No, no, of course you shouldn't be worried about this latest turn of events, Mizumi. After the spell that I put on Sarah, she'll never remember anything about Jareth or his wretched Labyrinth, so there's no reason for your harsh words. I've said this many times before in my past letters (as I'm sure that you'll be quick to point out to me), but I can't say that I didn't see this coming.

Although, much like you, I am also at a complete loss as to how he managed to bypass the laws (laws that he and his cursed family put into place, no less!) that prevent our kind from going Aboveworld. But, sitting back and wondering isn't going to help us, because he somehow found a way.

My dearest Mizumi, please also note that there is also one more thing that I put into the spell and it's this: if Jareth spends too much time around Sarah and then for some reason, the spell starts to break apart… well, let's just say that it'll make Jareth wish he were dead.

The contents of the second letter that Mizumi showed him made him clench the paper in his fists in anger. Of course, the woman wasn't around. As soon as she'd given Jareth the letter, she'd retired, claiming that she'd had a headache, and had left her daughters to watch over the Goblin King until he left.

She obviously had known what was going to happen all along, but whoever this H-person was, they were either exceptionally powerful in more than just their spell-casting abilities, or they'd done something to get into Mizumi's permanent good graces. Mizumi might fear what Jareth would do to her if she didn't help him to find Sarah, but she wasn't going to make this easy on him.

But of course, if Mizumi had just told Jareth who her mysterious friend was, Jareth would have thought that it was an outright lie and wouldn't have believed her.

"I will take my leave now," Jareth told Mulin and Drumlin before he turned around and left her throne room. He then teleported himself back to his study, where Amael, Pyrael, and Moppet were pouring over thick tomes.

"Well?" Pyrael asked when her baby brother appeared in the room.

"She gave me another letter, and then promptly claimed a headache and left," Jareth said. He handed the letter over to his mother. "They also signed off with another H. Do you think that I's enough of a hint to cross some names off from the list of possible suspects?" He'd seen the two lists that his mother come up with: one of literally everybody in the Underworld who was powerful enough to do something like this, and the other of anybody who might have enough motive to want to do something like this. From those two lists, they'd come up with a third, slightly shorter, list of people who'd appeared on both lists.

"Just because they use a single letter to sign off doesn't really mean anything," Pyrael pointed out. "H could stand for literally anything. Like… 'hungry, horny hippos who hanker for haute hats'." Amael, Jareth, and Moppet gave Pyrael blank stares.

"Thank you Dr. Seuss," Moppet said dryly. "But I do agree that your sister has a point. We shouldn't cross people off the list just because they don't have an H in their name."

"Alright, but there's still a lot of people on that list," Amael said with an annoyed sigh.

"I think that the next course of action would be for Pyrael and Amael to go and talk to everybody on the list about Sarah's disappearance," Moppet said. "It would be a good way to cross off some of the names, and maybe somebody might know something that we don't."

"Yes, that's perfect, dear," Amael said. "We need to think like human police officers and question literally everybody."

"I should be out there, though!" Jareth said in a rather whiny way.

"No, I think that Moppet is right; it should be us," Pyrael said quickly. "You're too hot-headed and too angry about Sarah's disappearance to be talking to the suspects. You should stay here with Moppet and continue to try and find out what that seal is."

A side-effect of making the temperature under the glass dome warmer was that the mist vanished. Not like the view was much better now that it was gone; it was still the same giant vines with creepy flowers curling around broken statues and pots. But now, Sarah could see clear to the other side of the dome, where everything just abruptly ended. It looked like the entire thing was maybe a mile long.

The crow came and landed on the broken arm of a cupid statue not far from where Sarah was sitting. It opened its mouth, but instead of a loud caw, it simply said "Hello."

"Um, hello," Sarah said without batting an eyelash.

"It is much warmer here now," the crow said. "And it's a lot easier to see now that that creepy mist is gone, too."

"It was a bit creepy, wasn't it?" Sarah said. "I'm Sarah Williams."

"I know," the crow said. "But I'm Naba, anyway."

"Where are we?"

"It's hard to say the exact specifics, but I think that we're in Helviir's castle."

"Who's Helvirr?" Sarah asked with a frown.

"Obviously Helviir the Troll King," Naba said as if it was the most obvious thing in the entire universe. Naba paused and shifted from foot to foot uneasily. "But, you probably wouldn't have known that any way."

"I don't know why I would have," Sarah said simply. "Why does this Troll King keep women under glass domes?"

"He normally doesn't," Naba said quickly. "It's not very nice, after all."

"No, I can't say that it is," Sarah agreed. "And doubly so since I'm the one that he is currently keeping under a glass dome."

"Well, you're not," Naba said. "Under a glass dome, I mean." Sarah reached up and tapped her knuckles on the glass that surrounded them.

"If this isn't glass, then what is it?"

"I never said that it wasn't glass, just not a dome," Naba said.

"Alright then, what is it?"

"It's a glass sphere."

"Oh, big fucking difference," Sarah said with a roll of her eyes. They were silent for a moment. "So, who is this Helviir the Troll King anyway? I mean, aside from the obvious 'Troll King' part." Another roll of her eyes.

"There's not much that I can say about him," Naba said. "The only way that I know him is that he turned me into a crow and then put me in here."

"How long ago?"

"Eh, it's hard to say," Naba said. If he'd had shoulders, he would have shrugged them. "It's easy to lose track of time in here."

"What were you before you were turned into a crow?"

"An Elf."

"Oh, like a Fae?"

"Hardly," Naba said; he acted as if it was an insult just to be compared to the Fae. "Elves are completely different from the Fae."

"Oh yeah? Like how?"

"For starters, we aren't prone to break out in spontaneous acts of sparkling at any given moment. We're also more connected with the earth. While the Fae might be content to make massive kingdoms for themselves, the Elves have been content to remain in the same forests that we have lived in for millenia." Sarah thought that he sounded a bit like Native Americans, but bit her tongue and didn't say anything, least Naba become insulted by that, too.

"You know, there are a lot of stories about how a beautiful princess comes along and gives a kiss to somebody who's been turned into an animal," Sarah said after a moment of silence.

"As lovely as it would be to have you kiss me, Sarah, I'm afraid that this isn't that kind of a spell," Naba said evenly.

"Oh," Sarah said lamely. Her eyes darted all over the sphere before they landed back on the crow. "Why didn't you talk to me before?"

"Because there are a lot of others who come through here. At first, I tried to talk to them, only to prove that they were all complete morons. After a while, I just stopped caring; they either die in here, or Helviir takes them out and I never see them again."

"So what changed your mind about me?"

"You obviously have a very solid grasp of magic."

"Is that what it is?" Sarah asked as she turned her hand over. "I don't know. I just had a hazy memory of a woman that I don't know telling me to focus on the task at hand." Naba let out a loud caw and flew closer to Sarah. He landed on the ground next to her and looked up at her with one dark, beady eye.

"That's a real nasty spell on your memories, Sarah," Naba said after a while. "And it's got Helviir's signature all over it. Whatever you did, it must have pissed him off pretty good."

"I suppose that I'm glad that I don't remember it," Sarah said as she pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her knees. "Although, why would somebody make me forget everything, and then lock me away?"

"Fair point," Naba said as he hopped from foot to foot. "As far as I can tell, though, you've been in the Underworld for… maybe a month? Probably more? But you're human."

"A month?" Sarah asked with wide eyes. "Are you sure?"

"Give or take a couple of days, but yes. I'm sure."

"I just…" Sarah ran a frustrated hand through her hair. "I just wish that I could remember why I was even here in the first place. I keep getting these… I don't know how to describe it? Flashes? Of people. A lady with red hair, an older lady, and then a man. And then there's this… little talking fox… thing. It seems like it would be something on like… Sesame Street or something, but I think that I know the fox?"

"Sounds like a kitsune," Naba said. "Trickster fox spirits who can also be exceptionally wise and loyal friends. They normally live more with the Elves in the forests, so I don't know who you'd be hanging around in order to know a kitsune."

"I wish I could tell you," Sarah said.

"They are going to find out! Jareth and his mother are already on your trail!" Mizumi hissed.

"I'm sorry, but isn't this exactly what you wanted?" Helviir said slowly. He was exceptionally tall, easily 8-feet in height. His skin was a garish, pea soup shade of green, and covered in warts and boils. His nose looked like he'd been in several fights with brick walls and was nearly flattened against his face as well as being crooked. His lower jaw protruded several inches beyond his upper lip to reveal yellowing teeth, and two, thick tusks that grew from his mandible and stopped just before his nose.

Despite Helviir's garish appearance, he was dressed in a fine, silk shirt and pants, leather boots and gloves, and a feather cape was held around his neck with an emerald clasp.

"I wanted for Jareth to forget about Sarah and love me!" Mizumi yelled with tears in her eyes. "And this entire time, Jareth has done absolutly nothing but pine after Sarah! And after he's had her within his grasp, he seems more determined than ever to get her back!"

"In case you hadn't noticed, Mizumi, but the Fae and Trolls are not exactly on good terms," Helviir said in an even tone. His voice was deep, but not overly gruff, like one would almost expect his voice to sound like. "The Goblin King and his equally foolish mother will never even think to look into the Troll Kingdom."

"Amael is no fool, Helviir," Mizumi said, her voice low. "And you'd be a fool to underestimate her."

"Even if they come here, then what? It's not exactly like I'm keeping Jareth's little human locked up in a tower or in a dungeon. They can search my castle all that they like…" Helviir threw his arms out to gesture all around him. "Hell, they can search the entire Troll Kingdom for all that I care! Because they'll never find Sarah. And when Jareth is grieving for his lost love, that's when you'll move in to comfort him. Completely at a loss for what to do, Jareth will easily bend to your whims, Mizumi. While I will admit that Jareth first going to the Aboveworld to get the girl, and then him brining her here were things that I had not exactly expected, the end result is much better than what I would have ever imagined."

"And the girl? What would you do with her?"

"Jareth might claim that he loves the stupid woman, but I think that we all really know why he wanted her."

"But trolls don't have the fertility problems that Fae do," Mizumi said slowly. "Why do you want her?"

"Just because I don't have any problems impregnating women doesn't mean that I want my bride to be a troll. After all, I am a quarter Fae. The Troll Kingdom ended up being worse off than even the Goblin Kingdom, because not even Amael's and Rielyr's wretched children wanted anything to do with us. We were left to wallow in our own filth, to govern ourselves. Well, look at what their poor decision-making has brought them?" Helviir once again gestured to all that was around him. "I have plans to topple the Fae Kingdom, and it starts with taking down Jareth."

Mizumi looked rather shocked and horrified at this revelation. "You are not going to harm Jareth!" she whispered as she wrapped her arms around herself.

"Oh, Mizumi, I'll let you have your fun, first. After all, my great plan involves you having Jareth's heir. But after your baby will be born, then I'm afraid that the Goblin King will just become a redundancy and will need to be removed as soon as possible."

Mizumi's look of horror quickly solidified into a look of complete disinterest. "So long as you don't hurt our child, then I will be happy to go along with your plans, Helviir," she said evenly. "If that's all, I have a lot of business that I need to attend to." Helviir gave the Fae a strange look.

"You came here of your own free will; I did not summon you."

"Then I will not over-stay my welcome, then," Mizumi said smoothly. She turned around and sashayed out from Helviir's castle until she could transport herself back to her own castle. There, she sunk down onto her throne and conjured up a crystal to watch Jareth. But, her hand trembled too much and she dropped it onto the ground, where it shattered into a million pieces. "FUCK!"

"This doesn't make any sense," Moppet complained as she looked down at the page of the thick tome that was open in front of her. Depicted on the page, were family seal after family seal, but none of them resembled the seal on the letters that Jareth had taken from Mizumi. "We've looked through all of these books twice already and have yet to find it. Why do you think that looking through them a third time will yield different results?"

"Because if I don't have anything to do, then I'm probably going to kill that snake Mizumi," Jareth growled. He let out a roar of frustration and swept all of the books off the table with an angry wave of his hand. Moppet, who had been looking at a book, just sat back in her chair and gave Jareth a look of pure annoyance.

"If this is how you act when you're angry, I'm honestly really glad that you couldn't compel me to love you," Moppet said dryly. "All things considered, I mean."

"I don't think that you really understand the situation, Moppet," Jareth said through clenched teeth.

"I think that I understand everything perfectly fine." She crossed her arms over her chest and gave Jareth an expectant look. Jareth sunk into his chair and buried his head in his hands.

"I was so very close," he groaned. "She didn't even remember me, and yet, she was still willing to forgive what little that she did because she really felt something for me. And then… And then…"

"Okay, you know what, I think that it's time to take a break," Moppet said quickly as she jumped to her feet. "When's the last time that you slept?"

"If I sleep, then I might wake up only to find out that none of this was ever real."

"None of this?" Moppet asked as she gestured to the books that Jareth had thrown onto the floor. "Or none of Sarah?"

"It would be a dream come true if I woke up with Sarah in my arms again," Jareth said lowly.

"Well, Sarah is a very lucky girl because you won't leave a single stone unturned in the entire Underworld until you've found her," Moppet said. "But you're letting your emotions control your judgment, and that's going to lead to mistakes. Four hours of rest, that's all that I'm asking, Jareth." She tugged on his arm and Jareth let the ablation lead him to his bedroom. "Four hours."

"Yes, alright," Jareth said. "I'll have four hours to pretend like when I open my eyes, this will all have just been a really horrible dream."

"Yes, just a nightmare."

"I haven't been able to do much magic in this form," Naba said as he flew ahead of Sarah. She was walking rather aimlessly around their prison. "Crows have a little bit of magic, but not as much as say, a raven or an owl."

"I didn't know that birds had magical power."

"Most don't, but there are a few that have much. Eagles also have power, but you usually don't see them too much associated with magic."

"And things like bears and wolves?"

"Both highly magical creatures," Naba said. "Coyotes, snakes, cats… certain insects."

"Okay, so do these creatures have magical abilities because we believe that they do, or do we believe that they have magical abilities because they actually do?" Sarah asked. Naba let out a sound that was part laugh, part caw.

"Does art imitate life or does life imitate art?" Naba asked. Sarah paused briefly before she looked over to the crow, who had landed on the neck of a decapitated, naked cherub. "Helviir might have taken away most of my powers when he turned me into a bird, but he didn't take away any of my memories."

"What do you mean?" Sarah asked. Naba flew closer to where Sarah stood and landed on the remains of a pot.

"It means that he was a fool to put a powerful Elf who does not have the ability to cast magic, but remembers everything, in a prison with a human who is also exceptionally powerful, but simply lacks training."

"Oh, I'm not powerful," Sarah protested meekly. "I didn't even know what I was doing."

"Sarah, you made this place into a summer oasis and cast away the mist within two hours," Naba told her quickly. "Most magic-users would have to be ten-times your age before they could do a weather spell like that this quickly."

"I still didn't know what I was doing. I only thought that I'd like to maybe not be completely freezing anymore, and then it got warmer and the mist went away."

"Sarah," Naba said sternly. "I have a plan in mind. And that plan includes me teaching you everything that I know in the shortest amount of time possible. We are going to make Helviir regret taking us captive."