Author's Note: Oh, it's so good to be back! You have no idea how lonesome I was without a story to write. And I'll admit here and now that this will be less intense than the 'Bond…' series and probably a lot shorter, but it's been itching in my head and I just had to write it. This time, there are to be a heap of new characters so watch out for them.

"Toby, could you come here, please?"

The young man looked up from the document he was faithfully copying and rolled his eyes. "In just a minute, my Lady. I'm almost done." He finished the last curliqued letter and put the pen down with a sigh. He snapped off the light on the desk and got up, stretching his lanky body before jogging to the other room.

The woman who looked up looked not a jot older than the day he had first met her. Her blue eyes were still as dark and her hair as blond. Her skin was still flawless and the few delicate lines around her eyes and mouth only served to enhance her allure. To the mortal boy she had sheltered, she was no more or less than his liege lady and his adopted mother.

"Come in, dear. Apparently my son requires our presence in two weeks' time. He specifically asks that you attend."

Toby stilled, surprise flickering over his face as he looked from that pleasantly droll expression to the card she held in her hands. It appeared that Lady Pandora had not been lying; the elusive Goblin King wanted to see him. Inspect him? See the effect of his charity to an orphaned mortal?

"I don't think I want to go," Toby said frankly.

The Lady patted the seat beside her and smiled sympathetically. "I know. But I won't let him bite you. And his bark is all just sound and fury, nothing much behind it. He is hardly an ogre."

"He might just as well be," Toby muttered, staring down at his hands. The left one bore a scar, gained when he'd been learning to fence. "I haven't seen him for years and suddenly he asks that I attend a… what am I attending?"

"A ball," Pandora supplied, "Toby, dear, it has been partly your fault. The last time he came to see us, you ran away."

He had the grace to look sheepish. "I went hunting, my Lady."

"Yes, so I was told. My son almost threw a fit for that."

"I am sorry."

"I can see."

The two smiled and then Toby shook his head with a sigh. "I'll be good this time. I'll have to meet him eventually so it might as well be in… a week?"

"Two," Pandora said, handing him the invitation, "And I believe this may concern what you are to do next. You are, after all, almost twenty-five. It is time you settled somewhere."

"I have," the man protested, "I have a home here. I can understand if you would like me gone, but you are so ill at times…"

A gentle hand smacked the back of his head to stop the flow of words. "You have a home here. Do not think of finishing that sentence." She watched with a mischievous smile as her charge rubbed the back of his head. "Oh, stop pouting. The ball won't be as bad as any you have attended here, though perhaps a lot less tasteful. Jareth does tend to be more flamboyant than elegant. Besides, I am certain Luke will be there."

The mortal perked up considerably. "He is a lord, isn't he. Jareth will invite him too?"

"Yes, naturally. The Goblin King would not dare to snub the son of his predecessor."

"I never have understood how the Kings are elected. Luke's father was the king before him, and Jareth was named when he died. All because of the Labyrinth?"

"Well, yes. The Labyrinth is the ruling power of the Underground. It chooses its King when it needs."

"Has it ever deposed anyone?" Toby asked expressively.

Pandora offered him a mock frown and a playful swat on the arm. "Jareth is my child, Toby. Do not insult him so."

The mortal was unrepentant and irrepressible. Always had been, and he didn't intend to change for someone he knew actually enjoyed the brief clashes. "Why not? You do. Just three weeks ago you said he was a wastrel and a worthless profligate. And what does profligate mean, anyway?"

"I knew you stopped studying far too early. My damnably easy nature- it is to be hoped you don't turn out a blockhead like my son. And profligate refers to a person dedicated to the pleasures and thrills of a sensuous life. Like Jareth."

"Uh-huh. And he does this from a cold and empty Castle in the Centre of the Labyrinth… how?"

"Oh, my dear." She touched his blond head and tweaked his nose. "Jareth doesn't have to do a thing! His friends and acquaintances do it for him. They throw the parties; they take him out. He presides over the land like some… well, like a leech, I suppose, sucking out all that everyone else has to offer."

The mortal winced. Even for the Lady, this was going too far. He was used to harsh words that fell from her lips on the subject of her only surviving offspring, but she steered clear of actual hatred. This was sounding very close to hatred. He hoped it wasn't so because he simply didn't believe it was possible for a woman so affectionate to hate her own child.

"I have offended you, my dear? That line of concentration between your eyes says you are frowning." A slightly veined, slightly wrinkled hand lifted his chin. "You are frowning. What now?"

"A leech?" Toby repeated tellingly.

His chin was released. "Why not? He has called me an interfering old bat for years. It does not mean much between us. The truth is the truth, Toby, and Jareth feeds off other people's emotions to compensate for having none of his own. He likes it. It is how he has always lived."

"But why? There has to be a reason."

Pandora thought about that, turning the crimson-edged card over and over in her hands. "If there is a reason, I do not know it," she confessed at last, "But he delights in controversy, I think. If he has to be everything to everyone in this land, then he will make himself nothing but what they think him. He is… well, an enigma."

"An enigma… that's how Sarah described him."

He didn't hear Pandora drew her breath in sharply but he certainly knew she rose slowly to her feet.

"Has that document been finished? Franja will want to know that he has permission to begin restoring the town. Are you certain we have the funds?"

"Yeah. I arranged with the tradesmen to charge half the price if we do not charge to rebuild their stores. It seemed fair."

"Fair enough. We will break even. Excuse me, then, I think I'll go lie down for a while."

Toby got up too, unfolding from his seat to tower over the frail-looking woman. "Do you feel sick?" he asked anxiously, touching her shoulder and her forehead, "Does something hurt?"

"I am only tired, Toby, don't fuss!" She smacked his hand away and made for the door. "Really! Jareth orders me to and from his Castle at the least whim and you boss me around so my home is not my own; the Powers know how I survive two such sons."

Toby gave a lopsided, sideways grin as he shook his head. He rolled down his sleeves and made his way back to the writing desk in the other room to get his papers. Breems the woodcutter was likely to demand his price upfront and Toby meant to reason things out with him.

'Two such sons', indeed! As if he were any part of the fae family whose powerful protection he enjoyed. No, Jareth might have been chosen by the Labyrinth to be a King, but his bloodline was as ancient and as regal as any monarch might need.

The noble-born chosen one of the Labyrinth, at the current time, was staring disapprovingly at the bedraggled reason for his rare decision to hold a ball. He only wished his mother would heed his threats and arrive a week in advance. This secret was going to leak out soon and he refused to tell the aging lady in any way but face-to-face.

"Jareth, you can forget about staring me into submission because I refuse to wear any clothing but my own," the young lady snapped. She folded her arms tight around herself and lowered her head, the raised hood hiding her face so that she looked a mysterious sight.

"You cannot," he said quietly, "Wear the garments of one of Gildred's lieutenants in my Castle. Not in my lands, and not while I am King, Jervahl. Take them off and wear the gown that Hessie gave you. If you don't like them, at least borrow a shirt and breeches from me to tide you over until I can order you new clothes."

He was very close to ordering the woman, but ordering never had worked with Jervahl. She was stubborn. He wondered afresh how that seething pride- so much a mark of their family- had allowed her to live under a master as totalitarian as the Black Knight.

"I am shorter than you, Jareth, and my body has a different flow to yours." She raised a grimly smiling face to his. "I do not think the Castle will recover from the sight of me in an open-fronted frilled shirt."

The Goblin King's lips twitched ever so gently, as if about to smile but not compulsively. He too folded his arms, but only so he could adopt his usual disinterested stance, completely at odds with the sombre gleam in his eyes. "You never did learn to listen to reason, little sister. It's why you were captured."

She trembled before him and he saw first hand the control she had learned over her tongue. She said not a word more to him, though her hazel eyes showed clearly every word she would have liked to say. He dropped his hands and walked away to a chair, turning his back so she would have time to recover.

"Take the cloak off," he compromised, "And you may wear the rest. After all, black is black and I'm sure I wear it often enough."

Jervahl's tense muscles slowly relaxed. Enough that she took a deep breath and spoke in a harsh, grating voice- "Allow me to buy and choose my own clothes, Jareth, and I will wear them as soon as they are ready. For now, I will change into any respectable blouse you can lend me. The trousers stay."

Mismatched eyes drifted down the perfectly sculpted legs in form-fitting black leggings. Not so different from what he wore, he knew. "Fine. Call Hessie and she shall see what can be arranged."