Author's Note: Welcome to our second foray in Labyrinth fic! This is a direct sequel to Draw Your Swords, which you really should read before starting this one.

Quick recap: Sarah Williams is 29 and a half, living in NYC and working with troubled children as their social worker, and until recently she made sure that her entire life was very firmly grounded in reality. She paid no attention whatsoever to fantasy, or dreams. Especially not dreams.

Then one of her clients, a teenage girl named Alli, found a certain book in the library. Alli wished her little sister away to the Goblin Kingdom, and Sarah found herself fighting through the Labyrinth all over again. The obstacles were more dangerous, the challenges more extreme, and the king himself was much more dangerous. At the end of her run, Sarah was faced with a choice that could change her life … and as before, she made a desperate leap of faith, that ended with her on her way to being crowned Queen of Umardelin, the goblin realm.

Jareth still has no power over her, though.

I'll hush, and let the story start. As always, favorites and reviews are very much welcome. Thank you all for reading our fic!

…

Sarah opened her eyes to see sun-warmed stone: the smoothly polished walls of her royal bedroom in the castle. The light pouring in looked like noon, which meant – she did a few quick mental calculations – it was probably three o'clock in the morning in New York. She was grateful for that, despite the occasional feeling of jet lag. If not for the weird way time moved between realms, she'd never get any sleep.

The reason for her sleeplessness was already awake and out of her bed; Sarah ran a hand along the sheets and found them cool. He'd been up for a while, then. That allowed her to rise, wash up, and dress at her leisure. A few days hadn't cooled Jareth's ardor at all, and she found she couldn't change clothes in his presence without capturing his attention. Which was gratifying, but made it hard to get things done.

Jareth had told her she could visit the kitchens any time, for a meal or a snack. She headed there now, steeling herself for the sight of a kitchen run by goblins and hoping it wouldn't put her off her food.

To her surprise, there were only two goblins among the cooking staff, and they were scullions, chanting "Lick, then wash" as they cleaned the pots. The rest … there were a couple of human-sized fae with very large eyes and black-tipped hair bustling about, which she took for under-chefs. And a couple of dwarfs like Hoggle who were doing much the same. There was also one she could swear was human – who might actually be, if the stories about fairy rings were true.

In charge of them all was a chef who looked like a deer crossed with a human. His head was a deer's, with a shorter muzzle capable of human speech, as he called out orders to his staff. Sarah first saw him from the back, and noticed that while his broad shoulders were like a man's, a strip of fur ran down his spine from his head to a tail like she'd seen on many deer back home. His legs were the hind legs of a deer, slightly modified to let him stand upright, and the extra length of those hocks made him almost nine feet tall.

One of the dwarfs said something in another language, and the chef turned toward Sarah. His torso was almost human, except that his skin was the color of a deer's fur. Those antlers looked wickedly sharp, and she might have been afraid. But he was wearing a chef's apron that had to have come from Above, because it read 'Kiss the Cook … But Don't Squeeze the Buns!' She couldn't help chuckling at that.

The chef chuckled, too. "My wife brought it Under for me," he said in a deep voice. "Now, how can we help you, Queen Sarai?"

"Just something small for breakfast," she replied. "I don't want to put you to trouble."

He took a step toward her and lowered his head slightly, which made her notice all those ivory antler points. His voice, though, was amiable. "Nonsense. 'Breakfast' is exactly the sort of thing we're here for, so it's no trouble at all. Alan, hot tea and honeycakes for our lady."

She ended up being pressed to a seat at the kitchen table and plied with all sorts of delicious tidbits, until Sarah pleaded an over-full stomach. They only let her leave with a promise to return when she had more time. Despite the deliciousness of the tea and cakes, Sarah missed coffee, and resolved to ask Jareth about getting it here. Surely in a realm of magic, coffee beans wouldn't be too much trouble.

She ambled toward the throne room looking for Jareth. He was there, lounging sideways on his throne with his chin propped in one hand. Before him were a couple of the fairies she'd seen when she arrived in the Labyrinth the first time, arguing in piping voices. When one darted at the other, Jareth smacked his swagger stick against the sole of his boot loudly. "Enough. If you cannot be civil to one another long enough to have your case judged, then we will not waste our time with you. The flower patch in debate is now property of the Crown, and both of you are banned from it."

Loud squeaks of protest, and Sarah heard goblin giggling from the various quarters of the room. Jareth only glared. "Our judgment is final. You will both have to find new lodgings within the fortnight. I would suggest you find them far from one another. Case dismissed."

The two little fairies – still complaining bitterly at each other – fluttered out, and Jareth caught sight of her. "Ah, Sarai," he said warmly. "Morning Court is adjourned. I have business with our Champion." As one, the assembled fae turned and bowed or bobbed or curtseyed to her, and Sarah curtseyed back.

Jareth rose, striding through the throng of his people, and gave her a quick kiss when he reached her side. "It is still early Above," he murmured. "Surely you do not need to leave?"

"Not yet," she said, indulging in a brief hug as they left the room. Jareth kept his arm draped around her shoulder. "It's a little strange to see you being, well, a king. I missed that the first time around."

Jareth smiled. "You missed a great deal. I cannot brood all day, or my stewards would begin to get the idea that they run this kingdom."

"Speaking of staff, do you know your chef is cooking your meals while naked except for an apron?" Sarah asked mischievously. "I hope you stay on his good side, or I'm afraid to wonder just how he stirs the punch."

That won a laugh from him. "I am very good to my staff, Sarah. The chef – Beldych – gets a week off in the winter when his antlers drop, because it makes him very grumpy. And a month off in the fall during the rut."

"The rut…" Sarah had assumed he was a fae that happened to look like a deer, but apparently he had more wild instincts than she expected.

"Beldych is a creature born of magic. He is a blend of man and stag, one of a kind, unlike many of my servants which are drawn from the many faerie races. Didymus is the same sort of creature. The difference is that Didymus takes his uniqueness as cause for celibacy, and Beldych is married to my head housekeeper. She happens to be human, and their children are mostly so, except for having tails and in the case of the eldest son, antlers."

Sarah sighed. "There's so much to get used to around here. I never guessed that Didymus was one of a kind. But I did have a question for you…"

The rest of his afternoon – and her early morning – were spent planning out the possibility of growing coffee in Umardelin. Hoggle, who was after all the Royal Gardener, was consulted on the matter, and in his typical pessimistic fashion declared "Probably won't grow, if'n it does it won't fruit, if'n it fruits an' we can harvest it, it might spoil. And if'n we can get it all harvested and dried and roasted and everything, it probably won't taste right."

"Well, damn," Sarah sighed.

"I never said we wouldn't try it," Hoggle replied, and Jareth rolled his eyes where the dwarf couldn't see him. They had it all sorted out by the time Sarah needed to head home, and Jareth went with her Above so that he could obtain some coffee plants.

"How are you planning on paying for them, anyway?" she asked, brushing her hair in her own bedroom. "The whole 'fairy gold' thing doesn't work anymore, since nobody takes gold coins."

"And you think your 'credit card' system is not even more easily fooled than coins which return to their purse?" Jareth asked, and kissed the top of her head before going out. Sarah left after him, but not to work. It was Saturday, and she had errands to run before meeting Toby at the train station. One of those errands was picking up a cake for him; his birthday was mid-week, so she couldn't make it, hence this weekend trip. He would stay overnight with her Saturday and go home Sunday night. Which meant Jareth had to survive a couple days without her, which was probably part of why he'd been so insistent last night.

She still had to figure out what she was going to tell her family about him, and when. They'd sketched out the bare bones of a how-we-met story that would work, and Sarah felt a little more comfortable having him Above now that she knew he could pass for human at will. Though it was still damned weird to see Jareth without his trademark Goblin King glitter and majesty. Not to mention the eyebrows. If he didn't look like he was giving the rest of the world a sardonic expression, he didn't look like himself.

Sarah dropped the cake off at the apartment and went back out to kill a little time before meeting Toby. She headed for her favorite cafe, and noticed a handful of kids hanging around outside the club further down the block. It wouldn't be open for hours yet, but maybe they were waiting for some special event. Maybe they even worked there – she remembered seeing this group a few times before, and her definition of 'kids' now included anyone under twenty-five, which was sometimes a cause for chagrin. She was only twenty-nine herself, for God's sake, but late teens and early twenty-somethings were just so immature sometimes. Or maybe that was just the ones she knew.

This group was what she'd heard referred to as 'scene kids'. They looked to her like goths with a broader color palette; Sarah herself had been goth in high school, for a while. She hadn't quite fit in with that clique though. The aesthetic appealed, but the music was only 'okay' in her book, and she'd never been quite as morbid as the others in her school. Then again, it was hard to be terribly gloomy when an 'imaginary' Goblin King haunted your dreams…

Chuckling at her own youth, Sarah went into the cafe and got some coffee and panini. She ate outside despite the crispness of the air, and the kids from down the block eventually wandered past as she was nearly finished. Sarah paid them little mind; they were quiet and respectful of other pedestrians. And in New York, a group of mixed-race kids who dressed like some kind of Victorian gypsies while dyeing their hair all shades of the rainbow just wasn't unusual enough to attract attention.

She did notice when one of them stopped near her. The tallest, a young black man with close-cropped maroon hair and a gold ring through his eyebrow, watched protectively as a slender girl approached Sarah. This little waif wore all black, the better to accentuate her pale skin and extraordinary hair. It fell halfway down her back and was extravagantly dyed with mingled shades of green, from emerald to forest with streaks a bright new-leaf shade. Sarah thought it must've been expensive as hell and a bitch to keep up with, but the effect was gorgeous.

The girl wore round mirrored sunglasses and dark plum lipstick, but her voice was perfectly polite. "Excuse me, do you happen to have a light?" she asked.

Why she picked Sarah was a question for another day, but as it so happened, Sarah was a social smoker. Her lighter was in her pocket, and she had to stand up to reach it. "Sure," she said, getting up. Living in the city, she'd learned never to hand over anything of hers, so she held the lighter out as the girl took out a clove and slipped it between her lips. Sarah flicked the lighter on, and the girl bent to the flame, her hand cupped around Sarah's but studiously not touching her.

Two strange things happened at once. The key around Sarah's neck pulsed with brief warmth, which she at first took to mean that Jareth was thinking of her. Or the Labyrinth itself was. The second strangeness canceled that out.

The girl glanced up at her as she drew away from the light, her eyes visible behind the mirrored lenses. And those eyes … were not human. Large, dark golden irises, almost no white, and the pupils were rectangular and horizontal. Like the eyes of a horse or a goat. Sarah could only blink while the girl said, "Thank you," and strolled away casually.

Now that she looked again, the group all looked just a tiny bit off. The tall young man was just a little too long in the leg for his proportions, one of the others had eyes spaced just a little too widely. And despite the typical scene kid fondness for piercings, none of these had any kind of steel on them. Their piercings were silver or gold. Oh my God, they're fae. There are fae in New York and I've seen them for months. What the hell?

The wild thought of chasing after them occurred to her, but her good sense quickly vetoed that. She had no idea what kind of fae they were, what they wanted, or what they could do. She also didn't know why the girl had revealed herself. Was it just acknowledgment, that she could sense fae magic around Sarah? Or was it some kind of threat? Little as she liked to be dependent on anyone, she'd have to ask Jareth.

At least she knew where the kids hung out, well enough to find them again as long as they weren't actively hiding from her. And she had the feeling that if they were, Jareth could find them regardless.

…

Toby came off the train with his overnight bag slung over his shoulder, scanning the crowd for her. He caught sight of Sarah as she moved toward him, and his grin lit up like the dawn. "Hey, Sare!" he called, and hurried to wrap her up in a big hug. In front of his friends, he might be too cool for hugs from family, but here he was only too happy to see her.

Sarah gave an exaggerated gasp and pretended to stagger. "Easy, Tobe!" she laughed. "I swear, you get bigger every time I see you. What's Karen feeding you, Miracle Grow?" The jokes helped her hide the pang in her heart. He was now about the age she'd been, when she'd … well, when she'd wished him away. Luckily for them both, Toby was a bit less dramatic. And he didn't have a pesky younger sibling.

As they headed for the subway and the gallery, he chattered happily about his art classes, and the girl he was trying to convince to go out with him, and Karen's latest attempt to be the next Martha Stewart. "Dad said absolutely positively no sous-vide machine for Christmas," Toby laughed.

"What about that super-secret project of yours?" Sarah asked while they both swayed with the motion of the subway car. Last time she'd been home, he had a big canvas in his room, carefully draped to foil prying eyes. That was only a month ago.

Toby shook his head. "Nope, still secret. You'll see it when it's done."

"Not even a hint?" she wheedled, curious. Toby had never been quite so secretive about his works-in-progress, but this was the first time he'd done a sizable watercolor, and she wanted to see it.

"Well … okay. Since it's you." Toby leaned toward her and whispered in her ear, in tones of strictest confidence, "I used paint."

"Tobe!" she laughed, and punched his shoulder.

He wasn't going to give in, though, and changed the subject instead. "Hey, you remember those two guys who were giving me a hard time?"

Sarah growled. Two of the seniors had decided to make Toby's life hell, picking on him about his interest in art and making snide remarks implying he was gay. Which even Toby said wasn't a bad thing, it just wasn't true. "I swear, if Dad or Karen doesn't go to the administration and sort that shi – I mean, that crap out, I'll do it."

"Nah, you already fixed it," Toby laughed. "Y'know I keep that photo of us at Six Flags in my locker, right? Well, Carl saw it and started trying to give me grief. Wanted to know who the girl is, if I'd photoshopped it, 'cause she's way too hot for me." He wrinkled his nose.

She just rolled her eyes. "Oh, great."

"So I told him that was my sister, and showed him the pics in my phone to back it up. And Rafe and Laquanda were nearby, so they backed me up too. And Laquanda told Carl you'd kick his ass if he didn't shut his stupid mouth, because she'd seen you do it before. And Rafe said you were a total MILF except you didn't have kids." Toby blushed. "Uh, that means, well … never mind."

"I know what a MILF is, Toby," Sarah said, managing not to snicker. "Tell Rafe I said thanks. So they're gonna leave you alone because you have a hot sister?"

"A hot butt-kicking sister," Toby replied. "Anyway, so what's new in your life, Sare?"

That was a question she'd just as soon not answer. Luckily, they arrived at their stop, which was enough to stall him. Toby really wanted to see this exhibit, and she trailed after him as he drank in each painting. Afterwards at Reddi-Arts, she splurged on the fancy sable-hair brushes he coveted, and Toby spent his allowance on paints.

Heading back to the subway after they stopped to pick up Chinese, he said, "I notice you never answered me about what's new in your life. Got a new boyfriend?"

"Toby," Sarah sighed, rolling her eyes.

"Girlfriend?" he asked, with a comical waggle of his brows.

She elbowed him. "Not since college. Too much drama, there. Not that guys aren't dramatic, but it's a whole lot easier to deal with guy-drama. Okay, fine, Mr. Nosy. Yes, there is a new guy in my life. Kinda new. I've known him for a while. Us being … well, us dating, that part's new."

"Okay," Toby said, much more casual than he usually was when discussing Sarah's boyfriends. He proved it a lie in the next breath by saying, "I'm gonna need his full name, date of birth, and social security number. Once the background check's complete he can turn in his application and interview for the job."

"Toby!" Sarah yelped, but there was laughter in it. He'd never made a secret of disliking Barton, or anyone else she'd dated. Most of those were brief, anyway. "Toby, not even Dad is that paranoid. Calm down. I like this one – God help me."

"Well you defended him, so that's kind of a first," Toby remarked. She elbowed him again. "When do I meet the guy? Also, name? Or is he like a CIA agent or something?"

"I'm afraid you won't be meeting Mr. Kingsley any time soon," Sarah said. "He travels a lot. It's gonna be hard enough making it work with just the two of us. I don't want to intrude on my time with my favorite brother."

"I'm your only brother," he said automatically. And just when Sarah was congratulating herself on getting good at this, Toby sighed. "I just really wish I could meet the guy."

"Don't say that!" she said, too hastily. Sarah tried to backtrack; it should only work if she said it, anyway. All that 'certain powers' business. "I'm sure you'll meet him eventually, Tobe, but this is still kinda early days. And … it's gonna be difficult with scheduling. I promise you, he's not a creep or an asshole. Well, just enough of an asshole to keep things interesting."

"Yeah, he's gotta be on your level," Toby interjected, and for that she chipped his ankle.

"Besides, you'll like him. He's definitely not normal." Sarah congratulated herself on that timing; they'd ridden the rest of the way back to her building, and getting indoors with packages and food required concentration enough that he couldn't immediately question her.

She managed, for the rest of the weekend, to keep leading Toby away from the topic of what he quickly dubbed "The Mysterious Mr. Kingsley." She didn't want to say Jareth's first name unless it sparked a memory. But Sarah was under no illusions; Toby wasn't giving up, and that meant that sooner or later she'd have to introduce him.

Sunday afternoon, Sarah went back to the house with Toby, and they all enjoyed a nice sit-down family dinner. To her great relief, Toby didn't mention her new boyfriend to Dad or Karen, and for once the latter wasn't fretting about her becoming an old maid. Instead she was able to tell them an edited version of Lucy's adventures, hyping up the little girl's surprising return just when everyone thought the worst.

"I always knew you were going to change people's lives for the better," Karen said with a smile. Sarah blushed a little; her relationship with her stepmother had often been stormy, but she couldn't deny that Karen loved her. Or that, once she'd grown up enough to see such things, Karen had been more a mother to her than Linda ever was.

Sarah rode the late train home Sunday night and fell into bed exhausted. Tomorrow the work week started all over again.