11. Empty
He did not reply. She turned and looked at him—his face was blank, and he kept his eyes on the fire, not meeting her gaze.
"Why is that?" Her voice sounded thin and fragile, and suddenly she was aware of just how tired she was, how numb and exhausted. "I mean, I know I made the bargain and everything, but really—how could this happen? I was an idiot at fifteen; I hardly knew what I was doing until I did it. I couldn't have planned my way out of paper bag. How could I be so powerful then, powerful enough to stand against you, and now be so…" she stopped, swallowing against the lump that was forming in her throat. There was a tightness in her chest, and she sensed with growing anxiety she was losing her grip on the conversation. She was no longer sure what she was trying to do—was she still just digging for information or was she after something else?
She did not expect him to answer, but after a moment he did. "There were rules," he said softly, still avoiding her eyes. It was hard to read the tone of his voice. Pensive? Apologetic? "Traditions that had the be followed, customs observed. Laws obeyed."
"I never took you for someone big on rules and laws," she said, unable to prevent a touch of contempt from slipping into her voice.
He looked up at her, frowning. "As usual, there is much you do not understand," he said sharply. He leaned against the back of the chair, draping his arms sullenly over the armrests. "The bargain is not the only magic capable of binding."
That was interesting. She tried very hard to keep the flicker of excitement off her face as she considered what she could say next to needle him into making another revelation.
"Then I guess if it weren't for that," she said, lowering her voice accusingly. "Little fifteen-year-old me wouldn't have stood a chance. You wouldn't even have bothered taking Toby or making me run your Labyrinth; you'd have just flown in through my bedroom window and taken me."
His expression had turned aloof and he continued to stare into the flames, refusing to meet her eyes. He was ignoring her, she thought, the same way he would a whining, petulant child. Her cheeks flushed with shame, then anger. A distant warning bell sounded in her head, and the more sensible part of herself whispered to her that she should take care, that it would be dangerous to provoke him too _, but she narrowed her eyes and ignored it. What right did he have to dismiss her like that?
"And what would you have done with me?" she continued indignantly, her voice rising.
He did not answer; his face was frozen. The only response to her question that she could detect was a slight, arrogant lift of the chin, which infuriated her. As the anger swelled in her chest, a plaintive voice that she was ashamed to own as part of herself began pleading with her that he was being nice for once, actually nice, and she was so tired. Shouldn't she just leave it alone?
For a moment, she was tempted to listen, but another glance at his imperious expression and her anger came surging back. She didn't care about what he thought or what he might do, she was going to make him answer.
"Well? What would you have done with me if you could have gotten your claws into me back then? Would you have even let me grow up before you—"
"I would," he snapped suddenly without turning to look at her, sounding like he was speaking through gritted teeth, "have made you the same generous offer that I made you after your run; that I made you two weeks ago." He turned to face her, his voice softening. "That I will make you even now."
His eyes bored into hers, his face no longer aloof but warm and open. She looked away.
"Very tempting," she said, trying to conceal her discomfort with sarcasm.
"Isn't it, Sarah?" His voice had turned silky, seductive. "You could do whatever you liked, have anything you desired."
At least that was one trap she could see coming. She glared at him. "In exchange for what—the privilege of being beholden to you for the rest of my life? Of being ruled by you?"
His mouth twisted. "Don't be childish."
She bristled. "Oh, please. We both know that that's what it would be—only an idiot, a young, inexperienced, stupid little girl could have ever believed that she was just as powerful as you." The corners of her eyes were prickling and she blinked quickly as she continued. "No matter what you say, you just want me under your thumb."
"Is that really so detestable to you?" he asked, his voice bitter.
"Yes!" she said hotly.
"Even though I have promised to give you everything you could ever want?" he asked. His expression had softened, and the fervent energy in his voice was not anger any longer, but something else. "Even if I swore it by my life and my kingdom and bound myself to whatever oath you devised?"
She couldn't look at him anymore, not while he had that hungry, expectant look in his eyes. The look that could turn so, so quickly into rage. She turned to look at the fire, wracking her mind for words that could make him understand, hoping on some level that if he did then everything would sort itself out somehow and be alright. "Jareth," she said softly, almost kindly. "The things I want most you could never give me."
He said did not reply. She sat anxiously in the slowly cooling bath, waiting for him to react, but he said nothing. A tense silence stretched out between them, and as it went on and on it seemed to Sarah that the air around them was growing thick and heavy, harder to breath. She had to stop herself from trying to gulp it down, and concentrated on taking slow, even breaths. She didn't dare look up at the Goblin King for fear of what she might see in his face. Her anger was waning, fear creeping up her spine in its place. She wrapped her arms around herself to keep from shivering.
"I never asked for this," she said, hating the small, helpless way the words sounded in her ears.
"Yes, I know," he said, cruel and sarcastic. She could hear the sneer in his voice. "It's not fair, is it?"
"Stop it!" God, she was such an idiot—as if anything she could say would make the slightest bit of difference to him. She hadn't even managed to learn anything that would make this complete travesty of an evening worthwhile. She blinked back tears as she kept her eyes stubbornly fixed on the fire, determined not to let him see how much she had let him get to her. It had almost burned down completely; only the one blackened, shriveled log remained intact amidst the bed of snowy white ashes. Its underside glowed faintly as it was licked from beneath by tiny, almost transparent little flames.
"You complain about fairness to me," he said suddenly, and Sarah flinched at the anger in his voice. "I have exhausted my strength, stretched the limits of my power beyond what anyone ever thought possible—you have no concept of what I have risked! I offer you your dreams, your every desire, I pour out my heart to you and you dare to sit there and throw it back in my face as though it meant nothing!"
"Oh, please!" she spat, hurling the words at him. "Get over yourself. You might have convinced yourself that you love me, but all you really care about is yourself!" She could not stop the tears now, they were streaming down her face, but she pressed on, the words seeming to tumble out of her mouth of their own accord. "If you felt anythingfor me, anything real, if you actually gave a damn about what I wanted, I wouldn't even be here!"
His eyes had narrowed to thin, angry slits, the line of his mouth had stiffened, becoming set and cold. She was already terrified of what the consequences of her outburst would be, already wondering how he would make her feel the pain she was inflicting on him, but it was already too late, and anyway she could not stop. She gestured at the tub, at her wracked and aching body. "Look at what you've done to me! You want me to love you? How can I? Even if I did care about you, which I don't, how could I ever possibly trust you enough to love you? You're a monster!"
As those words left her mouth his eyes widened and his face slackened before freezing in an unreadable expression. He no longer seemed to be looking at her, or at anything in particular. As she clutched the side of the tub so hard her knuckles ached, waiting in fearful anticipation for his reaction, that sniveling voice rose up inside her again, louder than before, clamoring her to take it back, to apologize, to plead. To say or do anything that would convince him not to do whatever he must be thinking about doing. She choked back a sob and turned away, shrinking back against the tub and covering her tear-streaked face with shaking hands, her skin crawling with the certainty that any second she would feel his hands on her, yanking her out of the bath.
Seconds ticked by as she sat there, trembling. A minute passed, then another. Nothing happened.
Sarah lifted her hands cautiously and looked up. Startled, she half rose in the tub—the chair was empty. She turned, quickly scanning the room, but could not see him anywhere. The only sounds in the room were the sloshing and dripping of the bathwater as she moved. He was gone.
She was alone.
Sarah shivered; the air in the room was cold on her wet skin. She saw that the last log in the fire had finally collapsed into pale red embers that shimmered and glowed weakly in the dim light.
When she moved to duck back under the water for warmth, she nearly jumped out of her skin. Something had appeared by the end of the tub, by her feet—a tall, thin stand made of bronze. Hanging on it was a folded length of white cloth—a towel? Beside it was a robe made of some kind of thin, dark material.
Cautiously, still shivering, with one more glance around the room to make sure she was alone, she stood, peeled off her wet clothes, wrapped the heavy woven cloth around herself, and stepped out of the tub, and winced. The afterglow from the spell he had cast on her had faded, and her limbs ached keenly, the same way they did after a hard workout or a long night tearing down a set, but more intense. She moved slowly, drying herself before the fire, then taking the robe—it was buttery smooth under her pruned fingers, and she guessed it was silk—and wrapping it around her body, catching her wet hair up in the towel and winding it into a turban on top of her head. She rolled up the sleeves of the robe before leaning over the tub and carefully wringing the water from her t-shirt and leggings and hanging them on the bronze stand, which she moved closer to the fire.
She went about these small necessary tasks in a dreamlike haze that she attributed to her exhaustion, completing each slowly and methodically before moving to the next. When she had finished, she turned to the chair where the Goblin King had been sitting. She looked around for the book he had been reading, but did not see it anywhere. Wherever he had gone, he must have brought it with him.
She shrugged mentally before curling up in the chair, tucking her feet underneath her and arranging the robe so it covered her completely, then wrapped her arms around herself and tucked her head into one of the wings, staring into the dying fire. She should have felt triumphant. She'd driven him off! He'd retreated from his own bedroom and left her in peace. And, now that her fear had passed, she remembered that even if he did want to hurt her, he wouldn't be able to. But strangely, she did not feel as though she'd won anything. In her belly, where she should have felt the warmth of pride, of satisfaction, there was instead an emptiness, a hollow, cold feeling that leeched the warmth from her skin and drained her of energy.
Her mind kept returning to the expression she had seen on his face before he had vanished—had his eyes widened in anger or surprise? Had there been a look of sudden realization, even hurt, that had flashed across his otherworldly features before his face had gone so carefully blank? Sarah stared at the heap dying embers, unable to shake the nagging feeling that she had done something wrong and too utterly drained to question it. Burrowing deeper into the soft velvet upholstery, tucking her feet more tightly underneath her, she sighed heavily and settled for ignoring it. It was not difficult; she could not remember ever feeling so tired, and despite the chill in the room it was not long until her eyelids grew so heavy that she could no longer keep them open. Almost immediately after she closed her eyes she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep and when she finally woke the following evening she was in her own bed, back in her apartment, alone.