Chapter Six

They did not stay in the clearing long after Jareth had healed her, but they did not go far before he declared they would stop to rest for the night. Sarah watched as he took out a small lump of gray clay from within his vested shirt. He set it down on the forest floor between two towering sycamores, backing away and pulling Sarah with him.

"What—" she started, but he shushed her and nodded toward the now fist-sized chunk.

"Watch," he said.

She did, eyes widening as the thing grew to the size of a cat, a child, a grown person. It continued to double in magnitude and wavered a little, like a heat wave or a mirage. Sarah rubbed at her eyes, feeling pain behind them. When she opened them again, a small stone cottage sat nestled among the trees with a chimney and a plain wooden door.

Jareth began walking toward the structure. He glanced over his shoulder when he reached the entrance. "Coming?"

She followed, a vague sense of unease creeping over her, not from the cabin, but from the still-silent woods and the twilight deepening toward indigo and black. She touched the pendant now hanging around her neck, feeling foreign and warm against her skin. It was still covered in blood, as was she, and so was Jareth. "What is this place?" she asked.

He held the door open for her, and she ducked in as he said, "A gift from Queen Mab, at my coronation."

Sarah looked at the space. It was a simple one-room cottage, with gray stone walls and a cheerful fire blazing in the fireplace, a small table, and two chairs, a door which looked as though it might lead to a bathroom or a closet—though she was hoping it was the former—and a single large bed laden with pillows, furs, and blankets.

She stared at the bed for a moment as Jareth brushed by her. He motioned toward the door on the right side. "There's a washroom through there. I upgraded it some time past. There's a stock of clothes as well."

Sarah did not wait for another invitation but crossed to the door and opened it, peering in. Inside were candles set along wall sconces, illuminating a modern-looking restroom with a round tub, sink, and a toilet. One side of the room had shelves laden with garments and towels. Everything had a masculine feel. She slipped in and closed the door behind her, latching it.

Hot water poured from the tap into the large tub, and while she waited for it to fill, she stripped out of clothes still sodden and tacky wet with blood. The fabric clung to her skin, coming unstuck with a feeling like peeling off a Band-Aid. Sarah threw the tattered, stained fabric into a small wastebasket by the door, knowing it was all far too damaged to wear again. She kept the bra, rinsing out the blood in the sink until the water ran clear, hanging it to dry on a peg attached to one wall.

By the time she finished and sank into the steaming bath, Sarah could feel exhaustion tugging at her. She could not remember the last time she had walked this much in a day, and the battle with the lupe creatures had dumped adrenaline into her system, which, once gone, had left her feeling shaky and hollow. Her stomach growled as she began scrubbing at her skin with a natural sea sponge found on the ledge of the tub, but she ignored it as she continued to bathe, conscious always of Jareth's presence on the other side of the door.

When she finished, the water was tinged deep pink, and she felt no shame in taking extra time to drain the tub before scrubbing it and kneeling, using the tap and the sponge to rinse herself clean. She did not stop until the water ran crystal clear.

The clothing on offer screamed Jareth. Shirts with long flowing sleeves. Tight pants. Ruffles. She sorted through the offerings, marveling at the softness of the fabric, before selecting a pair of black leggings and a matching shirt with a neckline which did not plunge as low as all the others. However, naked as she was beneath, it still flashed a little more than she was comfortable with. Still, it was good enough to sleep in, which was the goal.

There was no mirror, so she brushed her hair by feel, sweeping it back from her face. She knew it made her face more severe when she did this, her cheekbones high. Someone once told her she looked like Demi Moore, and she could not help but enjoy the comparison. She adjusted the pendant still around her neck, now glistening clean and warmer than her skin.

Sarah hesitated with her hand on the latch. I could sleep in the bathtub, she thought, imagining the single bed in the next room. But the moment the image entered her head, she dismissed it. Don't be a coward.

Jareth had also changed and was no longer spattered with blood and viscera. As she emerged from the bathroom, he narrowed his eyes, seated at one of the chairs at the table near the fire. "You know, there is only one washroom. You sure took your time."

Her hackles rose. "I was covered in blood!"

"As was I."

She scowled and sank down on the other chair. The table was filled with food. Tankards of wine, water, and ale, a whole roasted chicken, baby potatoes glistening with butter and herbs, rice, a dark green salad with tomatoes and cucumbers, and a bowl of—"Peaches?" she asked, her scowl deepening. "Another magical roofie?"

Jareth laughed. "Not so much. Just food."

She gestured at him. "You first."

He rolled his eyes skyward for a moment and started helping himself to a plate which had appeared in his hand. He tore at the chicken and into the side dishes like a man long starved. She watched him for a moment, finding the motions comforting. Something normal from the Goblin King. Something almost... human.

"So you could magic yourself clean?"

"Yes," he said, word clipped. "And I don't appreciate being asked to continuously drain my magical resources. I may be fae, but we have our limits."

"I'm sure you'll be fine," Sarah said, but she relaxed. If she had been in his shoes, she would probably be grumpy too. "After you rest, you should be okay, right?"

Jareth finished loading his food and motioned for her to do the same. A plate appeared before her, and with no further hesitation, she began piling items onto it, her stomach loud. He gave a low chuckle. "Yes, after rest, I should be replenished to some degree, but the efforts of the last..." he paused, seeming to think. "Well. Since the castle was sieged. It has been some time since I have been at full strength."

Sarah set down her plate and reached behind her neck, unclasping the pendant and holding it out to him. "Would this help?"

"Undoubtedly." He stared at the device for a few heartbeats, raw longing in his expression. "But it belongs to you now."

She frowned, still holding it out between them. Jareth stretched out his hand and closed her fingers around it, his gloves now soft linen which almost felt like skin. "But you said you have to have this to regain your throne. If I'm here to help you, doesn't this make it yours by proxy?"

He pushed her hand back, and she pulled the pendant to her chest. "The Labyrinth has seen you as a challenger in the past and sees you as one now. You blooded it. I felt the power take hold. If you placed it around my neck yourself, you would undoubtedly find it around your own a moment later. It knows who its true master is."

Sarah tried to put it back on without attracting too much attention, but his gaze kept drifting to it. Or to my cleavage. Of which she was showing a generous portion. She pulled the neckline closed. "You said you felt the power take hold. Does this mean I have magic now too?"

Jareth shrugged and began slipping bites of food between his lips, gaze drifting to the door and window beside them as he chewed. The motion seemed strange on him. Too normal. "Fae artifacts affect everyone differently." His mismatched stare flicked to her, and he frowned. "Eat. I did nothing to your meal."

She did and almost moaned in pleasure as the salty, spiced chicken hit her tongue. Unlike the peach he had given her so long ago that had tasted odd, this was perhaps one of the best meals she had ever had. As she moved from the chicken to the salad to a mound of wild rice and buttered potatoes, she had to stop herself from pulling the food into her mouth like she was a steam shovel. Forcing herself to slow down, she reached for the tankard and poured herself a goblet full of clear water.

They lapsed into silence. Jareth never looked at her long, but when he did, he seemed to check her progress and would nod a little as though satisfied when he had seen how much she had eaten. At one point, he offered her some wine, but she shook her head.

After the fourth or fifth time Jareth's gaze snapped to the window, Sarah asked, "What's wrong?"

"The miasma," he said. "I believe it is here."

She looked behind her but saw nothing save the faint reflection of the fire and their rather domestic-looking meal. "How do you know?"

"It is magical in origin. I can smell it and feel it. I think it is something Kozack released to... twist the Labyrinth into something more like him." He paused and looked back at her, eyes gleaming in the low light. "The cottage is made of Mab's magic. It will keep the stuff at bay, but I would not recommend a moonlit stroll."

"We're safe in here?"

"Yes."

She pushed a stray grain of rice around on her plate. Her stomach was full to bursting, and after the bath and near the soothing heat of the fire, she could feel her body growing heavy. Fatigue tightened like a net around her. She glanced at the bed.

The bed. Singular.

"I'm not sleeping next to you," she said, crossing her arms in front of her chest. "Can't you make two beds instead of the one?"

Jareth pinched the bridge of his nose. "I've pulled us through the worlds today. I've summoned a great deal, fought a battle, and had to use the last of my energy to bathe, of all things. I'm tired." His eyes met hers, and she could see what he said was true. Beyond the stark truth of his beauty, there was a tightness to the set of his mouth and jaw, a weariness to his gaze she could not deny. "The bed is large enough for us both."

"I'll make a pallet on the floor—"

"No," He reached for his glass of wine and drained it in one go, setting the goblet back on the round table with a thunk. "You were injured. You need true rest." He rose, moving around her. "I'll give you some privacy. When I come back, I will keep to my side."

###

Ludo stretched over the steps leading to the castle, blood matting his fur, his eyes on the sky though they were now dull like sandblasted glass. A fly landed on his open lips and crawled into his mouth.

Sir Didymus' head mounted on a pike near the gates, rotted and almost unrecognizable save for the frayed leather eye patch still clinging to his rotting skull.

Toby slumped over his writing desk, a red gash of a smile splitting his throat from ear to ear.

Karen and her father crushed between shards of metal and glass, bloody foam staining their lips.

The images came faster and faster, like strikes of lightning in a winter storm. Michael. Her friends. Classmates and teachers. Everyone she had ever known. Through them all, a rich, oily laugh rang out. She ran from it, knowing somehow if the source of the voice were to touch her, everything would change.

Jareth was before her, his clothing hanging in red ribbons, his face contorted into a mask of pain. He reached for her; his motion panicked. She flung out a hand toward him, but too late. The earth opened up beneath him, and he fell, eyes accusatory, into a pit which had no end.

Sarah woke in the warm dark, a thrumming filling her ears, comforting in its gentle rhythm. Her pulse was up, her breathing coming fast and shallow. Blinking in the dimness, she came to realize the sound she heard was not her own heartbeat but his.

She was tucked up against his side, a leg hooked over his and an arm thrown over his chest. His arm was looped around her shoulders, his cheek pressed against the top of her head.

It felt so natural, her body in an utter state of relaxation.

His voice was a rumble against her ear. "You had a nightmare."

The words were gentle, and Sarah closed her eyes for a moment, reveling in the feeling for a few seconds more before she pulled away. The other side of the bed was cold—she had been up against him for a long time—and she shivered as she cocooned herself in the blankets. She wanted his heat back, but—Michael. I'm engaged to Michael.

She had never done this with her fiancé. Michael was a light sleeper, and he complained when she tried to cuddle up against him at night. They had separate bedrooms, Sarah's work and school schedule too often at odds with her fiancé's.

"Tell me about it?" he asked, his voice like a caress in the dark.

She did, keeping her voice soft so as not to break the gentle spell which had enveloped the dim cottage. There was the faintest hint of light from the embers of the fire, and because of it, she could make out the shape of him, reclining now on one arm, rolled to his side and looking at her. His eyes flashed like a cat, reflecting the thin illumination.

"You've had dreams like it before?"

"I think so," she said, still cold, though the blankets were thick. She shivered again.

"It's freezing," he said, tone mild. "Come here."

She hesitated. "You know I'm engaged, don't you?"

"I'm not offering to make love to you. I'm offering to help warm you."

Sarah thought about saying no and keeping to her side, but it was terribly cold in the stone-walled room, and something about touching him was—stop. You can't go there. Still, she slid through the sheets towards him.

Jareth reached for her as she neared, his arm around her waist tugging her close. When she had settled again, a little tense, he began to talk. "I think a part of you always remembered the Labyrinth. There's something about you, Sarah, something I still don't quite understand. It's almost as though..." he stopped, and she felt him shake his head. "No."

She wanted to ask him what he meant, but two things distracted her. When she put her arm over his chest, pressing herself closer, the talisman around her neck pulsed like it had its own heartbeat. And the scent of him hit her. She did not know how she had not noticed it before. He was like a wildfire mixed with the cool stillness of dew-soaked dawn. Fire and water.

Jareth went still. "I felt that."

"The necklace?" She hoped that was what he meant.

"Yes."

She drew her arm back so she could clasp the warm metal device. "It's like it remembers you."

"We have been constant companions these last three centuries."

Sarah laughed before she realized he was serious. "Wait," she pulled back enough so she could look up into his face. She could only see his outline. "You're three hundred years old?"

"Four," he corrected. "It's only been the last three hundred I have been the true lord of the Labyrinth and king of the goblins."

Frustration welled in her as she continued to peer at him without being able to see his expression. The talisman gave out a low hum, a buzz like the zing of an electric shock, and the candles on the wall sconces flared, filling the room with a warm yellow light. Sarah jerked back, inches from Jareth's face.

His gaze flicked to the flames, and he smiled. "Didn't like the dark, did we?"

"You're saying I did this?"

"You and the amulet." Long fingers clad in soft linen touched the hand which still clutched it. "As you spend more time with it, I believe you will find more bends to your will." He searched her face. "You are beautiful."

Heat rose in her cheeks. "I'm engaged."

"You keep mentioning this as though you're implying you somehow belong to this paramour of yours. I assure you, you do not."

"It means I can't—even if I wanted to, I couldn't, well," she stammered. She craved the dark again, and the candles went out as though she had thrown a light switch. "That is so weird," she grumbled.

An arm brought her close to his side again, his touch never straying beyond the press of his hand on her back. Her face still burned. "Tell me about this lover of yours," he said, more a demand than an ask.

###

He could scarce breathe.

There had been a moment, the moment between his own wakefulness and hers, when he had simply held her, breathing in the warm, sleepy scent. Honeyed tea and anise. His heart ached, then as now. There had been women in his bed over the years, but none like her. And she had come back to his side, willingly, and had wanted to see his face...

The ache, the acute loneliness which was his constant bedfellow, eased somewhat, and that easing was like a pain in and of itself.

"How did you find one another?" he prompted after Sarah remained silent. He could sense her wakefulness and feel it in the faint edge of tension which ran through her body. She had been so relaxed before, curled against him.

"Will you answer some questions I have, too?" she asked.

"Of course."

She sighed, and he felt the warmth of her breath against the skin of his chest. "Michael and I... how do I put this? I rented out a room in his house when I started at the culinary academy. His place is so much closer to class than my old apartment, and I couldn't afford to keep living there and go to school at the same time. My dad introduced us. Michael's father is a client." She paused. "Who is Queen Mab?"

He wanted to stroke her hair, but he stopped himself. Careful. It was already so much she was wrapped around him so. "Queen Mab is the ruler of all fae. While a fae may have an individual kingdom, she rules over us all from the Seelie court. She is a just leader and has been ruling over the fae for some twenty thousand years."

Sarah sputtered. "Twenty thousand?"

"Indeed."

"How long do your kind live?"

"We live until we choose to die, or until something comes along and dispatches us, though we are difficult to kill." He tightened his arm around her a little. "Tell me more about your fiancé. What is he like?"

"Michael? He's..." she trailed off. When she started talking again, her voice had lowered to a murmur. "You know, it all happened so fast. We shared a house. I think all the domestic tasks people get up to kind of made our relationship change. He was single. I was single. It seemed easy, and it was."

"Do you not love him?"

"Of course I do," she snapped, going rigid for a moment before relaxing once more. "I just—it was only a year since I began living there when he proposed. I didn't know what to do because I lived with the man. How do you say, 'no thanks, let's continue to date'? It would have made it awkward, and it doesn't seem fair."

"No," he agreed. And when did you start to care about how fairly you treated others? "But one should never pretend to a love they do not feel."

"For love is not ours to command," Sarah said, finishing the quote. She went quiet for a while after, though her head pressed more firmly into the nape of his neck. "Who knew you'd be a fan of Alan Watts?"

"He had some open ideas for his time."

"Does this mean you spend a lot of time in the Aboveground? In my world?"

"Some," he said, shifting a little to get more comfortable. Sarah moved with him, as natural as breathing. "Typically, I can only go Above when summoned. But I was in San Francisco when Watts was giving a lecture one evening. I could tell he was something special."

"You must have seen a great deal over the years. Four hundred of them? You're older than my country."

Jareth laughed. "Older than the founding of the country, perhaps, though I guarantee the land and the people were there far before the Europeans. I've heard tales of when it was pristine. When the fauna were as high as two of me standing atop one another. Magnificent beasts who were gentle enough, unafraid enough, you could walk straight up to them and put a hand on their hides. This was before any humans crossed over the land bridge onto your continent."

"Your people walked my world that long ago? That's insane, that must be—what? Were they around for the dinosaurs?"

He chuckled. "Perhaps in some form. The fae can trace their origins back a quarter of a million years. That's the length of our written record. But it is only ever one life, one perspective, one point at a time. I may be old enough to remember your Revolutionary War, but I never saw it myself. I avoid human conflicts unless there is a wished-away."

"Like I did with Toby?"

"Just so. Only, for some, it is a matter of desperation and great ease of mind to know their child will be safe in another world, away from the ravages of war and disease, hunger and famine." He chuckled. "I don't turn them all into goblins."

"What do you do with them?"

"Give them to the fae to raise, mostly. There used to be a practice, long ago, where we would swap our children for those of human parents. Those mortals raised here, in the Underground, grew with our magic in their lungs and if they returned to the Above, were always a little apart from the usual mortal throng. Whereas the fae raised among the humans would grow in something many fae lack—empathy. Understanding. Love. We are not a warm species, overall."

She laughed a little, and her hand brushed against his chest before resting there, fingers splayed over his sternum. "I don't know. You seem pretty warm to me."

He wanted to kiss her, wanted it with every cell in his being, but he knew it would be the wrong move. Seduce the woman who rejected you. And he wanted to. Oh, did he want to, but his heart was wrapped up in her. It was enough that she had responded earlier, and she had tasted so sweet. He did not want to push things. He knew her enough to know she would dig in her heels and not budge if he tried to go too far, too fast.

But then she was tracing small circles into the skin of his chest, touching his bare flesh with hers. Her voice was a sleepy murmur. "You smell so good."

There was only so much he could stand. He was moving before he could second-guess himself, gathering her up in his arms and clutching her close. She made soft sounds of near-protest, but she relaxed into his hold, letting out a small sigh as he rubbed her back in circles.

"Why didn't you come back before?" she asked, and he could tell she was only just managing to hold onto consciousness. "After I won, after I was older—why didn't you come to me? I thought you—" she stopped herself for a moment. "Was it all a trick? At the end?"

"No." Jareth's heart hurt thinking she might believe such a thing. "It was not a trick. But I could not come to you. You never called for me."

"I used to sketch your eyes all the time," she whispered, her breath coming in heated puffs against his neck. "I didn't know it until you came back, and I remembered you again. I didn't know whose eyes they were or why they haunted me so."

He buried his hand in her hair, wishing he could be without gloves so he could feel the silken strands flow between his fingers. "I haunted you?"

Sarah let out a low chuckle and burrowed deeper against him. "I'm tired. Thank you for the warmth."

He wanted to say something more, but within a moment, her breathing had changed, and he knew she had slipped back into dreams.

Author's Note:

Hey everyone.

I couldn't wait to post this chapter, but then I did wait. Until precisely a minute after midnight. I'm so proud of myself for my restraint, lol.

I hope you enjoyed. Gods, I love the "only one bed" trope. It is one of my favorites. I hope I did it justice for those of you who love it too.

Chapter seven will be forthcoming on the weekend, either Saturday or Sunday, it remains to be seen.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for all your comments. If I haven't gotten back to you, I've meant to and have mentally composed responses several times at least. I treasure each one of you.

Life has gotten complicated for me again, but I'm plugging away at my original fiction. The finale of my trilogy! It's bittersweet.

As always, please leave a contribution in the little box.

xoxo,

CrimsonSympathy