Oh, undoubtedly, the… man sitting in her parlor looked comfortable; he exuded an air quiet sovereignty, as though he could be at ease anywhere because he ruled it all. He conducted himself with poise and dignity, had been nothing but polite, and Karen still found herself floundering outside the rules of hosting. As she had asked him if he would care for anything to drink her mind had been desperately trying to hijack her lips. ‘Excuse me, did you realize that you are blue?’ But floundering though she might be, Karen absolutely knew that would be an unforgivable breach in polite composure. “I am Oran, Jareth’s father,” he had said at the door; ‘Jareth doesn't look like an evil smurf,’ was all she had thought to reply before her hosting skills had sputtered back to life. Now they were sitting across from each other, an awkward silence stretching between them as Karen tried her damnedest not to make a fool of herself.

“It’s, uh… lovely weather we’re having, isn’t it?” she twittered nervously, grasping at anything to fill the silence.

He looked briefly startled, and glanced out the window curiously. “Is it?”

Karen gave a shrill laugh, somewhat occupied in trying to figure out what color his eyes were. She wasn’t sure if it was just the light, but the hue seemed to be constantly shifting.

Oran leaned back in his seat, sleek silver hair falling about his shoulders in a shiny curtain, and gave a suffering sigh, as though he had reached a disagreeable conclusion about something but was bound to see it to completion. “I shall get straight to the point, Mrs. Williams; you’re children are gone.”

And just like that, her world stopped making sense. Karen’s mind summarily rejected the very thought; Sarah and Toby were upstairs, probably playing a board game together. They couldn’t be gone, that sort of thing didn’t happen without you noticing. ‘That would account for how quiet it’s been though,’ a tiny voice reasoned. No, she rallied, her children were fine!

---

Oran slumped in his seat as the woman went rushing up the stairs, not that he could blame her although, personally, he probably would have passed straight through denial and into the realm of violent rage. Like the proud felines of the jungle, he was rather protective of his children. He couldn’t even imagine what the poor Karen was going through, although how the woman could be so unobservant was beyond him. It was hard keeping tabs on a family like his, but he managed; it was nearly inconceivable that a species of such limited mobility would not be running into each other all the time. They probably did, Oran conceded, but a wrench had been thrown into things. Jareth. His beloved son had always had the nasty ability to get past adult supervision.

A wail echoed throughout the house and Karen came thundering down the stairs, composure out the window as she began to tear the house apart in search of her children. Oran let out a sigh as the woman began to babble hysterically. As a parent, he could understand her reaction; as a man who had already been drunk that day, he was impatient to get this over with so he could go home and spend the rest of the afternoon pretending that his head didn’t feel like it was on fire.

Karen collapsed in a fit of sobbing and Oran finally took pity on the woman. “They’re fine, Mrs. Williams, I assure you. In the best care possible, under the circumstances,” he murmured in what he hoped was a voice that leaned more toward soothing than hoarse.

“What have you done to them? Where are my children?” she demanded in a panicked tone.

“I have merely exercised what little damage control that I’ve been able to. Your children have had the misfortune of catching the interest of Jareth, and while I love my son dearly, at times even I must admit that he’s a bloody stupid idiot,” Oran rubbed a hand over his tired eyes. He paused for a moment to think, a frown curving his lips. “Like father like son, I suppose. The physical act of taking your children is my fault,” he realized slowly, not quite liking the way that sounded. “But the reasons rest solely with Jareth.”

Karen stared at him. “What is going on?” she pleaded.

“Nothing ever happens simply in this family,” Oran lamented to himself. “Such a simple plan: isolate the girl so that my idiot child could finally get everything on the right track but, as always, things cannot be that easy.” His attention returned to Karen. “Madame, I apologize for what I am about to do but, unlike my son, I am loathe to break up a family in such a fashion, regardless of species.”

She would thank him for it, later. After Robert had gotten over the shock of disappearing from his office enough to comfort his wife, and Karen managed to come to terms with where they were, she would thank him. Toby would have the comfort and support of his parents, while his parents would have the comfort of knowing that Toby was all right. They would ask about Sarah though, and he would be able to tell them that she was fine but, until something monumental happened between the two would-be lovebirds, he could not show them that she was fine.

Oran had been prepared to admit that life would be nothing short of a whirlwind after his binding with Leshia, it had just never occurred to him that the winds of chaos had no intentions of settling down, even centuries later. One son had turned into two, and then almost instantly into three; he had been through hell and back for his family and was prepared to do whatever it took to assure their happiness. Things had gotten out of hand this time though. He had only gone Aboveground to allay Jareth’s concern for Sarah’s wish to go home, perhaps give him some news to pass along that Toby was perfectly fine. But Toby hadn’t been perfectly fine, and the last few hours had been the clean up mission from hell. Things needed to resolve themselves quickly, for he had a feeling that his trouble with the Williams family was just beginning. Jareth needed to lay the charms on and Sarah needed a gentle but firm push, preferably in the direction of his eldest son’s eager embrace.

With a relieved sigh, Oran finally made it back to his own home, wanting nothing more than to spend some time with his wife and try to remember why children had seemed like such a good idea at the time. Had he known what was to greet him the minute he stepped out of his study, Oran would have stayed with Hadrian and the bewildered Williams family for a whole lot longer.

---

“Wait up!” Sarah complained for what felt like the hundredth time.

Ahead of her, Jareth let out an impatient sigh, “Honestly Sarah, if I had known that you were going to be this slow…” He turned back for her, all the same.

“Well, excuse me for being such a slug,” she snapped. “I’ve never climbed over anyone’s fence before, I have no practice with this sort of thing.” And it was a lot harder than the neighborhood boys had made it look, she added to herself. With them it had always been find a nice handhold and vault yourself over; it was a nice, easy two-step procedure. Sarah was currently balancing at the top of a rather wicked looking fence, and experiencing technical difficulties in getting down the other side. “I think my skirt is stuck again,” she growled, giving the offending garment a couple of useless tugs.

“Oh honestly,” he rolled his eyes at her. “How ever did you manage to make it through my Labyrinth?”

“Shut up!” she snapped. “I’d like to see you scale fences in a dress!” The mental image accompanying that thought lightened her mood a bit; seeing someone as viciously male as Jareth trapped in female clothing would be worth paying for. “I was only ten once, you know, I didn’t wear a lot of dresses back then and I certainly never did anything like this. You can’t blame me if I find the situation somewhat hard to deal with. Why the hell are there fences in the sublevels of your father’s castle anyway?”

The thirteen-year-old Jareth snickered at her, nimbly climbing back up so that he could help Sarah to the ground. “In a rather poor attempt to keep me within sight. As you can tell, it didn’t particularly stop me, and the old man has been too lazy to take any of them down,” he replied, taking her hand and leading her down a few more cavernous corridors.

Sarah struggled to keep up. At their normal heights, Jareth was quite a bit taller than her but always moved a leisurely pace; at thirteen, Jareth’s legs were considerably lankier than her ten-year-old stubs, and he darted about with the unflagging enthusiasm of a child reaching the end of boyhood. “What is it we’re looking for, again?” she huffed, trying not to trip as her skirt twisted about her legs.

Jareth, rounding a corned, stopped abruptly and Sarah slammed into his back with a quiet oomph. “That,” he replied excitedly, pulling her in front of him and pointing dead ahead. It was interesting, Sarah though distractedly, how disguising himself as a child seemed to make him act like a child as well.

In front of them was… a wall. It was a very nice wall, all things considered, had probably taken the masons who built it years to lay down all that stonework. There was a slight recess in the center of it, where a wicked looking stone-imp jutted out from the torso up, one hand held out in supplication while the other stayed at his side hiding devilish claws. Its’ face was curved in an insane grin and blue light flared from the sapphire stones that made up its’ eyes. A mop of unruly hair, whose intricate detail had probably driven the stone carver mad, almost hid a pair of delicately pointed ears and nearly covered the tiny horns that spiraled around said ears. And try though she might, Sarah couldn’t help but notice that the contradictory statuette in front of her bore a striking resemblance to the man-turned-boy behind her.

“Father has a somewhat deviant sense of humor,” Jareth replied to Sarah’s silence. “No matter though, what we’re after is what the statue hides.”

---

The gargoyle-esque creature that Jareth’s father had commissioned still grated on his nerves a bit. At first, when he had been young, it had seemed funny, but as he grew he began to see more and more of himself in it. So much of his nature hid among those tiny details, the good and the bad all mixed together in one sculpture that held so much magnetism. He had begun to avoid it, which was what his father had wanted. It was easier to do whatever you wanted without examining the basis of who you were. Underneath his skin, and a few times physically as well, Jareth looked a great deal like that statue. It was eerie to see himself reflected in a way that no mirror could ever show.

Sarah finally shifted, breaking whatever spell the stone-imp had had over her. “Where? It doesn’t look like it has anywhere to hide something,” she stated.

“It is always hiding something,” Jareth replied, well aware of the double meaning his words carried. “The claws of that one hand at his side conveniently block a view of his palm and what we want is nestled there.” Sarah gave him a disbelieving look, but he knew well how Oran’s mind worked. “I caused a great deal of trouble for my father with that once, so he decided to hide it somewhere he assumed I would never look.”

Sarah moved closer to the statue, trying to peer through the densely positioned claws. “I think I can make it out. How do we get it? I’m pretty sure even my fingers couldn’t delve into such a tight space.”

“Nor would you want to,” Jareth replied, stepping closer. “It is known as the Orb of Command, and must never be touch unless making your command. I want you to hold your hand out like this,” he demonstrated, his arm stretched out as if to stop something. “Good. Now, close your eyes and try to imagine that the Orb is tethered to your hand, where ever you go the orb will follow.”

Sarah gave him a suspicious look, but did as told.

Jareth allowed himself a small smile; a few days ago she wouldn’t have listened to him if her life had depended on it. She didn’t trust him entirely, but enough that she was willing to go along with him. Her eyes fluttered close and her fingers twitched slightly. “Don’t even think about the statue,” he encouraged, “it’s simply not there. Focus on the Orb and a single, solid tether running from you to it. When you think you’ve got it, jerk your hand back.”

Sarah furrowed her brow, fingers twitching but hand staying firmly in place. As he watched her concentrate, Jareth had to wonder if she even realized how much raw energy was crackling through the air around them. She would be something absolutely breathtaking to behold when she had all that power under control. Sarah flickered back and forth between a teenager and a child, her own magic trying to break through his spell; she had no sense of direction, magic was simply filling up every available space as though she had opened a floodgate rather than just dipped into a well, but when her hand jerked back the Orb followed, neatly whispering through the stone claws as though they had never been there. Jareth smiled; he had probably brought forth too much strength for the simplest of tasks when he had been learning as well.

---

When Sarah opened her eyes something about the corridor felt different, as if it were suddenly much more crowded than it had been, but the only ones present were herself and the Goblin King. And the Orb; it hung in the air just in front of her hand, a green sphere no larger than a clementine.

Jareth gave her braided hair a gentle tug. “Congratulations Sarah, you have just learned how to move objects about at will and pass them through other solid objects,” he praised, producing a small pouch that he slipped the Orb into and tied at his side. Lowering her still raised hand and taking it in his own, he continued, “Come, we must decide how to use it.” And if he let out something that sounded suspiciously like a cackle as he transported them elsewhere, Sarah chose to ignore it.

---

Karen Williams was usually a good person to be; her life was rich and full, everything she had ever dreamed of, outbursts from her stubborn stepdaughter aside. But Karen wasn’t too sure if she wanted to be herself right now; something strange had happened to her life and she was hoping it had more to do napping than reality. Surely this was a dream! A strange blue man, claiming to Jareth’s father, tells her that her children were gone, reunites her with her son, then thrusts her and her unsuspecting husband into the strangest world she had ever been; Karen didn’t want to even entertain the idea that she wasn’t sleeping. Something about the place seemed familiar though…

It was a deranged Neverland, wherever it was Oran had left them.

A valley stretched before the family, the ground, and even a few trees, were sprinkled with huts and cabins, around which children of all ages were wandering about. Here and there Karen could make out the taller form of an adult, but they were few and far between. If the valley below held Lost Boys, then the young man in front of her was their Peter Pan. He was a tall boy, probably in his mid to late teens, with long blonde hair that was carefully pulled away from his doe-brown eyes, and he obviously ruled over this little slice of a dream gone too far. Hadrian, he had introduced himself as, while handing over a bouncing Toby with no small amount of relief.

“This is just a tiny village on the outskirts of my domain,” he apologized, “we’ll be heading for the city as soon as I settle business here.”

Karen juggled Toby over to her other hip, completely unwilling to let her boy go despite his vigorous complaints, while Robert finally asked what had been plaguing all their minds. “Where’s my daughter? What have you done with Sarah?” he demanded, barely restraining himself from shaking the boy to emphasize his question.

Hadrian looked startled, “Amazing,” he murmured, “you’re really her family.” At their confused looks, he added, “Sarah’s a legend here; you won’t find anyone more widely talked about other than, perhaps, Jareth.”

“Jareth?” Karen asked, latching on to something that she could understand. “He’s here too?”

Hadrian gave them a pitying look. “Oran didn’t tell you very much, did he?” Robert let out a snort, not having been told anything at all. “Jareth is King here.”

“I thought you said this was your land,” Toby piped up from Karen’s stranglehold.

“No, no, I just govern; Jareth rules. This little plat of soil is one of dozens of different kingdoms in the Underground, all of which is Jareth’s,” the older boy replied.

Karen, though still trying to rationalize that she was dreaming, felt betrayed. Studying abroad, Jareth had said, he just hadn’t bothered to mentioned from how incredibly far away. What exactly was Jareth, aside from a king apparently? She had trusted him with the closest thing she was ever likely to have of a daughter, had even encouraged them to let their intimacy grow! Did Sarah have any idea what she was dating? ‘Sarah’s a legend here,’ Hadrian’s words echoed back; the girl had been there before then, so what was it about her and Jareth that they didn’t know? What had they missed, and how? Sarah shouldn’t have been able to keep something this big a secret!

“As for your daughter, rumor is she's in Aryn and not likely to be out anytime soon,” Hadrian answered cryptically. “We should probably stop in the Goblin Kingdom real quick, make sure everything’s still in order,” he added after a moment of awkward silence.

Karen followed her husband and the young man mutely. The Goblin Kingdom, she thought, why does that sound so familiar?

But what no one knew… and we’ll take the child… castle beyond the Goblin City… Give me the child... Labyrinth.

Sarah had been engrossed in that little red leather-bound book for months, and Karen had been curious about what could have held the girl’s attention for so long. She had read it on the sly, sneaking a chapter here and there while the teen was at school. Karen usually wasn’t one for fantasy and fairytales, but something about the story had kept her reading, as though she had no choice but to eventually finish it. Had she been a dozen or so years younger, she probably would have been just as enthralled as Sarah. Something about that fascination had made her uneasy though, which was partly why she had begun to encourage the girl to spend more time with friends; the less time with that book, the better. Had it been some sort of an innate sense for trouble, or a coincidental paranoia?

Sarah had read that book, and she had been here before. Karen had read that book and, now, here she was, as well as Toby. Robert was, perhaps, the only innocent bystander in the entire affair. What was the connection? Had they fallen through one of Alice’s looking-glasses, only in this case it was a possessed book?

---

Sarah sat astride the massive tree branch, idly swinging her child-legs, and glanced over to Jareth whose young form was casually slumped against the trunk. He was tossing the Orb from hand to hand, the pouch it was in preventing him from doing the smooth tricks he usually seemed to perform. They were supposed to be brainstorming what command to imbue the Orb with, but neither of them had come up with anything for the past twenty minutes and boredom was beginning to creep in. Perhaps Jareth was not the only one affected by being in a childish form, she reflected, her attention span had shortened considerably and she found her thoughts wandering. Time seemed to stretch out, as it always had when she had been young, turning a few minutes into a small eternity. A chilly breeze stirred what leaves were still clinging to the tree, and Sarah snickered as she suddenly remembered one of her favorite childhood poems. “Beneath this slab, John Brown is stowed. He watched the ads, and not the road.”

Jareth looked from where he had been idly stripping some bark off the branch. “What?”

“It’s a poem,” Sarah replied sheepishly, wishing she hadn’t said it out loud.

The look he gave her could not simply be called awed, a light of devious pleasure sparked in his eyes and praise spilled from his lips. “You are genius.” Jareth slipped the Orb from its bag, rolled it around his hand a few times and demanded in a clear voice, “All those currently in Castle Aryn must speak in rhymes.” The greenish hue of the little sphere gave way to a pale yellow, but otherwise gave no indication of having done anything magical.

“Did it work?” Sarah asked, frowning.

Jareth gave an elated nod. “We must hide it somewhere in the castle for it to be the most effective. I think I know just the place.”

There was an upside to being a child, Sarah realized as they made their way back into the huge structure and navigated its endless halls, no one really seemed to notice you or particularly care that you were there. It was almost a given that a child would be somewhere, and that they would inevitably be wandering about. After a while they came to a statue, which she found somewhat ironic considering where they had gotten the Orb from, and Jareth slipped it among the many crystals the covered the sculpture’s base.

---

Oran had no sooner opened his study door than he was nearly trampled over by a maid. “I’m sorry sir, I didn’t see the door; I was too busy rushing along the floor!” was all he got before she let out an angry squeak and ran off. Odd, to be sure, but odd rarely concern Oran anymore. The only thing he wanted to contemplate at the moment was the serenity that might be found by spending a quiet afternoon with his wife.

“Fool!” he heard someone shout, which wasn’t an unusual occurrence in the least. “I just had these shoes polished, and now all my work you’ve just demolished!” Oran could feel another headache coming on. One rhyming maid was interesting, a rhyming footman could merely be coincidence, but a third one soon joined in, “Then stop lurking where you cannot be seen! You could frighten others, including the Queen.”

After passing a parade of distressed and metered staff, Oran conceded to the inevitable. Something had happened while he was gone, and he only lamented the fact that that something wasn’t young enough to earn a tanned hide anymore. You always expected your offspring to grow out of such habits eventually, but he had been wrong about everything else today, Oran thought sourly, so why not this too?

When he finally found Leshia, she was sitting with a journal and muttering to herself in what sounded like a well-versed limerick. His dear wife had either not noticed, or frankly did not care. Noticing him, she perked up. “Jareth and Sarah need a kick; think you we have something to do the trick?”

Oran let out a groan. “I think we have a slightly more pressing issue to deal with, sweet nymph.”

She ignored him. “All we need is a little luck, to get the girl to put out and fuc-“

“Leshia!” he interrupted, astounded that such foul language would dare to pass through the lips of his wife.

“Forgive your darling wife, husband dear. These rhymes are making me think positively queer,” she said apologetically.

With a weary shake of his head, Oran pulled Leshia to her feet. “Help me find the children first, then you can set out to get the poor girl with child. I’ve dealt with enough today; I don’t fancy the idea of sitting down for dinner while listening to a maid make a poem out of the evening menu.”

Chapter Thirty-Nine: The Danger of Little Princes.

In retrospect it really shouldn’t have been as funny as it was, maids shouting at each other in rhymed verses while footmen lamented their plights in well-appointed poetry. It was as though Castle Aryn had been turned into a Dr. Seuss book. Perhaps it was the after-effect of having been a child for the better part of the afternoon, Sarah mused, that had her so childishly amused at everyone’s antics.

Jareth seemed pleased with their work. “The Twins could never hope for this type of chaos,” he boasted, “they don’t think big enough.” It was odd to see a grown man preen at such frivolous work.

As if summoned by the very mention of them, Imm and Laim came racing around the corner, dashing through the hall as though they were being chased by the hounds of hell. “I’d be moving along if I were you,” Imm panted as he passed.

“Father’s in a temper, and probably thinking up a fitting punishment, too,” Laim added, jogging right behind his younger half.

Sarah had been just about to turn and follow the boys, when Oran casually strode into the hall. Light bled out of the corridor until the only thing illuminating the place seemed to be the faint glow everyone but her was casting. Her feet froze in place and, by the way that the twins and Jareth were woodenly moving to stand next to her, she was guessing that the others had lost control of their functions as well. Oran continued his unhurried pace, Leshia gliding serenely behind him. He cast a look of weary paternal-bemusement over the four of them before turning his attention immediately to the twins.

Laim’s dusty brown skin paled as he became shadowed by his father’s blue aura. Sarah found it odd how nervous they all seemed about their patriarch; he wasn’t acting particularly menacing, in her opinion. The child of autumn finally found his voice, “It wasn’t Laim, my jokes are much more tame!”

“If it wasn’t him, then it wasn’t me,” Imm cut in, “the Twins work in a pair, as in we.” Oran turned his silent gaze to the youngest boy. For a brief moment the child of spring was engulfed by his father’s midnight coloring. As the dark blue haze lifted, Oran nodded to the pair of boys, who backed up a few steps but did not leave.

Leshia rolled her eyes. “Forgive him, he’s acting very poorly. I think he may be jumping to conclusions prematurely.”

Oran turned his ever-changing eyes upon Jareth. “The castle is rhyming,” he informed his eldest son in a bored tone of voice.

“So it would seem,” the King replied using the same tone as his father, his silvery skin reflecting not even the slightest glimmer of blue.

“But you aren’t rhyming,” the elder began, before Sarah cut him off.

“Neither are you,” she put in quickly. It was better to stand accused than guilty, not to mention it would help sway Oran into letting them go.

Go? Sarah thought distractedly. Go where? Something shivered at the back of her mind but was quickly forgotten when she noticed that, for the tiniest second, she had emitted her own pale glow, just like the others.

“I was not here,” Oran defended, eyeing her curiously.

“Neither were we,” she countered, which was, technically, the truth; they hadn’t been in the castle when the command had been made. “We didn’t do anything,” which was also true; only one of them had made the command.

Jareth let out a quiet chuckle at her answers, drawing an incriminating smile out of her.

“Don’t defend him,” Oran groaned, “he’s bad enough without encouragement.” He let out a sigh. “I had rather hoped that you would temper him out, instead you just get snared into his childish games.”

“You have no proof that it was us,” Jareth cut in.

“I don’t need proof,” his father stated patronizingly, “this is much too grandiose for the Twins. Your typical flare rats you out once again, boy.” He turned to Sarah, “I’m glad that you spent time together, but it couldn’t have been reading a book or having a magic lesson?”

“I won’t behave until you send me…” Sarah trailed off, frowning. Send her where; wasn’t she already where she wanted to be? Jareth and Oran both gazed at her curiously, waiting for her to finish a sentence that she could no longer remember how to end.

After a protracted silence, Oran cleared his throat. “Right, well I’d like you both to go to your rooms, and don’t even think about leaving until you’ve learned how to play nice together without driving everyone else mad.” Sarah had to stifle a laugh as the light slowly crept back into the hallway. Of all the mundane things, they were being grounded! And without even being asked how they had done it, or how it could be undone!

Once the two of them had settled into Sarah’s sitting room, she couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of the situation. “If only Toby was here,” Sarah enthused, “he’d get a real kick out of this!” Something played at the edge of her memory. Toby… What was she forgetting?

Jareth let out an exasperated sigh, pushing off from the wall he had been leaning against. “I know you want to get back home, Sarah; I know you’re worried for him, but would it be so impossible to enjoy a moment without fear for your brother?”

She stared at him blankly for a moment, not comprehending what he had said. Afraid for Toby; why? Her sweet little brother was untroubled by the world; he was perfectly fine. Except…

Sarah frowned. Something was shifting.

He had come to her in the dead of night, crying, and unable to tell her what was wrong. There had been smashing coming from inside his room. He had been huddled in a dingy corner of the basement, spouting cryptic nonsense. Mood swings and actions that were completely out of character for him and, always, he could not tell her what was wrong.

Except, the last time she had seen Toby, he hadn’t been perfectly fine.

“Sarah?” someone asked in a wary tone, but she hardly heard it.

Everything clicked back into place, all her worry and anxiety for her little brother returning. How long had she forgotten him for? When, precisely, had things gotten hazy? Sarah panicked. What else had she forgotten, and why?

---

Jareth watched Sarah for a minute, becoming nervous, an emotion that he would seldom admit to feeling. She was fluctuating between frighteningly blank and as panicked as a rabbit in a dog kennel. There had been a moment, earlier in the hall, where she had seemed to forget what she was saying; now it seemed as though she was remembering everything that she hadn’t been able to then.

“Sarah?” he tried again, reaching out to give her a gentle shake.

She turned angry eyes upon him. “What did you do to me?” she demanded, jerking away from his touch.

Jareth could feel a snarl building up in him. “So that’s the way of it, then?” he glared at her. “The second something suspicious has happened to you, it is automatically my fault?”

“Who else could it have been?” she asked haughtily.

“Any number of people,” he snapped back. “We’re not in your world anymore, even the smallest of creatures here have some sort of magic. It could have been anyone, and yet you persist in blaming me.” Despite his anger, Jareth ran a gentle hand across her cheek. “When are you going to stop shadowing everything by what happened in the Labyrinth?”

---

Sarah shifted uncomfortably; Jareth’s attraction to her was not always clear and usually manifested in infrequent and interrupted busts of passion, but he had tender moments like these that confused her. “If not you, then who?” she asked, ignoring his question about their past.

Jareth let out a sigh. “The Twins,” he answered, “I should have warned you about the Twins.”

She was momentarily taken aback. Granted, she had only known Imm and Laim for a few hours, but they hadn’t seemed like the sort to mess with someone that way. It didn’t make any sense, what had they hoped to gain by it? ‘We plan to make full use of our new sister,’ Imm’s words came back to her. Had that been it; they had thought to keep their new ‘sister’ by making her forget that she had come from somewhere else? It was inconceivable that she had judged them so highly; those boys were going to get the tongue lashing of their lives the next time she saw them.

“There’s no point in getting angry about it, Sarah,” Jareth interrupted her thoughts, “they can’t control it.” He must have read the confusion on her face, for he continued. “Aside from magic, there is one gift that we possess; it is unique unto each of us. Oran has the gift of compassion; he can make others feel more sympathetic toward each other simply by being in the same room. Leshia has the power of serenity; she can calm anyone with her mere presence.” He sat in a chair opposite from the sofa Sarah was resting upon, slumping into the seat before further explaining, “Not all of these talents are wanted, though. The Twins possess a very dangerous gift. They never worry about the future, and seldom concern themselves with the past, as a result they live completely in the now. So great is their wish for others to do the same that their power reflects this. The Twins possess the gift of forgetting; whatever is preventing someone from having fun with them will be temporarily blocked.”

How awful, Sarah thought, to have that sort of power whether you wanted it or not. “Sounds dangerous,” she replied, her anger deflated.

“Sometimes it is,” he commented, “other times I think it rather works in their favor.” A mysterious smile flitted across his face, his eyes going distant as he reminisced about something.

She narrowed her eyes as a sudden thought bothered her. “You said that this gift is unique for everyone. If that’s true then how can both of the boys have that power? Is it because they’re twins?”

Jareth shook his head, pale hair swaying gently. “Imm is just shy of a year younger than Laim. They are not truly twins, but they exhibit the same mysterious connection that most twins possess. The thought is generally held that they are simply so close their powers developed in the same way.”

“You don’t share that opinion?” Sarah asked, picking up on a scoff in the way he had spoken.

“No two children from the same womb should have an identical gift, no matter how closely they grow together,” he stated with a vague air of longing, making Sarah wonder how many years separated him and his two siblings. “I believe one has an entirely different power and we’ve just never been able to tell.”

Sarah gave a disbelieving look. “How would you not notice something like that?”

Jareth returned her look. “How could we? Certain gifts are extremely subtle, and Imm is never seen without Laim. One of them could have a talent so trivial as being able to drop the temperature of the room by a degree or two, no one would ever notice and, if you did, you’d never know which boy it came from.”

“What about you?” she asked, changing topics.

Jareth looked briefly bewildered. “What about me?”

It sometimes felt as though they had known each other for ages, but whenever Sarah tried to think of what she knew about Jareth she came up with a resounding blank. Oh, she knew how he acted, generally speaking, from having observed him, but she really didn’t know much about him. He seemed to crave her companionship, whether it was because he wanted to be her friend, lover, or he wanted to torture her, she wasn’t sure. She was just tired of fighting someone who was that blindingly determined; if he wanted to know her, then she wanted to know him. It wasn’t as though there was much else to do anyway, seeing as how Oran had confined them to their rooms.

“What’s your talent?” she clarified.

Jareth threw a leg over one of the armrests, managing to look regal even in such an undignified pose. “The gift of change; the environment shifts and alters to suit my mood.”

“Sort of like a chameleon in reverse?” she cocked her head to the side.

He nodded. “It is usually subtle, a slight change in the lighting or the color of the walls. Other times, as when the Escher Room flew apart, it is not so subtle.

“That was you?” she gasped. That room had confounded and frustrated her so badly that Sarah really hadn’t thought anything of it when the walls and floors had broken apart like puzzle pieces.

Jareth snorted. “I wasn’t lying when I said I was exhausted. When you jumped, it felt like all my plans were falling apart at the seams; a couple seconds later and so was the room.” He rolled his eyes. “It certainly didn’t help matters.”

An uncomfortable silence reigned. This was the most amount of time they had ever spent together, nearly the whole day, and polite conversation was a difficult thing to come by between them. Sarah absently played with the folds of her dress, briefly missing the simple skirt that she had worn as the ten year old. From his chair, Jareth began to drum his fingers but didn’t say anything. Not that she could blame him, even the most innocent of conversations had a way of turning into an argument for them, and they had run out of neutral topics through the course of the day. She had questions to ask and still wanted to know more about him, but didn’t want to push too far, seeing as he was her only company.

A thought struck her, forcing a smile to her lips. There was no way this request could be considered asking too much. “So… tell me about this Winter of the Goats I keep hearing about.”

Jareth laughed, not his habitual chuckle or snicker, but a real laugh. As he dove animatedly into the story, Sarah couldn’t help but wonder what Toby was doing just then.

---

Toby was, at that moment, being closely watched by Hadrian, a fact that did not escape Karen.

Chapter Forty: The End of an Island.

Karen had been unwilling to trust Oran, considering what he had done, so she hadn’t been all that ready to trust Hadrian, whom Oran had left in command. She was even more unwilling to trust the blonde teen when she caught sight of where he was taking them. Looming just ahead was a stone castle, nestled in the middle of a riotous little city. Turrets spiked and spiraled into the sky, creating an overall forbidding effect. She wasn’t sure what sort of business Hadrian had to take care of in a place like that, but she knew one thing: her family was not setting foot in that dark den.

They weren’t, however, given the choice. One moment they had been standing on a sandy hilltop, and the next they were standing in the middle of a cave-like entrance hall.

Shadows flitted from wall to wall, inviting the imagination to come up with a thousand little horrors to give them form. The ceiling lifted out of sight, and the subtle difference between shadow and actual darkness made Karen wonder if there weren’t things sitting up in rafters, watching the Williams family stare and cower. Dotting the walls here and there, creating convenient pockets for the shadows, where statues of gargoyle-like creatures that were so grotesquely life-like, Karen jumped a time or two when she thought one had looked as though it had moved.

“Just ahead,” Hadrian murmured, pointing to a doorway that Karen had resolutely decided not to enter just seconds prior.

Silently, Robert slipped in front of his family; protestations did not pass his lips, but the usually mild-tempered man was, without a doubt, trying to protect them.

Hadrian rolled his eyes, and marched ahead of them.

The room was completely empty, save for one man. He stood, gazing out a window, not moving but still conveying a sense of quiet rage. At her side Toby let out a startled gasp, drawing the man’s attention. As the figure turned, Karen couldn’t help letting out her own gasp.

Of all the treachery that had come to mind, she had not expected this.

---

They had run the gamut of entertaining stories; Jareth had seemed to know most of Sarah’s already, which she found somewhat disturbing, but not entirely surprising anymore. She had heard tales of a childhood both blessed and cursed by magic, laughed at and admired his boyish audacity, and been utterly amazed at the bond he seemed to share with his father. His stories had been filled with a richness, people and places that she never would have imagined on her own, and the more he had spoken the less she had wanted him to ever stop. It had never occurred to her how vast and varied the Underground could have been, never fully penetrated her that Jareth was a person who had existed long before she had ever been to his Labyrinth.

After the stories had tapered off, they had settled into card games, both unwilling to part company when they were still, amazingly, on amiable terms. Sarah had just begun to shuffle the deck when a quiet knock interrupted them.

Oran stepped through the door, looking harried and un-amused. “How did you do it?” he asked Sarah, completely ignoring his son.

She looked to Jareth from the corner of her eye, waiting to see his reaction. For a moment he simply eyed his father, then turned to her and carelessly waived his hand, clearly signaling that their prank had come to an early end. Sarah nodded imperceptibly and refocused on Oran, who looked faintly bemused by the pair’s silent communication. “The Orb,” she finally said, and began to recount their trek through the sublevels of Castle Aryn, silently thrilled when the older man looked surprised that she had been the one to magic the Orb out of the imp’s stone fingers. “And then we hid it at the base of a statue although, frankly, I can’t remember which one,” she finished with a shrug.

“Thank you,” Oran stood, looking somewhat mollified, “but try it again and I’ll hang you both by your ears.” He began to leave the room, but paused in the doorway, saying over his shoulder, “Oh, and boy?”

Jareth looked up.

“We need to talk,” the angry statement filled the room ominously, making Sarah wonder what had passed between irritated father and suddenly wary son that she missed.

---

Later Sarah wouldn’t know if what she felt that night had actually come from Jareth, or if she had imagined it all while falling asleep.

Dinner had gone off without a hitch, although some of the serving staff had been inclined to shoot annoyed glances at Sarah and Jareth through the first few courses. Imm and Laim had continued to speak in rhyme, much to Oran’s chagrin, managing even to get Leshia in on the act, and together the three of them had said some of the most ludicrous things that by dessert even the stony faced elder had let out a few chuckles.

The atmosphere had been charged with a tension, though. She wasn’t certain if the others had noticed it or not, but there had been something in the air between Oran and Jareth, an unease that had stifled the comfortable companionship that usually seemed to flow between the pair. At the end of the meal the two silently rose and walked off together, so Sarah had retreated to her own room for some well earned sleep.

That had been the idea, at least. The truth was, Sarah had always had trouble sleeping in a bed that was not her own; the fact that Jareth, who had seemed so companionable that day, was only one room away didn’t really help matters. It was strange to think that just yesterday she had seen him as someone to be wary around, whereas today he was the only familiar staple she had. Even stranger still that only that morning, before the whole mess had begun, one of his legs had been between her thighs and she had been kissing him with a wild abandon. That thought made her shift restlessly, unsure of whether she should welcome his kisses but wanting them nonetheless.

As Sarah tossed on the gigantic, fairytale-come-true bed, something rose out of Jareth’s end of their connection, something so unaccountably cold that it was nearly white-hot.

You promised, boy, never again… in much too deep.

Perfectly fine… just a way to keep track…

But the child…

No harm done.

And you?

A frozen fury crashed over her, disrupting the disjointed conversation. She shivered as the sensation briefly consumed her, but as it eased she felt something she was almost positive that delicate, and yet completely masculine, face would not reflect. Jareth was enraged by whatever Oran had wanted to discuss with him, but beneath that he was also worried.

Cold, curious, worried, and temporarily alone in a strange world that she knew little about, it took Sarah a long time to fall asleep that night.

---

How dare he? How dare he?!

Jareth had been King for centuries, not days, and yet his father persisted in questioning him like a child. Oran hadn’t approved of that tactical stunt the first time he had done it, so he could hardly be expected to graciously accept it now.

Back then it had stung beyond compare, knowing that his Sire disapproved. He had worshipped his father, studied his reign with a careful eye, but when it had come time to rule himself none of the decisions to be made had had precedents. Jareth had done the best he could with the options that he had had available, made the choices that had appeared the most beneficial to his kingdom, and on the whole Oran had been proud. But one issue had divided father and son, placed them at either end of an intellectual chasm that neither one could cross. It had nearly driven him insane knowing that the Great Oran, the king that he had so wanted to emulate, would never see completely eye to eye with him. They had carried on though, their relationship quickly returning in full strength, if for no other reason than that a son needed his father.

But now the issue had come back to haunt them, and they were still at opposite sides of that great trench. If he were completely honest with himself, he would freely admit that Oran’s continued disapproval still hurt. It had been different this time, though. The elder hadn’t shouted or raged, just given him the pinched look of a worried parent. It hadn’t diffused the anger, but it had put Jareth on edge; had Oran seen some disagreeable end to all this that he had overlooked all those years ago? Was he really pulling himself too thin?

The circling and uncertain thoughts nagged at him, without focus or outlet to relieve their growing tension. Deprived of sleep, Jareth quietly made his way to Sarah’s room, knowing that, even asleep, she could bring him some measure of peace.

---

“Jareth?” Karen asked incredulously. It shouldn’t have surprised her, she thought bitterly; she had known he was involved, had played nearly the leading role in why her family was stuck in this strange place. Still, somewhere in the back of her mind, she had taken comfort in the thought that, wherever Sarah was, she wasn’t alone. Despite the fact that Karen was beginning to realize she didn’t know the first thing about her step-daughter’s boyfriend, she had liked that witty and affectionate man she had met in her parlor. Whatever the girl was going through, she had been soothed by the thought that at least that man would be by her side.

But here he was, looking less like a man and more like a wild beast, and with absolutely no Sarah in sight.

“No,” Toby whispered, stepping forward slightly, “you’re not him, are you?”

The figure grinned devilishly, flashing a set of teeth that was in no-way human. “Maybe yes and maybe no,” he purred. “It all depends on who you ask.”

“Enough,” Hadrian interrupted nervously, “you asked to see the boy, so I brought him, but you’d better be quick. If Oran finds out I brought any of them here-“

“You needn’t worry,” Possibly-Jareth cut him off. “We’ve got all the time in the world,” he added in dark amusement.

Karen slid a littler further behind Robert and clutched at her son, unsure of what was going on and uneasy from the strange things that were being said.

---

Jareth watched as Sarah slept, huddled under the thick sheets and shivering restlessly. It pained him knowing that his own turmoil was part of the reason she was being tormented. She curled further in on herself, a tiny island in a sea of bedclothes.

An island… even awake, that’s what she was. A self-contained young woman, who touched the lives of others but allowed so few under her shields. For a person her of age it was surprising, but not particularly trying.

Jareth had been an island for centuries. He had seen to the wants and needs of others for years beyond endurance, with the same courtesy rarely extended to him. He was tired of it. Tired of waking alone, ruling alone, and going to bed alone. It had to stop, and he knew of no better person to let slip under his shields than Sarah. They were made for each other, he thought with a quiet laugh; both stubborn, prideful, sore losers who, at the end of the day, were lonelier than they ought to be.

Jareth slipped beneath the bed sheets, intent on easing Sarah’s quiet shivering. She settled against him as though she had always belonged there, and he did his best to banish any renewed worry about the future. With a contented sigh he finally gained entry to the land of dreams.

---

“Toby,” the blonde-haired, blue-eyed creature in front of them beckoned, and the boy seemed suddenly entranced. “You have a problem, I can fix it,” he crooked a gloved finger and, whether Toby had wanted to or not, the young boy walked straight into the waiting arms of the wild thing before them.