A/N: For Guest2019 – ya need an account so I can PM you! Nevertheless, thanks for the wake up call on this chapter. Sept 2019: edited for the lacking characterisation.
All I ask of you, is that when I cannot, would you . . .
help?
Sarah put down the phone and stared blankly at the wall. She didn't quite know what to do. Oh, she did, she stomped down the hall and pulled her boots out of her closet and sank on to her bed. She tugged one on and then the other. She would have to go alone. She stood and stomped her feet right into the boots. That action made her feel just a little better.
She stomped her way across to the hall mirror and checked her appearance. When a leering Goblin King looked back instead, she yelped in shock.
"Jareth!" She flopped back against the wall behind her, her heart hammering.
He grinned at her reaction.
"Come on in, out of the mirror, I have to check my outfit."
He stepped through and lounged against the wall, doing his own checking as she turned and primped and pulled her shirt and skirt into place.
"Quite lovely," he said with an appreciative smirk.
She let out a huff.
"It would be a great deal lovelier, if my date hadn't ditched me a minute ago!"
There was a beat of silence.
"You were refused by an inconsiderate suitor?" Jareth asked in an oddly fragile tone that made her look sharply at him.
"Goodness no. I'm not seeing anyone. That's the problem! I asked Simon from work to join me, it's my book launch tonight and the publishing company is hosting it at the largest book store in town. All Simon had to do was walk me into the building, fetch me the occasional snack while I sign books and walk me out. He could schmooze the rest of the evening chatting up everyone else. Now, I must be brave, like a proper modern girl should and not depend on a man."
"You are upset about this?" He asked brusquely.
"Of course! I like being an independent woman, but not when I'd arranged for a date to accompany me! What is worse, I am willing to bet that he will actually be there. If I called Jenny from the printing division right this moment, we will see what sort of family emergency Simon had. He told me he had broken up with her! And it wasn't even a romantic date," she spat waspishly.
"You wished it were?" he asked contemptuously as if such human trivialities were beneath his notice.
"With Simon?" Sarah snorted. "Goodness me no! He's the worst excuse monger I've ever known, and that is having to suffer him as a work colleague! I'd rather take you over him." She froze with her hand in the air and blinked. She slowly lowered her hand and inspected him as he stared at her in surprise.
"Your Majesty," she said hastily before her anger fuelled courage failed her, "would you accompany me to my book signing this evening? I know it's very last minute and probably horribly inconvenient to your evening plans, and I'd be willing to promise a small favour in there too, please?" She was begging by the end.
She watched his haughty stance settle into a comfortable smirking slouch against the wall beside the mirror. He considered for a long moment, his miss matched eyes drawing over her outfit, as if cataloguing her worth, or the value of her clothes. He then produced a crystal, held on the tips of his fingers and let it fall. It did not shatter so much as turn the air to glitter and light about him. The next moment he was clad in a trim grey suit, which perfectly accompanied her outfit and he held out a pale pink rose corsage for her wrist to match his buttonhole.
Sarah swallowed hard. He dressed beautifully on most days, but as stylishly done up in a suit as he was now, she was positively drooling. This would certainly not do at all. He was the Goblin King. The very same snarky Goblin King who had snatched Toby. What in the world had she been thinking, issuing that invitation? She was stuck, though, trapped by a few foolish words – again! She was furious with herself for allowing herself to be indebted to him, had she not learned the first time around?
"Thank you," she said hoarsely as he slipped the corsage on her wrist.
"Would you like me to provide the transport?" he asked and offered her his arm.
"Oh, what? You can drive? Ugh, sorry that came out badly. If you want?" she said flustered.
It was only as she tottered down the stairs beside him that she had a sudden realisation that one could drive a carriage as well as a car.
He owned a Lexus. A top of the range Lexus, driven by a uniformed chauffeur. Sarah sat in the back and fidgeted nervously with her clutch purse and peeked at him.
"Um, Jareth?" She had to straighten things out now, before he took the mile with the inch she had given him.
He smiled at her. Damn, but she was in trouble, he had that supercilious expression dancing in his eyes, and worst, a slight smugness.
"Thank you for doing this," she said primly, but the squeak in her voice betrayed her.
"Only a pleasure, precious thing," he purred, and she knew, just knew she was digging herself in deeper with the self-satisfied fae. "It is not often that I am invited to Aboveground parties."
There was something in the way he worded that that set off alarm bells in her head.
"Do you have to be invited Aboveground before you can go?"
He smiled leisurely at her. Damn, damn, damn! And she thought she knew the rules! In a moment of weakness she had forgotten he was the Goblin King and not just a casual friend. What had she done?
"Yes, I am fae and there are very particular rules. Also, the magic is different here, thinner, not so easy to work. I prefer not to remain Aboveground longer than a few days at a time."
"Oh," she processed that and tucked the fact away for use in her next book. If nothing else she could use his own words against him, and by way of subtle hints, disseminate it to others. She had that small skill at least.
Simon, the slippery snake, was helping Jenny out of her car when they pulled up before the entrance to the large bookstore. The miserable liar left his now not-so-ex-girlfriend there while he went to drive along the street to find parking. Their chauffeur drew up into the space he left and Sarah was about to hop out of the car when Jareth stalled her with a light touch to her hand, out of the view of the crowd clustered about the bookstore entrance.
"Marcus will open the door for us," he prompted.
She followed him out and settled on his arm feeling like a movie star walking down the red carpet, rather than a moderately successful children's author. Jareth drew her out of the car with overstated elegance and settled her on his arm. A camera flashed and she was shocked to feel him flinch and it seemed in that moment that she was drawn within a swirling bubble around him. It was utterly disorientating, as for a moment it was as if she saw the world clearer and more distant than what she had always known. She could feel the tension of his arm, as if he expected some sort of attack, yet his expression and movements were of supreme confidence. She managed as confident a smile, while furiously puzzling it through. The only thing she could compare it to was the disastrous Peach Dream, which meant that he was using magic of some kind. Yet he was interacting with the world as if it were there, and the people around them were not acting enthralled or bewildered as if this were a fae controlled dream. So, a personal magic, not an invasive projected magic. The author in her took screeds of notes; this was beyond her understanding, but this short walk into the bookstore, watched by admirers, showed his fae nature more than she had ever witnessed in the Labyrinth. She could not quite understand Jareth's reaction to the crowd. It then struck her. He dealt with lone runners. This before him now was a crowd of humans. Was he nervous? She felt suddenly overprotective, and stamped down the urge to laugh at his reaction. He had not been Aboveground nearly enough if this was his response.
"Pretend they are a whole lot of goblins to be bogged at your whim," she whispered to him, "especially, Jonathan," she pointed out the junior editor, "Petty, I mean Penny Mills, "she indicated the woman in charge of the illustration division who continuously argued with her over what her characters should look like, "and Simon when we find him."
"Why, precious thing, you are positively vicious tonight."
"Also, feel free to spread about your wonderful snarky attitude," she smiled at him, now quite pleased she had invited the Goblin King. He needed to get out more and learn the human way of doing things, though she knew he would not thank her for that observation.
He chuckled silently beside her.
The signing went off very well. There were many young teens clustered about to have her sign copies of the various books in the series. They were very very loosely based on her adventure in the Labyrinth, but even Jareth would be hard pressed to find the exact comparisons. She had had fun with her imagination and the story had taken wing to its own destination.
Jareth was politely attentive, and schmoozed the room better than a salesman with a suitcase full of deals. Everyone clustered about him and hung on his every word as he drifted from group to group. He had even snubbed Simon, pretending not to see him as he passed.
"Sarah!" She looked up to see Felicity, the manager of the event, standing beside her table with a glass of wine. The queue had dissipated for the moment while people helped themselves to the newly brought out canapés.
"Everyone says you arrived with Mr King."
"Er yes?" Sarah sipped at her wine and hastily munched the canapés on the plate. She wouldn't have much time before she was back to signing again.
"However did you convince him to come? He's a famous recluse."
A famous recluse? What did Jareth do in the Aboveground?
"He's an old friend of mine; he accompanied me as a favour."
Felicity blinked at her.
"You, my girl, are my new best friend. And that gentleman there is our target."
"Don't harass him, Felicity, you won't like the consequences," Sarah warned, honestly.
"Sarah, do you know who he is?"
Sarah felt a shiver run down her spine and shrugged, she wasn't admitting to having anything to do with the Labyrinth.
"Sarah!" Felicity almost cried. "He writes exceptional mysteries under the name Frederick Denholm. He only submits one manuscript every three years, and we've fought tooth and nail to hold onto his contract. The only thing better would be for him to actually do a book signing."
"He's that good?" Sarah said blankly. Her mind was in shock. Jareth wrote books? Jareth? Did he have the attention span for that? No, he could plot and plan with the best. Any book of his would be devastatingly magnificent even when compared to his naturally enthralling speech.
Felicity walked off. Not in a huff, Sarah realised, as a few minutes later she returned with a book. It was a slim volume, only three hundred pages, but when she cracked the front page, she knew without a doubt it was Jareth's book.
"Only the twilight obscured more than doors of Withercomb Manor, and that was only in the bitterest of winters."
She dug a few dollars out of her purse.
"Can you buy this for me?"
Felicity eyed her.
"You have to promise me you'll try to convince him."
"Try to convince whom?" Jareth asked, appearing like a slinking lion on her other side.
"Jareth!" She grinned up at him. "This is Felicity."
"We're acquainted," he said with cool politeness.
"She wants you to do a book signing, I, on the other hand, want you to sign this book just as soon as I can grab a moment to buy it."
Jareth took the book with the bills like a thick bookmark in the back and examined it.
"You don't want to start with this one. I'll lend you Mooreland's Falls first."
"Oh, I don't care; I'm buying all your books!" Sarah declared enthusiastically.
He hesitated at that then smiled with that slight brittle uncertainty. She didn't like that look. It was as if the magnificent illusion of the great Goblin King faltered and something dark and desolate within shone through.
"Please Mr King, just one book signing? It will boost your sales tenfold," Felicity all but begged, breaking that unnerving moment. Sarah shook her head, he was fae. She had to keep that in mind, as haughty and compelling as the Goblin King was, he was fae.
"Miss Parsons, we have already discussed this," Jareth informed her with cool politeness, "I am not interested in publicity that is your business. I do not discuss my books with others, which is what happens at these events. As previously stated, I regret I cannot comply. Also, please do not make a scene, for it would make it difficult for me to accompany Miss Williams for the rest of this evening."
He gave her a slight bow and strode off to buy the book Sarah had handed to him.
"That man!" Felicity sniffed. "As dreamy as he is stubborn! Mr Phillips is going to be so mad at me in the morning!" She cringed at her boss's reaction then hurried off to find one of her many underlings to recruit them to her cause.
Sarah looked up as Jareth placed both Mooreland's Falls and Withercomb Manor onto her table with her receipt stuck in like a marker. In his hand, he held the first in the series of her books.
"Why," he said in a lilting voice that she instantly knew he meant no good, "do I find the shade of Hoggle as the hero in this little adventure?"
Abruptly Sarah wished her signing queue were a mile long so that she had an excuse not to speak to him.
"It's not Hoggle," she muttered, her treacherous ears went pink.
"No?" he flipped through the book, "and I'm not seeing Sir Didymus as the loyal sidekick?"
Damn, damn, damn, this was bad.
"You are seeing what you want to see," she told him primly, never mind he was right.
"And this character, Garrick?"
Oh, she was so dead.
"Pale hair, blue eyed, exquisite fashion sense though tending to the reds and blues, uses magic," he trailed off and seated himself beside her in the seat Felicity had vacated.
"Jareth, you'll scare off the kids if you keep that expression on your face," she hissed at him. It was a cross between a predatory stare and outright dark amusement.
Only just then people wandered back over to her table for signings.
"Who is your favourite character?" Jareth asked the first boy, a skinny ten year old.
Sarah signed as fast as she could and left the children chatting happily to Jareth about what they liked about the series. One kid squinted at him.
"You look just like Garrick, except you should wear blue."
"Indeed," Jareth purred with that menace that spoke of consequences. Sarah did her best to ignore him. She was saved by Felicity's return, along with Mr Phillips, she did not know what strings the woman had pulled to invite her boss, but there he was.
"I will do one signing," Jareth said coolly, "at the presentation of my next book; you will have the manuscript within the next month." He held up a finger at Felicity's gasp of delight. "On one condition, that the lovely Miss Williams accompanies me."
"Excellent! Miss Williams, clear your calendar for New York, second weekend into the Summer Vacation. You will be Mr King's escort for the two days."
Sarah gaped at him as Mr Phillips left.
"You are unbelievable!" she croaked.
The children around him curiously asked what books he wrote, and he brushed them off lightly and diverted them back to the books they loved.
With the usual jumble that her life was, she only read her way through his series of books and to Withercomb Manor by the time she was on her flight over. She walked numbly off the aeroplane and took a taxi to the hotel where she met Jareth and Felicity and his publicity crew. She shot him a vastly betrayed stare, which he didn't notice. He was too busy being charming to notice her mental state.
Tucked in the back of a taxi beside him and on the way to the signing, she leaned over, and ignored his smirk to hiss in his ear.
"Tabitha Stirling!" she growled at him.
His smirk vanished and his face morphed into a very self satisfied yet honest smile.
"You underhanded piece of work!" She poked him hard in the thigh. "You make me look like a cruel wicked witch and Toby like a saintly darling!"
"Only it is a tale about Tabitha and her brother Sebastian," he said with all reasonable aplomb.
Sarah opened her mouth to protest as he smoothly continued.
"Unless you care to discuss Garrick?"
"Touché," she shut up and slumped back in the chair. With that she was neatly reminded that he was the Goblin King, and not some human author to be trifled with.
She peeked at him a while later to find him watching her with a tentative expression. It didn't suit him at all, and it was gone the moment she focussed on what she had thought she had seen. A bland expression of elegant ease now adorned his face.
She stuck her nose in the air. She had seen it; she was not going to pretend otherwise.
He drew back and raised an eyebrow.
She began to laugh and he grinned at her, his eyes twinkling.
"Please tell me that this new book doesn't have Tabitha Stirling in it."
His shifty expression had her sneaking a copy from the promotional pile as soon as they arrived. She only got a chance to crack it open when he sat down to sign his books; the queue snaked out of the door. Page three found Tabitha in a mud puddle and she felt like crawling under the chair in mortification. She was going to the Goblin Castle tonight to hunt through the entire confusing mess of passages off the Escher Room until she found his study and, and, she ran out of steam. She watched him happily chat to customers, refusing very politely to make any comment on his books, and signed his pseudonym all over them. She watched the people, from mid teens to elderly adults, all of them saying such wonderful things about the books. That strange fragility that she had glimpsed was completely gone, and so was the suave maniacal charm that belonged to the Goblin King. He enchanted people, yes, but it was a deeper, rawer enchantment, fuelled by their own desires and not his personal illusion magic. In this manner, he was Frederik Denhelm for the night, as human as any fae king could pretend. Yet, in the fae manner, he still took the power granted him and used it exquisitely to his own purpose. She stood, took his newest book and began to work the crowd. By the end of the evening, she had shifted forty books all on her own.
Jareth turned to Felicity then, after all the customers were gone.
"Miss Parsons, allow me to remind you that my contract states that I do not have to make public appearances. I would ask that you honour my request. This was a once off occasion and will not occur again."
He left Felicity with an expression of extreme frustration on her face and Mr Phillips hurried after him to assure him that that would be the case.
Sarah went back to her hotel, after they had checked out and Jareth had been driven away in his personal Lexus Mr Phillips waved her over.
"I don't know what you said to convince him, but you have our heartfelt thanks. He said to give you this."
It was a signed copy of his latest book. She flipped through it and stopped as on the thirteenth page, on the thirteenth line were the words 'turn back, before it's too late,' underlined in the same pen.
She flipped through the rest of the book and there, on the very last page, 'it's further than you think, time is short,' stood with the same wriggly line under it.
She held the thirteenth book in the series, she realised. Was this some kind of warning to her? He'd said those exact words before she had run the Labyrinth. She pretended she didn't just shiver and thanked Mr Phillips.
She walked back into her apartment having finished the book on the flight back home. It was her life, his life, Toby's life and various incidents in the Goblin Kingdom, all woven into a tale in the guise of a mystery centred about Riverton Towers where Tabitha had fled at the end of the previous book. However, it was a tale in which Tabitha was not a witch, but a lost soul searching for her purpose in life. It was his distant but poignant commentary on her personal existence.
She smiled. She did not have his ethereal grace, magic or sense of timing. Yet she had enough fire in her to respond to the clear challenge he had issued. She was due her sixth book that year and damn if the character of Garrick wasn't going to find himself dragged through a hedge backwards.