'Hell' was exactly the way Jareth would have described the situation if he had known the meaning of the word.

The goblins were entirely capable of causing mayhem of every imaginable sort, but it was mayhem that Jareth was used to dealing with. Just hex a few of the more aggressive goblins, issue a few orders and threats, and everything seemed to settle down—at least until they thought of something new to get into, then it started all over again.

But how, exactly, did one threaten a cat? It just looked at you patiently, like you were a child having a tantrum, then did whatever it wanted to do anyway.

And hexing it, no matter how enjoyable that would have been, was out of the question. It would have made Sarah angry if he hurt her pet simply because it was annoying him, and even though she couldn't kill him no matter how much she might wish to, he knew what an angry Sarah Williams could be like and he didn't want to have to live with her.

When Sarah reappeared in the throne room several minutes behind the savage little ball of white fur with a baby goblin on her hip, he glared at her, ran his fingers through his hair, and pointed at the cat, who serenely curled up in the middle of his throne, sleeping. "What is that?" he demanded through gritted teeth.

Sarah rolled her eyes. "That is a cat," she informed him, "which you know perfectly well. More specifically, it is my cat. And his name's Shire."

"Shire?"

"Short for Cheshire. You know, like the Cheshire Cat?"

Jareth had never read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and had no idea what a 'Cheshire Cat' was or what it had to do with anything. "What is it doing here? There are no cats in the Underground. How did it get here?"

"There are now," Sarah said and held up the wand with a grin.

Jareth blinked once. "I gave you that, the tremendous power of you very dreams, and the only use you can think of for it is to bring your pet here?"

Actually, she had already thought of a hundred things she could use it for, and had every intention of trying them out, but she didn't tell the Goblin King that. He might have taken it away from her.

"Don't be silly," she scoffed. She crossed the room, used the wand to conjure a plush armchair, and plopped down into it with the goblin in her lap. "What would you have me use it for? World Peace?"

Jareth's lips twitched reluctantly. She had just called him 'silly'. He'd been called a lot of things by a great many people; silly wasn't one of them. "No, of course not."

"Well, then I don't see what the problem is." She absently stroked the grey and black spotted fur at the base of the goblin's skull. The creature made a little contented sound in the back of its throat and relaxed. "I've been wondering about something," Sarah said abruptly.

Jareth lifted a brow, folded his arms over his chest, and rested a hip against a table that suddenly materialized for the purpose.

"Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?" she ventured.

"That really depends on the question," Jareth said.

Seeing that it was safe for the moment, more of the goblins who had hidden themselves in the face of Shire's wrath were reappearing. One of them, envious of the attention Sarah was giving to the little one in her lap, and braver than the rest, edged up against her leg.

"You said that you were Fae," Sarah said.

Jareth had an idea where this was going and smiled.

"Well, if you're Fae . . . how did you get to be the Goblin King?"

Jareth thought about it—not his answer, just whether or not he wanted to tell her. "My mother was Seelie Sidhe. Do you know what that is?"

"Yes." The goblin beside her leg ran his fingers over the jean material of Sarah's pants leg and she nudged it away with her foot. She regarded the ugly little thing uneasily. The way it was looking at her, she half expected it to start humping her leg. "Yes, I know what it is."

"I thought you might."

"So your mother was Seelie Sidhe, but that doesn't explain how you became the Goblin King." When he didn't say anything, she asked, "What about your father?" She assumed they didn't have immaculate conception in the Underground, but then, what did she know?

He hesitated, then sighed. "My mother was in a . . . an undesirable arranged engagement. Rather than marry her betrothed, she sought asylum from the King of the Goblins. My father."

"Your father was a goblin?" She wanted to be absolutely sure that she understood him correctly.

"Yes, my father was a goblin," Jareth said.

Sarah looked down at the goblin by her feet. He was once again close against her leg, but had not yet dared to resume caressing her. He was not cute like the one currently resting his head on her breast; he looked like some bizarre and unfortunate cross between a Yorkshire terrier and a howler monkey. What would it take to make someone desperate enough to—no, better not think about that.

She returned her gaze to Jareth. "Ew," she said simply.

Jareth smiled grimly. "Yes, well, the Fae think rather the same thing. A fact that has made me vastly unpopular at Court."

Sarah thought that was pretty funny and couldn't help laughing a little at his expense.

"A fortnight from now there is to be a ball. Every monarch in the Underground is invited to attend," Jareth said when her laughter had subsided. "This year it is to be held at the Unseelie Court. You are going with me. We'll see how amusing you find the whole thing when you're in the thick of it—and believe me, you will be. You look like Seelie, did you know that? Everyone will want to know who you are, what you are to me . . . I daresay you'll be the very topic of courtly intrigue."

If he was hoping for some kind of stunned reaction, he was doomed to be disappointed. She hadn't endured three years of staff meetings and parent conferences to quail in the face of a little royal one-upmanship. Sarah just smiled sweetly and asked, "Do I have to wear a corset?"