That dinner, Sarah would always remember with incredulous wonder, was magnificent. The food was excellent; every one of the dishes was seasoned to perfection and delicious. The conversation flowed smoothly, her father delighted at Jareth's knowledge of the business world, and Karen impressed at his commentary of various charity events in the past few months and what causes were suitable. Toby, he kept interested, by throwing in titbits about his kingdom and the goblins. Sarah was surprised to learn that the past two years had been abundant harvests and the preparation for the coming winter, which looked to be an uncommonly harsh one. How various trade negotiations worked with other kingdoms, and how he disliked the High King's trade ambassadors and their overbearing and frankly insidious manner in trying to trap him into disastrous contracts. Yet he kept it light and interesting, and even had her laughing at several anecdotes he could only know if he had hung around watching daytime television. They retired to the living room for coffee and Jareth and her father sat discussing the latest football games.
Karen gestured to Sarah and Toby to help her and she sent Toby out with the tray of biscuits and cakes.
"That young man of yours," she said and leaned against the counter as she waited for the coffee machine to do its magic, "is what the royal families of the world dreamed when they trained their princes."
"It's hard not to like him when he's like this," Sarah smiled.
"I imagine his temper when thwarted is legendary?" Karen murmured.
"More petty and nasty, but he gets the point across," Sarah said dryly.
"Is he violent?"
"He's, what? Karen, what kind of question is that?"
"One I have been pondering if he seems as attached to you as you seem to be him. Men of such passion are sometimes twisted in their outlet of their frustration."
Sarah snorted dismissively at that.
"We had possibly the biggest fight any two people could get into when I was fifteen. He never once touched me. I gave as good as I got in the yelling and snarky remark department and we have recently settled on a truce. Now we tend towards more subtle digs, but we have an understanding. I promise you, he would die before he harmed a single hair on my head."
"And you?" Karen whispered. "Will you tire of him after a few years and another man catches your eye like your mother?"
Sarah felt the world around her turn to rage and ice.
"That was below the belt," she coldly over enunciated each word. "The answer is never." She all but snarled at her stepmother, unaware of the rising magic crackling around her, "If you ever, ever compare me to my mother in such a fashion again, I will grant the goblins free range on your bedroom so that you'll never find a matching shoe or clean outfit again."
"Sarah," Jareth comfortingly put his arm around her shoulders and she gave a gasp as she felt him draw the magic in the air. "Solidify its form," he ordered as he hovered the glowing orb of magic before her.
She raised her hands and cupped them over his.
"All rage and sorrow and fury and bile, be trapped and bound in a crystal."
An orb exactly like the ones he formed so easily dropped into his hand. It vanished as he tucked it away with a twist of his wrist.
He then turned to Karen, her face drawn and pale at the wildness of the magic.
"I will not ask what the altercation was tonight, but this shall be reviewed later. Sarah is too young in her magic to deal with it well, and the Wizard has asked that I allow her the consequences of her actions so she might learn discipline and control. We shall return to the front parlour. I shall send Toby to assist you."
Sarah let Jareth guide her back to the couch and sat beside him, her mind sparking fury and sorrow and her hands shook. She was hardly aware of the conversation, only its tone. Jareth kept it light, entertaining, and skilfully away from her. She was not sure how long she had been out of it, and if that disassociation had been his doing, but there was a sensation like a soap bubble popping and the world about her became ordinary and clear once more. She heard the end of her father's favourite drunken pitcher joke and smiled.
The rest of the evening passed smoothly, though she carefully avoided Karen. It was nearly ten by the time they all gathered in the hall to say their farewells. Karen hung back with a rather plastic smile on her face as Robert heartily showed Jareth the door. Sarah slipped out to the sidewalk in front of the house with him and he gathered her in a hug.
"We need to talk, tonight, call me through the mirror in an hour."
She gave him a tight squeeze, burying her face in the ruffles of his shirt, then released him. He kissed her hand then walked off; glancing back every so often until he turned into the next street and the neighbour's trees hid him from view.
.
Sarah returned inside and found Karen shooing a drooping Toby up to bed. He father was waiting just inside as she closed the door.
"So, now you've met the Goblin King." Sarah breathed out a long sigh of relief; no one had been bogged, which had been her chief worry.
"He's a charming fellow, and his magic affects the mind and senses like Howell's affects the physical world," Robert remarked a touch cautiously.
"Oh, he can do anything he wishes with his magic," Sarah corrected him. "I think he was as nervous as you were all tonight, so he just subtly twisted it all in his favour."
"Yes," Robert frowned, recollecting his first impression and comparing it to his last. "He is well educated, knowledgeable and exceedingly skilled with dealing with people. I'd have him as my lead salesman if he'd deign to take the job, and we'd both benefit."
"And when you consider that he is doing that in a foreign culture, in what is probably his tenth language and amongst an alien people…" Sarah trailed off with a slightly pleased smirk.
Robert's face twisted with consternation.
"We spoke of his kingdom, but all he ever did was to relate it to what we understood," he whispered with widening eyes. "Damn, I'd have him running the company!"
"He's a King, dad," Sarah reminded him, "he's kind of on the top of upper management."
Robert nodded wryly at that.
She shut her bedroom door after she returned from her shower and changed into practical jeans and a shirt with comfortable sneakers. She waited until her father shut off the landing lights then crept across to the mirror and called.
"Jareth, I need you."
She blinked as she recognised where he stood. The now mowed yard behind Howl's demolished house. She stepped through as he beckoned and he smiled.
"Close the doorway behind you, it is this neglected practice the Wizard dislikes."
She turned to it, feeling the same odd tingle in the air as Calcifer's door.
"How?"
"Words, the same way you opened it," he prompted.
She turned around and concentrated, ordering the words in her mind before she spoke them. To her shock, the sensation vanished. Sarah waved her fingers through the air uncertainly.
"You've learned to focus your thoughts! Keep practising that!"
She spun around; she hadn't seen Howl there beside Jareth. The Goblin King was still dressed to the nines, and Howl wore a simple belted tunic over his breeches and boots.
Jareth then twisted his hand and held a crystal out for Howl to see.
"She lost control of her magic this evening, and I condensed it and guided her to seal it. Ignoring a hurt is never the solution. I don't know the human way of taming wild magic, and dissipating it, however it would be best to go over that before we retire."
Howl took the bauble in his fingers and examined it with steadily rising eyebrows.
"This is not wild magic, it's stored grief. Be glad Old Blueface is not here, or he'd do just about anything to trick you into giving it to him to eat. It'd give him the strength to live for decades."
"As long as the grief has been held," Jareth reasoned and plucked the orb from his hand.
Sarah clenched her fists nervously, not liking the way this was going.
"Tell me what happened, every word as true as you can recall," Howl prompted.
No. Not at all. She shifted her feet on the short grass, drinking in the smell of late summer. After a few breathing exercises to calm herself, she swallowed hard. Decidedly not looking at Jareth, Sarah did as Howl asked.
Her voice was almost lost in the quiet of the summer night. The weather was completely wrong for the torrential emotions within her; it should be a downpour.
"Your mother left your father when you were young, and you also resent your stepmother for her inadvertent replacement of her in your father's life," Howl summarised.
"Inadvertent! My mother might have gone off with Jeremy, but Karen saw an opportunity and took it, scheming cow."
"Do you not wish for your father's happiness?"
Sarah opened her mouth to retort then shut it. That was a very unfair question. She clenched her fists. She knew better that to voice that opinion around Jareth.
"It's not that I don't, its, its just mom and dad had a good thing. Us. We were happy. Then everything broke and, mom and Jeremy are happy and dad and Karen are happy, but me? Why do I have to live with all the negative consequences? Why can't they love me?"
She hadn't realised she was crying until Jareth brushed her tears away with his thumbs. He collected her in a hug. She turned her head to cry into the sleeve of her shirt, not wanting to get the mess on his very fancy clothes. She managed to gather herself quickly, the sheer embarrassment of having Howl as an audience short-circuited her crying jag. She was glad it was dark. Crying made her eyes puffy and her nose red. She ducked out of Jareth's arms, but squeezed his hand in thanks as she stepped back, mopping the moisture from her eyes.
"I am the last to offer family advice," Howl said quietly. "My uncle all but raised me after my father passed away and my mother couldn't handle my wild ways or my magic. I will be the first to say I resented them all, so in this I understand. Yet, it is clear you are closer than I ever was to my own family, even your stepmother whom you dislike."
Sarah cast a sheepish glance at Jareth then. He just smirked broadly at her.
"That's only because of him," she felt her cheeks burn and lifted a finger to point at the smug fae.
"The wish away, yes, to learn the value of what you have and the trial to face who you are as a person. A cutthroat way to learn, but effective if successful," Howl mused.
"See, even Howl thinks it a bit much," Sarah sniffed at Jareth.
"Oh no, I think it was exactly what you needed," Howl contradicted her. "Yet, while the trial taught you what it was you had, it didn't deal with what you had lost."
Sarah hugged her arms about herself, she did not want to deal with that.