'? No one – no one – has insulted my power the way you have, and believe me, I do not take such slights lightly."

Her mind was a whirring clockwork of panic. I didn't mean it – I didn't mean any of it –

"My kingdom is great." The ribbon drifted unheeded to the floor. He smiled at her with deadly earnest. "And my will is stronger than yours."

The strain of trying to break free of his bonds brought sweat to her brow. He watched her efforts with great amusement. "Save your energy, Sarah." His lip curled. "You'll need it soon enough."

"You have no –"

"Ah – ah – ah!" His raised hand silenced her. "Words have power," he said. "And I have heard quite enough of yours for the moment."

Before she could summon any reply or form of resistance, his mouth covered hers in a demanding kiss.

She bit him as hard as she could. Jareth hissed through his teeth and jerked away; a sharp tang of blood – his blood – flooded her mouth. It stung her throat like acid, her eyes watered. Through the mist of tears, she saw the Goblin King standing several feet from her, shoulders slightly bowed. His face was dark, but he was laughing. "Such a firebrand. I was going to try and tame you – but I think I prefer you wild." Silver liquid stained his lips – his blood is silver – and Sarah felt a flicker of triumph at the thought that he could bleed. He isn't immune; he can feel pain…

"And on that note," he continued. "I think it's time we gave things a more even footing. You would enjoy that, I think."

Several things snapped at once – Sarah thought it was her bones breaking and almost passed out from the shock – but realised an instant later the heavy bindings of magic had been lifted. She could move.

Foolish, Jareth, she thought.

Almost as though he read her thoughts, he caught her eye and smirked. "I wouldn't be too quick to gloat, Sarah. You are still – very much – in my power. I would just prefer you responsive."

"Or maybe you just couldn't go through with it," she retorted, trying to convey contempt, but her voice was still scratched with fear.

His eyes danced. "You attribute me to actually having a conscience. How touching."

She scooted sideways, keeping the wall to her back, hands spread out behind her in a desperate bid to find something that could pass for the outline of a door. But he was too quick for her, already coming towards her with a stealthy, almost predatory movement with all the sinuous gliding grace of a dancer –

Dancers.

Sarah frowned. She remembered a ballroom of crystal and glass, fleet-footed figures swirling in a dizzying array of colours, masks leering at her. Masks elaborately made with jewels and feathers and silks and velvets, their very extravagance rendering them grotesque. Brilliant prisms of light danced around and she recalled the same sense of overwhelming dizziness and the realisation that –

Jareth had enclosed her within his arms, fingers deftly starting to undo the stays at the back of her bodice.

The walls… the walls are concave…

She half turned her head to the side to stare at the stone she was pressed up against, even as his mouth assaulted hers. She did not try and pull away this time, but kept her eyes open, looking hard while she could taste the blood and fire of his lips against her own, opening like the petals of an unfolding flower – only his lips were hard, and bruising – And the stone was becoming more transparent, like glass –

His kisses make me want to die… Piercing cold scraped her back as her bodice, finally undone, parted and his hands slid behind her, coming into contact with bare skin, and he pulled her still closer to him, although they were already so close she felt as though they were pillars of metal welded together. She felt herself shudder with terrible lancing cold as he traced the wings of her shoulder blades, but her mind was somehow outside it all, thinking only of how she could breach those half-transparent walls, but there was nothing to break through it with, nothing except –

Bracing herself, Sarah twisted her body round and, taking a deep breath, smashed her fist through the wall as hard as she could.

Splintering pain coursed up her arm and she shrieked. Half blinded by the agony of it, she thought she was going to die and welcomed the thought of death, anything to end the searing pain... Jareth's howl of frustration echoed in her ears, sending reverberations through her, and she instinctively stumbled away from him, her body coiled tight. Fragments of crimson stained glass flew everywhere and in a corner of her mind fluttered the thought it worked, and then she was falling into blackness, and the world as she knew it shattered into a million pieces.

Sarah opened her eyes.

She was lying face down in the grass in the woods. The silence pressed around her. Her mind was ringing, trying to adjust to fact the world hadn't ended. The crystal, she recalled weakly. Stupid. Why on earth did I look? She groaned and rolled over onto her back. The heavy scent of loam surrounded her and it was still dark save for the silver slits of moonlight that fell in dappled pools through the trees. Her shirt and jeans felt damp and cold against her skin. Gingerly, she stretched out an arm that still rippled with aftershocks of pain, but there were no cuts or bruises. She slowly heaved herself upright, waiting for her heart rate to return to normal.

"Seen enough, then?"

Sarah spun round so fast, it made her dizzy. He was lounging against one of the trees, watching her with great amusement. While her hair was tangled across her face and her clothes soiled so badly it would raise questions among her housemates, Jareth was immaculately dressed as ever, not a fleck of dirt stained his ruffled shirt. He pushed himself away from the birch and walked towards her with a sprightly and elegant movement that she could only gape at. Every muscle in her body was aching.

She stared at the Goblin King, wondering if there was anything remotely human about him. He was standing in front of her, all untouchable perfection; ice and glass, silver and poison.

"I was impressed, Sarah. I had begun to think that my persuasions would prove too much for you. Clearly, I was mistaken. Your strength of will is unchanged." His pale eyes were considering. "Perhaps that is why you interest me so much."

He – her mind stumbled over the words – he tried to –

She found herself instinctively moving backwards, shying away from the memories that threatened to surface. She felt – Not yet. Later, I can think about it later. If I think about it now, I'll start screaming.

She clenched her fists, the feel of her nails biting into her palms oddly comforting. She thought of the silver blood on his lips, the brief triumph that had flared within her, that realisation, he can feel pain.

"Come any closer and I'll kill you," she rasped.

"I thought you weren't afraid of me?" He regarded her almost pityingly. "Where's that fire you used to break your way out of the crystal?" He tutted quietly. "All this panic after one small illusion? And we were just getting started. I have others, you know."

Sarah felt icy claws of apprehension grip her chest when another orb materialised from his clasped hands. When he stepped away from his creation, the crystal remained hovering in the rippling air, like a small moon. Jareth watched it with an expression of indulgent pride, as one might regard a favourite child.

"You see now, this is a rather interesting one involving your brother."

Sarah's gasp was drowned by a dimly echoing voice, that of Toby screaming –

Where's my sister? What have you done to her? Where is she? Where is she?

And a voice replying, a cold and terrible voice. You know very well where she is.

Please… her brother sounded on the verge of tears. Please don't hurt her; I'll do anything to get her back.

Anything?

At last, she found her voice. "You so much as touch Toby and I'll –"

Jareth's mocking eyes looked oddly colourless, reflected as they were by the crystal. "Yes? You'll what? Kill me? Sarah, you're cowering like a kitten."

Her breaths came fast and heavy as she tried to shake off the images of Jareth pushing her up against the wall while she was immobile and helpless, the hollow cruelty in his eyes, his ruthless hands –

Her stomach heaved. She fell onto all fours, leaning over on the grass, fighting back the overwhelming urge to be sick. Her eyes watered, and when her vision cleared, she saw Jareth had retreated a respectful distance and the mockery in his eyes was replaced by… concern?

"Sweet Sarah." Even his voice had become gentle. "Is this my wildcat? What has happened to make you so frightened of me?"

She stared up at him through watering eyes. Her voice was rasping with disbelief. "You really don't know?"

She heard him sigh softly. "Ah. Of course. That illusion – regrettable, but I was only acting according to your will."

"My will?" She sounded shrill with disbelief. "How can you stand there and say I –"

"Sarah, Sarah. Have you forgotten everything I have told you tonight? Your dreams, the Labyrinth… That your imagination is pivotal in making me what I am?"

Yes, she remembered now. I acceded only to your less complex demands – to cast me in the trite and tired role of pantomime villain. Slowly she picked herself up, brushing the dirt from her jeans, mind still floundering in confusion. Never mind what he was – the real question was who he was. In the few encounters she had had with him, he had alternated between mischievous and impetuous trickster, cowed and embittered adversary, and terrifying and ruthless enemy. It was with a sense of fury and despair that she asked: "Have you ever been anything except my perception of you?"

"That's the chance I'm offering you. To see myself – as I really am. What you saw in the crystal was your very worst idea of what I might be. Remember, I showed you your fears, your nightmares. Whether I was willing to play the part assigned to me is a different matter."

"So…" her voice was half hoping, half fearful. "Would you have really –?"

It was hard to tell in the wavering light, but she thought his face softened slightly.

"I would have avoided it, if I could. It has never been my intention to hurt you." Sarah was aware of a weakening sense of overpowering relief, at least until he added ruminatively, "I don't tend to employ such… coarse methods… to bring my subjects into line."

Her head was pounding with the beginnings of anger. She clung to it as a recourse from fear. "So I don't suppose half breaking my wrists counts as a 'coarse method,' then? And I'm not your subject," she added heatedly.

"I cannot physically harm you on this plane of existence, even if I wished to," he retorted rather sharply, and there was no doubting the resentment in his voice at this. If there was one thing he hated, it was being powerless. "And no, Sarah." She jumped at his abrupt change of tone. "I would not have you as my subject. You are far too magnificent for that. You could have everything you desire, ruling in your rightful place at my side. I have been searching a long time for one who would serve as a connection between myself and the world above. For someone to act in my stead when I am unable to be everywhere at once. And you would be able to return briefly to this miserable world you seem to cling to so vehemently. Isn't that what you wanted?"

Sarah stared at him numbly. When she was able to speak, her voice was weaker than she had ever heard it.

"You want me to bring you the children." Her tone was too hollow for it to be a question.

He smiled broadly at the horror in her expression. "Even you must see how fitting it is, love. Your knowledge of the world above and understanding of the powers of imagination, the loyalty you instinctively seem to inspire in others… children would blindly follow you to the gates of hell if you commanded it."

"That's not really the career choice I had in mind, actually," said Sarah hoarsely.

Jareth didn't look amused. "Still as selfish as you ever were. I shouldn't have expected anything else."

Her mouth fell open. Some feeling – indignation – began to return. "When have I been selfish? I went through the Labyrinth for my brother –"

"Whom you wished away in the first place! Too ungrateful to help out your parents once a month, too absorbed in your own world, you wished your brother away – you own flesh and blood! And when I was obliging enough to carry out your request, you painted me as the villain. But I overlooked your audacity, even going so far as to offer you a place at my right hand. I would have given you everything I had, and you turned me down, scorned me, and showed me nothing but contempt. All children are selfish. Some grow out of it. You, clearly, have not." A curious look of satisfaction crossed his features. "In fact, I am rather glad of it. It is merely something else that binds us together."

"There is no together! There is no us! Not now, not ever."

"I'm sorry to hear you say that, love. But I think in time you will come to obey me, respect me, love me even." A jagged smile. "I await that day with great pleasure."

Sarah shook her head, flinching at his words. Love? Never. As for him… Curiosity certainly, obsession, perhaps, but she couldn't accept he was feeling love. Someone like him didn't have the capacity for love. It was beyond his comprehension. "This – whatever you're feeling – it isn't love." She looked at him; pale and stern and beautiful with years of wisdom and immortality, and he had never looked less human than he did now. It gave her the conviction to go on. "You wouldn't understand love, or anything human. And that means you can get over this."

His mouth thinned with anger, but it was his eyes that chilled her – she had never seen them so bleak and hollow, or filled with such empty despair.

"Do you think I haven't tried to 'get over' this, as you so carelessly put it? Believe me Sarah, I have longed for severance. From the moment you left my realm, I did everything in my power to purge you from my mind; and there are many who would give their souls to accept what I offered you. Creatures delicate as air and fair as moonlight, far more beautiful than you could ever imagine, my coarse, lovely simpleton. But nothing else would suffice. Do you know what it is like to love another, unrequited? And for that other to look on you with such contempt and disdain as you have shown me tonight? For years now I have watched you grow in beauty, watched you forget me as I can never forget you. You think it was revenge that brought me to you? Yes, it was revenge, revenge fired by passion and hardened with despair. Thirteen hundred years of absolute power… and suddenly I'm bound and tethered to a mortal girl. And how was I thus brought down? By some words read in a book and the fact that you were the first – the only – to defeat my Labyrinth. So tell me again that this is something within my control."

She looked blankly into his face and felt her ability to fight him slowly die at the cold, untouchable resolve gleaming behind the wall of his set features.

"Dearest Sarah," he whispered, and she felt his chilling voice like the blast of an arctic wind. "How I have desired you. And how you have angered me."

For a second she glimpsed – so briefly, she wasn't really sure she saw it at all – something yearning flare in his eyes; the lonely pain of immortality. It was gone an instant later; his face resumed its marble-like immobility.

"I think it's time I took what is my due."

"You're mad," she said faintly. "If you think I'll let you – after everything you've done to me."

"We'll see. Besides…" He examined her critically and he was as she knew him from before: detached, mocking, sardonic. "I think it's high time we got you out of those wet clothes."

She shuddered and this time it wasn't from cold.

Jareth's voice softened to a caress. "I'll give you jewels for your skin, and ribbons for your hair, and silks for your body…"

With seemingly no effort at all, he had closed the distance between them. How does he move like that, Sarah wondered, then instinctively tensed as his hand went to her hair, pulling the band free and letting the dark tresses fall over shoulders. He smiled appreciatively. His long fingers combed through the strands and she leaned away from him, as far as she was able.

Does he want me to love him, she wondered helplessly. Or is this just another trick to have me in his power?

No, this wasn't about love. It was about power and control.

"You can't do anything," she said savagely. "You can't force me to go with you. I have to be willing."

"That's true," he agreed. "But I can make you willing."

She reached up to push him away and was unnerved when her hands encountered smooth skin, pale and beautiful in the moonlight. He shuddered against her at the contact. She could see where the material of his shirt had parted and was visited by a vivid memory of his lips on hers, and the torturous pleasure of it held her in place. Jareth laughed, low in his throat; she felt it reverberate through her. "You weren't exactly resistant earlier, either, if I recall."

"An illusion," she retorted sharply. "Nothing more."

"But such a vivid illusion it was." He bent his head down towards her; low enough that he could whisper in her ear. "You're not even curious? The fleeting sense of magic you've sustained along with my own considerable skills, this combined on a night which is known for enhancing any magical properties, poised as we are between worlds, would result in an experience that is truly… unique."

His fingers glided along her neckline in a languid caress. Sarah was shivering. She realised now that she could feel every line and angle of his body pressed against her. This was Jareth – the Goblin King to whom morality meant nothing, who had without qualm injured and tried to force himself on her, and shown no remorse for mentally tormenting children. Why was she allowing him anywhere near her, why was she allowing him to – she clamped her teeth together – God, has it really been that long?

How had they come to be stood so close? Did it even matter?

"If you want me gone," he murmured, hands entwining in her hair to bring her face closer to his. "Call out. Who knows? Someone might even hear you."

Sarah couldn't utter a sound. She was paralysed by his irregular eyes that glittered like blades.

His angular face twisted in amusement at her silence. "I thought not. Perhaps then, dear Sarah, you don't really despise me, for all your words to the contrary."

Her mind was racing. She was Sarah Williams: bright, studious, conscientious, far too sensible to be swept off her feet by a dangerous Fey king. She certainly didn't want to take up his offer – she didn't trust him, but there was no denying she felt something when she was with him… Especially the way he was looking at her now, as though he wanted to devour her…

She knew what he was about to do and this time was prepared for the insistent pressure of his mouth against hers. He tasted of metal and ice and the bitter potency of old wine. Sarah closed her eyes, feeling the static silk of his hair brushing her shoulders as he tilted his head and the possessive motion of his hands sliding down to curve around her waist. No sound save for the husky whispers against her mouth, call out if you really want to although you won't will you I know you want me to do this Sarah and this and this and this –

Perhaps it was the magic that had killed all her willpower, that, or Jareth had been right and she really had wanted this all along. She was succumbing to the heady sensation of drowning, the sharp scent of magic – pinecones and frost and cinders – her lips were tingling with it. It was Yuletide and Midsummer's eve and All Souls night rolled into one, it was all the enchantment in the world encased in his light, darting touch. All her thoughts were blurring into insignificance; there was only the rippling velvet of his jacket crushed between her fingers, the glass-hard buttons digging into her body with exquisite half-pain and the humming like electricity across her skin.

Sarah was aware of his hands gliding to the small of her back and arching her body backwards with slight but forceful pressure until she found herself lying on the grass, Jareth leaning over her, his hair falling around them in a silver curtain and shielding his face.

"The woods are accommodating," he murmured, his normally crystal clear voice roughened with a slight husky edge. She turned her head to the side and saw the leaves seemed to have formed a canopy of dense green and gold above them while the grass beneath her was soft and giving beneath their combined weight. The grey boughs of the trees stretched upward, resembling nothing so much as the pillars of a four-poster bed, while draperies of mist pooled around them both. And the Goblin King, who was somehow responsible for it all, had unbuttoned her shirt and peeled aside the damp cotton to slide his hands against bare flesh. She shivered violently when she felt her skin exposed to the cold night air even with the warmth and full weight of his body pressed against her. For a moment, she could detach herself enough to imagine the picture they made; the two figures laid on a bed of ferns, pale gold hair entwined with black, she raising her head slightly to catch his lips with her own –

Everything in and around her seemed heightened. The gentle rustling of grass under her back, the sharp taste of his mouth, her heart pounding beneath his exploring hands. She needed more. She traced the planes of his shoulder blades through the ornate embroidered fabric of his jacket, marvelling at how he could be so firm and muscled beneath her hands yet so elusive. She wanted him here, all of him, wanted him as real and alive as he was making her. She tugged at his lower lip with her teeth and heard the breath catch in his throat. "Wicked thing," he growled, as he shifted his weight and she felt his hips ground against hers…

… and vaguely wondered how it was that someone who filled her with such fear and hatred could also make her make her feel faint with longing.

He raised his upper body then, leaving enough space between them that he could look down into her face, and no matter how hard she tried, she could not discern his expression. Incalculably remote and somehow cold even as his eyes burned with a frightening intensity. But his fingers were shaking as he reached up and gently stroked her hair, brushing it away from her face. It was a shockingly tender gesture for him but Sarah could not question it, could not think, as his hands slid under her shirt once more, sending galvanic shocks spiralling across her skin that was hyper-sensitive to every touch. Nothing mattered except that she make him stop, that she make him never stop –

It was only when his hands moved lower and slid beneath the waistband of her jeans, did she jerk upright with a startled cry. She tried to strain away from him, but his weight had pinioned her in place. Jareth leaned back on his knees and sighed with evident frustration. "Now really Sarah, how long do you think you can keep this up?"

She tried to gather her shirt together along with the remains of her self-possession. "I don't –"

"Is this the part where you say you feel no desire for me?" His slumberous voice was laced with mockery. "A little late for protestations of modesty now, I think."

She squirmed, attempted to shove him off her legs. He didn't move. "Get off me, Goblin King –"

"Goblin King again, is it?" And he smiled with cruel amusement. "You weren't quite so formal when you were moaning my name a minute ago."

Sarah glared at him. "You're disgusting."

Jareth's grin widened. He leaned forward, resting his hands lightly on her thighs. "Sarah," he said softly in her ear. "I've barely started."

"No," she said. The warm pressure on her thighs was both pleasant and distracting. "No."

"As you wish." He laughed quietly and began to move away, but sliding slowly – oh so slowly – off her, leaving no part of his body not touching her own.

Sarah began buttoning her shirt, deliberately looking down so she wouldn't have to see the expression of arrogant satisfaction she knew he would be wearing. From the corners of her vision, she saw he was sitting back on the grass; pointed boots angled outwards, silver and dazzling under the lightening sky. She wanted to stand up, to gain some sense of height and superiority over him, but wasn't sure her legs were yet up to the task. Her body was still trembling violently from aftershocks of what she tried to tell herself was magic but inwardly knew was something much more primal.

"I want you," she said, very slowly and deliberately, "To leave me alone."

Jareth raised an elegant brow, not needing to tell her how her actions a moment ago clearly belied her words. He had gained a surrender, brief though it was. "Unfortunately," he said calmly, "We don't always get what we want."

He leaned towards her, face close to hers. Framed by his fair hair, his expression was darkly intent, catlike eyes glittering. "Besides," he added. "I don't believe you. You forget, Sarah, that I can sense your wishes, your desires… and you desire me, precious – oh, yes you do, there's no use denying it."

"Even if you're right," she said. "Even if I did… I don't love you. I could never love you."

"Perhaps not. But you crave me; more than magic, more than this shallow mockery of a life you lead. You gave into me, Sarah. I felt you surrender."

Sarah looked at him a long moment, then gave the most scathing reply she could muster.

"I've had better."

The Goblin King's eyes flared, and she felt a bitter sense of satisfaction that her response had stung him, then his hands shot out and caught hold of her upper arms in a vice-like grip. His breaths came hard and quick, and she felt her nerve endings crackling like the oncoming of an electric storm. Oh God, I've made him angry, she thought with a shivering sense of dread. Icy hands slid down her bare arms, leaving a trail of goosebumps along her skin. She closed her eyes at the friction of his jacket buttons grazing her body semi-painfully.

"You think you understand love?" he said fervently, lips almost touching her skin. "You think you know what passion is? I can teach you things you've never even dreamed of, things the darkest depths of your imagination could not have hoped to conceive. In a single night I could send the world spinning around you and set the stars on fire, possess and consume you with the heat of desire, char your body to kindling and forge you anew."

His words were liquid metal, his fingers glass-sharp ice, sparking her senses into life. She shuddered at the thought of him acting out those words, that they might be true. Oh God, she wasn't actually considering letting him –

After all, nothing would necessarily happen if I –

But was she really willing to take that chance?

For herself, maybe, but not for the future children whose lives hung in the balance.

That settled the matter. He had accused her of being selfish. She wasn't that selfish. She would fight him until the last breath in her body. Sarah lifted her hands towards his chest to push him away again when something made her pause. When he had kissed her initially, it had been slow, lazy, sensual. But there was a new urgency in him now that had not been present before.

What was it he had said to her earlier?

The hours between dusk and dawn make the liminal state particularly apparent, and so – here I am.

I don't have all night, you know. Well actually, I do.

All night.

All night.

But it wasn't going to be night for much longer.

Then it dawned on her in one blinding ray of illumination that made her jump to her feet.

He can't stay here.

She stared unseeingly through the trees, her mind darting at possibilities.

But when he came to my room that time –

That was different; you made a wish and summoned him.

Sarah's heart had begun thudding with a queer, insistent beat. Jareth only had until dawn to convince her. And judging by the sky, he didn't have all that long left. Unable to resort to force, he had tried every means within his disposal – and it hadn't worked. The night – the cold, glittering, magical night – was almost over. And for the first time, Sarah felt she held the advantage.

Jareth too, had stood up and was now circling her like an arrogant cat. But she didn't care. In her loose shirt and tattered jeans, she could have been fifteen years old again, facing him with all the fierce triumph and conviction she had felt as her brother's crusader.

"The answer's still no. It will always be no. And nothing you can do – or try and make me do – is ever going to change that." She raised her voice, enunciating every last word. "Do you understand me, Goblin King? I am not willing. Moreover, I will never be willing. I refuse you utterly. You have no power over me."

Jareth's body had gone very still as though turned to stone, poised and tense in the glimmering, magic-imbued air. His voice was calm but his eyes blazed like fallen stars. "Are you quite certain of that?"

She looked back at him, her mouth pressed in a thin line.

"You've already threatened me enough tonight. So do what you like. I don't care."

She wondered where she had acquired that tone in her voice. The cold indifference, the hint of subtle cruelty. Then it came to her.

Jareth, of course.

Sarah flinched when he leaned towards her, but he merely took hold of her hand and lifted it to his mouth, lightly brushing his lips across her knuckles. "Yes, you wouldn't mind that, would you? I could force you and have you under my power in every sense, little more than a thing, a mere possession, and it wouldn't make any difference. I still couldn't get at you. You'd endure it, and all the while scorn me with that cold heart of yours; even your obedience would be a mockery – don't think I wouldn't see it." His voice was tight with anger. "After everything, you would still be my downfall and my defeat." Sarah swallowed hard as his angelic face turned contemplative. "But to have you willing, to have you on your knees begging and entreating me to take you – that is winning."

"Then you lose," she said. "Because that will never happen."

"I've come close, though." He saw her face and smiled. "Close enough even to unnerve you, my defiant champion."

"Think what you want," she said. "It doesn't matter now. And," she added thoughtfully, "It looks as though the sun is coming up."

She heard the hiss of his expelled breath as he pulled his hand from hers. "So that's your final answer, is it?"

"It is."

"Then you are a fool. It is only your own stubbornness that is holding you back."

"Maybe," she said, wanting to laugh at how he clearly couldn't understand her concern for anyone outside herself. Could he really be so amorally selfish? "But I'm not changing my mind."

"Very well." He swept her a flourishing bow. "Then I'll bid you goodnight."

Sarah stared, feeling, if anything, more uneasy than before. There was a hard, bright, dangerous quality to him that made her cautious. "You're letting me go… just like that?"

He smiled, throwing her own words back at her. "Just like that."

She didn't move. "I don't believe you."

"So young and so cynical," he said, with an exaggerated sigh.

"No," she said grimly. "I just know you – you're planning something." You don't come all this way with threats and mind games just to give up because I say so. She curled her hands around her elbows, forehead furrowed as she frowned at him suspiciously. "What are you playing at, Jareth?"

"Anyone would think you didn't want me gone."

"Don't flatter yourself."

His expression changed then, she couldn't explain how, but it seemed to become softer, more human. "I have put you through a lot tonight, Sarah," he said seriously, his eyes fixed on hers. "Much of it you didn't deserve. And you fought me every inch of the way. I haven't had such a struggle in – well, several of your lifetimes at least. This isn't easy for me… but now…" his voice was slow and halting, and painfully honest. "I think possibly… I am finally prepared to surrender to a worthy adversary."

Sarah looked at him impassively. "If it was anyone but you," she said. "I might just believe that."

He laughed at that and was himself again. "Well, it was worth a try, at least."

Sarah felt a reluctant smile forming and turned away to hide it.

"Just one more thing, my dear?"

She turned back. "What?"

He held up his gold pocket watch with a benign smile.

"Tell me the time."

Sarah stared. As sunrise was approaching, she expected it to be around six in the morning, but the clock hands had started spinning with such rapidity that they appeared blurred, the shorter hand coming closer and closer to the thirteenth hour.

"What's happening?" she demanded in alarm.

He was watching her with barely suppressed glee, although his voice was impassive. "Look."

Frowning, her eyes fell again on the watch and –

It took a moment for her eyes to register what she was seeing.

Sarah felt her blood slow to a torpor and turn to ice.

Jareth was speaking, but his voice faded into irrelevance as, paralysed, she was unable to drag her gaze away from the watch and the fact that –

That –

The hands were moving backwards.

She tried to summon her rapidly disintegrating thoughts.

"But you – you said –"

He raised his eyebrows in question.

Her voice seemed to come from very far away. "You said you could only reorder time for the children who failed…"

"Oh, I did?" Jareth gave a dark smile. "My mistake."

There was a distant roaring in her ears, like the sea, rising up in a towering wave, black and surging. She began to move slowly backwards, first one step, then another.

"You can't –" she croaked.

"Oh, I already have." A twisted sneer warped his mouth and she saw that this, here, at last, was the real Goblin King, charged with cruelty and power and who never forgave, never forgot. "I said before you were stupid. So overconfident at the fact I couldn't physically hurt you, completely forgetting the far-reaching effects of my power and its ability to render children into quivering wrecks of their former selves. You accepted the challenge and went through the Labyrinth all those years ago – thus, I retain a hold over you. Furthermore, you – unbelievably foolishly, I might add – allowed me to physically mark you."

Sarah felt as though she were drowning in the dark floodwaters. Waves were beating against her ears, a dull rhythm in which she heard his lightly mocking voice.

I have time – an eternity of time to be reordered at my will.

Her mind swirled and eddied in the blackness as she sought to cling to reality. Trees and sky coalesced in a shimmering arc of green and black-rimmed silver – following the reeling of her mind –

Why didn't I take him seriously? He told me – It was right there – all along…

"There is only one way this ends, Sarah," he said, and his coldly ringing voice was the most solid thing a world that was gradually receding. "Come with me – come with me completely – otherwise tonight will be senselessly repeated until you finally see reason. How long do you think you can endure before I finally wear you down?"

Sarah shuddered, but didn't back down. "Forever, if need be."

He laughed without mirth. "Try reliving this night a hundred times without hope of escape and then tell me what forever feels like. I told you I would have you begging for me to take you away."

"But –" She forced the words out as the star on her brow flared bright and burning. The pain was searing and absolute. "How –"

"This night," he said, breathing heavily. "This Beltane night, when my power in this world is at its greatest, when I am able to come and wield it as I wish and see the effects for myself – and you, my sweet, poised on the cusp of womanhood, to be always, and eternally twenty-one… wouldn't you like that?" His mouth thinned. "Either way, you have no choice."

The timepiece was looming in front of her, larger and larger. Its strokes were a harbinger, its face was wide and glassy, its progress was insatiable.

"And so, my dear –"

The air around her rippled, its gossamer threads unravelling as the fabric of time was being rewritten…

"I'll see you in yesterday –"

The hands struck the hour with a harsh clang.

Oh God, her mind screamed. Oh God!

The world tilted. The world of black and white and gold –

The last thing she heard was Jareth's scream of mocking laughter.

Sarah awoke with a start. The remnants of a terrible dream hovered on the edges of her consciousness, blurring and becoming indistinct, a dream she would no longer remember. Her head was resting at an uncomfortable angle sideways across her arms. She pulled herself upright, feeling the crick in her neck as she did so. How long was I asleep, she wondered vaguely, rubbing her eyes without noticing the mascara that smudged onto her fingers. She blinked several times, adjusting to the dim light that brought the university college library into sharp focus…

END