Sarah had thought that pestering Jareth would afford her some amusement to break the tedium that life in the Castle Beyond the Goblin City was proving to be. What she had not counted on was the Goblin King's complete lack of reaction. He didn't even twitch—well, not in a very interesting way anyhow—when he found the lawn chair that she had transformed his throne into. He merely halted in the entranceway, gave Sarah a longsuffering look, then changed it back with an elegant wave of one long fingered hand.

So far, she had turned the staircases into escalators, moved the dining hall to the second floor, blasted Midge out a tower window, and stuck all the furniture to the ceiling—she'd gotten that last idea from something she remembered reading, about some rock star or other, back in college—but it amounted to nothing. Jareth just fixed everything when she wasn't looking and never said anything about it. She would have preferred it if he had shouted at her. The resigned looks he gave her were making her feel like a naughty, misbehaving child. It was a feeling she didn't much like.

She did eventually find the library, down a hallway on the third floor. She spent nearly an hour in the hallway, fascinated by the words that materialized in the stones, as though written by a mighty, unseen hand, before she realized that there was even a door at the end.

She looks up and sees a door at the end of the hallway, read the words that suddenly appeared on the wall beside her face. "I wonder what that is" she thinks to herself.

"Oh stop it," Sarah snapped, glaring at the wall.

She expresses hostile feelings for the innocent stone wall that is just doing what it was made to do.

Sarah growled a soft curse under her breath and put her hand on the doorknob, ready to open it. She happened to look up and see, She says a very foul expletive under her breath that she thinks the wall cannot hear. She forgets that walls do not have ears.

"I swear to God, everything in this place is just one more reason to hate you, Jareth," she grumbled.

She did not wait to see what the wall had to say to that. She opened the door and found the library.

'Library' was actually a very mild word for what she found, but she couldn't think of any others to describe the place. It was huge, lined wall to wall with books, scrolls, pamphlets, and manuscripts of every variety and age imaginable.

There were books bound in leather, canvas, silk, and even one that she strongly suspected was bound in human skin. There were scrolls in gold, silver, and leather tubes along one wall. There were manuscripts in boxes, bound with velvet chords, silk strings, and twine.

She touched one such manuscript, left carelessly out on a table, and it instantly crumbled to dust under her fingers.

"Wow," Sarah said softly. There simply was no other word for it, and 'wow' seemed to sum things up nicely.

She plucked a slim red-bound book from the nearest shelf and sat down to read.

Two hours later, when Shire came in to twine around her feet for attention, she had finished it and started another. This one was far more entertaining than the first—a book of poetry entirely devoted to the beauty of trees in summer—and she was laughing at the exploits of Sir William Fig and his triumphant defeat of the Mad Mookybun, when the cat jumped up in her lap. She absently stroked Shire's pale fur and put the book down with a final giggle.

She supposed she wouldn't have found the exploits of unknown heroes and heroines quite so entertaining if she had grown up in the Underground. She was sure the daring adventures of Sir William Fig would have been much more impressive if she had actually known what a Mookybun was. It sounded like a very large, gooey cinnamon pastry to Sarah, which provided her with many very amusing mental images as she read about Sir Fig 'charging it down, heedless of any danger to his own person, his only thought to save the village from its villainy'.

She took Shire and left the library, covering her mouth every now and then with another fit of giggles at the mental picture of knights jousting giant cinnamon rolls for the safety of the kingdom. She didn't even glare when the wall commented that she was behaving hysterically.

Just as she had every night, she had the evening meal in the dining hall with Jareth. They usually spent it eating in silence, and tonight was no exception.

So she was a little surprised when Jareth put down his fork and sat back to look at her, a stern expression marring his pretty face. When he didn't say anything, just stared at her with those weird eyes of his, she did the same and returned his look with a steady one of her own.

"The ball is in two days," he said, at last breaking the silence.

Sarah did some quick calculating and decided that sounded about right. She'd been there almost two weeks now, and unless time ran much different in the Underground than the Aboveground, two days would make it a fortnight.

"So?" she lifted a brow.

"Do you know what you're going to wear?"

She couldn't have heard him right. "What?"

Jareth sighed and steepled his fingers on the table in front of him. "You have never been to a ball at Court . . ."

Sarah thought that was grounds for debate, and opened her mouth to do just that, when Jareth interrupted her.

"That was not the same thing. What I meant was, you have never been to a gathering of the Fae."

Sarah shrugged. "Okay. So?"

"I may have mentioned that I am not well liked at Court."

"You may have mentioned that," Sarah said wryly.

"Well, it's perfectly true," he said. "And not only because of my parentage."

"Isn't that enough? They need another reason?"

Jareth looked harassed and swiped a hand through his hair, making it stand up in spikes. It was really very cute, almost endearing even, to see him so frazzled about her wardrobe.

"You're not going to make this easy for me, are you?" he asked.

"Of course not."

"Fine. I am not well liked at court, and usually I am fine with that. They do not dare do anything about it because, though I am what they call a 'half-breed', I have the more power. It is the same reason why they send me an invitation to every event, even though they fully expect me not to attend."

"I really hope this is going somewhere," Sarah said.

He smiled grimly. "Indulge me a moment further."

She shrugged.

"They have every reason not to expect me to attend, because for the last thousand years or so, I have not. Among other, more personal reasons, I really saw no need to force my company upon them, or force myself to endure theirs."

"You said there was a point to this."

"Yes," he said. "The point is this; if I am going to break with tradition and go to this cursed thing, then we are going to do it right. I want you to be resplendent, so that no one would dare look down their nose at either of us for being there. They may think that we do not belong there, they may even whisper it behind their fans, but they will not dare say it to our faces, with their eyes or with their mouths."

Sarah rolled her eyes. She didn't know which she found more ridiculous; that Jareth had actually used the word 'resplendent' in a sentence, or that he wanted to involve her in his little pissing contest.

"I don't know what you're so upset about," she said. "It's not as if it was my idea to go to this 'cursed thing' in the first damned place."

"I know that," Jareth said.

"Okay, fine," she said. "I have no idea what is usually worn at these . . . gatherings, so why don't I just leave the whole thing to you."

Jareth blinked. "Me?"

"You're much more qualified than I am," she assured him, gesturing to her plain cotton t-shirt and blue jeans. "Besides, what do I know about Underground fashion?" Except that it seems like an oxymoron, she thought with a critical glance at Jareth's tight-fitting trousers and puffy poets shirt.

Jareth seemed to think about it, then nodded. "You're absolutely right," he said after a while. "After all, you don't really know what to expect, do you?"

"No, I don't."

"Alright then. I shall undertake it."

"You do that." Sarah got up from the table. "I'll go to bed then and leave you to it."

Jareth nodded absentmindedly and waved her off. He seemed to be already thinking about his little project; how much lace to put around the collar, how many diamonds to set into the hemline, and if that might be a bit much.

Sarah shook her head and grinned. Really, it was very cute.

But if he tried to make her wear anything with starch and stays, she was putting her foot down. A girl could only expect to be so tolerant, and cuteness only went so far.

The day before the ball was to take place, Jareth unveiled the results of his little project to Sarah.

Knowing Jareth and his love for feathers and shine, she had half expected something that looked like it had been stolen off of a Vegas show girl. It was actually much nicer than Sarah had thought it would be.

Jareth had found her in her rooms, laying on the bed with a book. He'd merely lifted one lovely pale eyebrow at what she had done, specifically at the owl theme of the bed, and at the skylight, windows, and many garish throw-pillows in general, then cleared his throat to get her attention.

Sarah looked up from her book. "Yes?"

"I have something to show you," he said. He eyed a yellow spotted pillow on the floor warily. It had trembled.

"What is it?"

"Ah, it's a surprise," he said hesitantly.

Sarah was intrigued, more by the Goblin King's cautious behavior than by the idea of a 'surprise'. It wasn't like Jareth to hesitate about anything, and he was forever giving her presents. Champaign diamond earrings, books, even wild flowers. They were always left anonymously in her room, but she didn't need a note to know who they were from. But Jareth was never anything but confident, and to see him uncertain about something made her curious to see whatever it was that could make him so.

She got up and followed him down the stairs to the throne room. In the entranceway, he stopped her.

"Close your eyes."

Sarah narrowed her eyes on him suspiciously. "What if I don't?"

Jareth gritted his teeth. "Must everything be a war with you? Can you not do this one small thing without fighting me?"

"I'm sorry," she said and promptly closed her eyes.

She tensed when he touched her, but he was just putting his hands on her shoulders to guide her into the room.

"You can open them now."

She opened her eyes and stared. It was black silk, so dark that it seemed to absorb the light, and for a moment, before her eyes adjusted themselves to the image, it looked like it had been dipped in silver.

"Are those—?"

"Diamonds?" he finished for her. "No, actually, they're moonstones."

"Oh."

She didn't want to be impressed, but she was. There were moonstones set into the skirt from the hem to the waistline. The bodice was tight-fitting and laced up the back, and would almost certainly require a corset, but Sarah found that she didn't care.

"It's beautiful, Jareth," she said, and heard him sigh with relief. "Did you think I wouldn't like it?"

"I feared so, yes," he said, with a little self-deprecating smile.

"I honestly expected something more . . . Cher," she said.

"Cher?"

"She's a singer," Sarah said absently. "And I would still have worn that."

"I'm very glad that you like it," he said. He let his hands slide down her shoulders to her arms.

Sarah shivered and pulled away, glaring at him. "I don't like it that much."

Jareth grinned and shrugged. "It was worth a try."

She gave a very unladylike snort. "Thank you—for the dress, I mean."

He gave her a little half bow, then turned on his heal and was gone.

Sarah took the gown to her room and laid it out on a chair. She fingered the silk—it was like water, it was so light—and admired the stones set into the skirt—moonstones, they glittered like little broken pieces of rainbow. It had the elegance of the standard black dress without being the least bit plain.

Jareth had taste. Who would have thought?