Jareth was very old, though he did not look it, and he had ruled the Labyrinth and the Goblin City for a long time. Not a long time as humans measure it, in days, weeks, months, and years, but a long time by immortal reckoning. He had no idea what the exact amount of time was, just that it was long, and that for most of it, he had been alone.
He had the goblins, but for the most part, they were more like pets than companions, and they made terrible confidants because they had no long term memory to speak of, and so were incorrigible gossips. If they didn't run and tell somebody right away, they immediately forgot about it.
In the ten years since Sarah bested the Labyrinth, no human older than two years had set foot within the walls of the Castle Beyond the Goblin City. Ordinarily, time seemed to move rapidly in the Underground, years and seasons passing into each other so that Jareth hardly even noticed them anymore. But since the day Sarah spoke those terrible, fateful words—You have no power over me—time in the Underground had crawled by on relentless, tedious fingers.
Was it any surprise then that when she called him, speaking his name softly, with the desire to see him at the fore of her mind, that he went to her like a dog to his mistress' heal?
He did not love her. He even hated her a little for her cruel, hateful, damnable beauty, and the inexplicable hold she had over him. But he wanted her still, even though the blush of innocence was gone from her forever, even though she had long ago given every passion that he had awakened in her to another man, even though she didn't believe in fairies anymore. He wanted her, and when the opportunity to have her presented itself, he gladly took it.
She was once again within his power, and no words and no spells could change that now. If she returned to the Aboveground, she would die, and he would not be able to save her.
She was trapped. He had won. It had taken ten years, but in the end, he had triumphed.
Jareth should have been positively jubilant, but he wasn't, not really. He had gained his hearts fondest desire . . . but he had not wanted to gain it this way.
Checkmate, my dear. I win, you lose, that is all you need know, he thought with grim satisfaction when she made her wish for goblin intervention for the second and last time.
He had won . . . but it felt way too much like cheating.