DISCLAIMER - I don't own Sarah or Jareth or the Labyrinth (unfortunately) they belong to Jim Henson & Co, and I'm definitely not making a profit from this. (Bummer) All other NPC's are a figment of my own imagination.

Chapter 10 – Questions

She woke twice in the night, sweating and cold from her nightmares. Sitting in the darkness waiting for her thumping heart to calm down, she knew she would be unable to go back to sleep. Covering her long nightgown in a floor length dressing gown made from dark red silk she silently let herself out of her room and managed to find her way eventually back to the library, frightening herself several times along the way with shadows and lurking statues.

Picking up a lantern from off one of the many tables in the large hexagonally shaped room she went back to the map hanging on the wall. Studying its tiniest details, from the turrets of the Goblin Kings Castle to the perfectly formed trees and hills spread out across the kingdoms.

"I will be able to understand you one day, I swear. Surely around here somewhere there must be a book that explains the Fae language in English?" She sighed to herself, turning to gaze at the silent books lining the walls. When inspiration, or the right book failed to materialise, she sighed and began to search one by one from the nearest shelf.

"It will take you forever that way." Jareth said yawning as he put his own book down on the table beside him. Sarah jumped and dropped the book she was currently holding on her toe. Wincing in pain she sat down on the floor to survey the damage, to the book and not her toe.

"You need to wear a bell or something." She said scowling at him.

"And you need to learn to stay in your bed."

"I had nightmares."

"We all have those."

"True, but I doubt yours are as frightening as mine."

"Would you care to test that theory?" He asked mockingly. Sarah looked up at the King of the Goblins, dressed in the blackest silk and leather and shook her head. She stood up and replaced the book on its shelf.

"4th row, 23rd shelf, 9th book from the right." He said pointing towards the spiral staircase opposite him before returning to his own book.

"Pardon?"

"The book you were looking for." He said without looking up from reading. Sarah looked up into the depths of the ceiling and nearly fainted. There was no ceiling, that she could see at least with only a few candles lit around the room. The shelves went on and on and on into the darkness, broken up by balconies and ladders and staircases every so often.

"I have to go up there?"

"If you wish to begin your first lesson now, then yes. If not return to your room and sleep."

"Didn't anybody tell you I'm afraid of heights?"

"Then don't look down."

"Thanks." She said sarcastically beginning to climb up the first set of stairs. "Wait, where do I begin counting from?" She called down to him from the first balcony.

"Anywhere you like." Came the reply from behind her. She jumped again as he walked past her.

"Damn. You need to stop doing that." She said clutching on to the handrail in fright.

"Why when it has such a good effect?"

She growled at him and walked away around the balcony and stopped randomly, then began counting.

"4th row." She said, walking another 4 bookshelves on. "23rd shelf" she counted up, sighing when she had to move a set of ladders so that she could reach the topmost shelves. "9th book from the right." She smiled in satisfaction as she found a single book amongst all the others that was written in English. Climbing down the ladders again, and then back down the spiral stairs she sighed in relief when she reached the floor. Finding herself a comfortable chair, she sat down and began to read, ignoring him as he sat and watched her, his own book forgotten in the half shadows.

Dawn found her returned to her own bed, the book carefully marked and placed on her bedside table. She woke to see a young girl placing a breakfast tray down on the large bureau by the windows. The girl looked sickly and half grown, and as she walked away, Sarah noticed her limping. Shaking her head to clear half formed queries from her head, she climbed out of the bed and went to inspect the tray. Noting to herself to add the young girls identity to the list of questions she had for Jareth when she saw him next. Biting into a piece of thickly buttered toast she went and sat on the window seat, warming herself in the sun as it broke over the rooftops of the castle beyond the rose courtyard below. Finishing the toast she helped herself to another slice and went to find herself a new dress to wear. Deciding on one of the few that wasn't black was hard, since her choices were so limited, but eventually she picked out a forest green velvet dress, slightly thicker and warmer that the one she had worn the night before, which had mysteriously disappeared from where she left it hung over the back of a chair in her bedroom.

Once dressed she returned to the breakfast tray and drank the slightly spicy fruit juice and finished off the last piece of toast. Taking her book with her she left the sitting room and made her way up to Jareth's study, where hopefully she would get some answers to her million and one questions.

His study was empty, though it looked as though he had only just left. A breakfast tray similar to her own still had a mug of strong coffee on it, half drunk, and spilt, as though put down in haste. The Labyrinth called to her again, and she couldn't resist opening up the large doors out onto the balcony so that she could see over it properly. 360-degree views across the Labyrinth from the balconies of the highest tower, though she needed to climb no stairs to reach his study. The study that was on the same level as her own rooms, which in turn looked out only into the rose courtyard, the rest of the castle soaring above her windows. Sarah shrugged at her thoughts and continued to idly wander around the turret, watching the clouds and the sun randomly reflecting off things within the Labyrinth.

She had passed the doors back into the study twice before she noticed the same Fae woman who had taken her into the courtroom watching her from behind Jareth's desk. She backtracked and stopping at the doors, curtseyed as gracefully as she could.

"You must be his sister. I wanted to…"

"No thanks are needed child. I did as I do nearly everyday of my life. I fix things that no longer work, or that the others get bored of. Fashion is a fickle thing, and flesh in this place is just as much the victim, as clothes where you come from." The Fae woman stood, just taller than Sarah, her eyes the same mismatched colours as Jareth's, but more beautiful if it were possible.

"You must be very talented." Sarah said walking back into the study.

"The best. My name is Lucia, and to have been touched by my hands, means that your beauty can not be surpassed." She smiled indulgently before reaching out and touching Sarah's cheek with a lace covered finger. "Come Sarah, let us take tea in the parlour whilst we wait for our errant King." She said beaconing Sarah to follow her from the room.

"Isenith?" Lucia called as they stepped out into the never-ending corridor.

"Yes Princess?" He asked materialising in front of them from the shadows.

"Be a darling Isenith and ask one of the girls to bring tea to the Orangary."

"My pleasure Princess." He said walking away into thin air.

"Such a good child." Lucia said to herself before continuing on down the corridor and onto the large stairs to the ground floor.

"Where is King Jareth?" Sarah asked suddenly.

"There was a child wished away in the early hours of the morning, he is overseeing her sister who is trying to win her back. He shouldn't be too much longer now." Lucia said without stopping. They again walked out into the rose courtyard, but instead of passing straight across it, they turned left from the fountain and through a small wooden door into a massive glasshouse. Sarah gasped in pleasure as the orange blossom hit her nose, the sunlight dappling down through the thick orange tree leaves onto the grassy floor beneath their feet.

"Its so beautiful!" She said smiling as she took in the faint sounds of water trickling somewhere, and the call of parrots hidden in the orange trees all around them. She walked across the room to look out of the windows, down onto a perfectly cut lawn surrounded by tall hedges and roses.

"Come dear, take tea with me and we shall talk." Lucia said sitting down on a large comfortable chair before a low table filled with cakes and a large teapot. Sarah sat obligingly in the other chair and watched as Lucia poured out 2 cups of tea. Generously adding a spoonful of sugar to her own she handed Sarah the other. "Help yourself." She said smiling as she sank down into the cushions behind her to savour her tea. Sarah also added a little milk and sugar to her own cup and daringly took a small slice of lemon and orange cake on a plate.

"Princess?" Sarah asked after they had drunk their first cup and Lucia had refilled them.

"Please child, call me Lucia, and I shall call you Sarah." Sarah nodded and continued.

"Lucia, the whole castle, its all just magic isn't it? The Orangary didn't exist until you thought of it earlier, just like Jareth's throne room is completely different than how it was when I was first came here. Everything is just as it is, but nothing really makes sense." Lucia chuckled and nodded.

"The castle becomes what you think it needs to become. Makes itself into whatever you imagine. Take the library for example. To Jareth that is his nightmare, to have a library so immense that he could never hope to read all the books it contains. The first time you entered it, it was just a normal room, you exerted your own control over the magical flux, and so it became what you expected it to be. When you returned, you were tired, and not concentrating on the peripheral things, so it allowed Jareth to continue to control its shape and form. The Orangary exists as it does in my own home, this place I take with me wherever I am, so I always know how it will look at any time. It is a part of me, just as the rest of the castle and the Labyrinth is a part of my brother. Since you have returned however I have noticed new things in the kingdom. Changes have been made, and for the better I might add. The Labyrinth has a new section to its paths, your doing, and a new beacon in the daylight, your tree. These things you made into being, and even Jareth cannot remove your magic them. We were both curious to know why you wished these things into existence." Lucia said, pausing to sip her tea, watching as Sarah frowned and thought about Lucia's query.

"I guess it must have been because of my father. Daddy always loved playing chess, and Toby loved the forest." She said finally, sighing as memories threatened to overwhelm her.

"That would explain it. Memories are what the Labyrinth needs to exist, you could say it feeds from the mortals that pass though it."

"What really happens to the people that wish away their brothers and sisters, and don't make it through to the end?"
"The Labyrinth claims its payment. The child is returned to its home, missing it memories of the Labyrinth, and of its wished away sibling. The wished away children are given to Fae families to raise as their own, though there are very few these days. The mortal world no longer has such a strong belief in fairytales anymore." Lucia sighed sadly.

"What of the girl I saw this morning leaving me my breakfast, who was she? And who did you ask Isenith to fetch?"

"You have a sharp mind Sarah. The young woman you saw is one of the Others. Not taken by a Fae family because of her deformities, or illness. You must understand that many years ago, there were many children who were wished away by their parents because they were sickly. The medical cures in your world have taken a long time to be anywhere close to those of the Fae, even now mortal health care is poor, as you yourself experienced. Do not be mistaken however Sarah, those children who remain within this kingdom are well cared for, and are protected."

"Why would they need protecting?"

"Not all of them are mortal. There are often Fae children who are wished away, though it never ceases to amaze me that a race such as ourselves could do so."

"I don't understand." Sarah said, confused.

"Our race is dying, therefore every child is a gift, regardless of illness or deformity." Jareth said walking in through the glass doors before them, removing his long cloak as he entered the warmth of the Orangary. He threw his cloak across the back of the third chair and sat down ungracefully. He sat in silence; brooding as he refused the cup of tea Lucia poured him.

"Did the girl make it?" Sarah asked half-heartedly.

"Not even close." He sighed scuffing the toe of his boot against the table leg. "You'd have thought that the human race would grow more intelligent through the ages, but I am yet to be convinced of its supremacy. How can a girl wish away her sister then swear blind that she didn't believe in the underground. I've spent all damn morning convincing her otherwise."

"She didn't threaten to sue you did she?" Jareth looked up and glared at her. Backing down Sarah stood up and picked up her book from off the table. "Thank you for the tea Lucia, I should be learning your language." She curtseyed politely and left the room the way they had entered, but instead of being back in the rose courtyard, she found herself outside her own rooms. "Oh well, note to self, stay out of his way and don't mention mere mortals." She said to herself, settling down to read her book in the comfort of her sitting room.

Lunchtime had been and gone without anybody summoning Sarah, or bringing her food. Bored of reading in her deathly silent sitting room, she decided to try an experiment. Walking from her room, she quickly ran down the long corridor, and down the curving stairs to the ground floor. Pausing at the bottom she took stock of her thoughts and walked purposefully down another corridor she had not walked before. She walked some distance before stopping and muttering to herself. She carried on walking again and grinned as the corridor made a sudden turn, opening out into another set of narrower stone stairs. The stairs eventually lead out into a cavernous kitchen, filled with the smell of baking food and the sounds of clanging pans and cooks calling each other. Smiling in satisfaction Sarah walked out into the room, stopping a young girl who was kneading dough on a scrubbed table.

"Excuse me…" Was all she managed to say before a furious Jareth dragged her from the room.

"How dare you come down here!" He hissed as they stopped in a darkened corridor.