Sarah stood in the gloom as the sun rose behind the Castle, casting dancing, flitting shadows along the towers, and over the many twisting walls of the Labyrinth. She had successfully helped twelve of the mothers and fathers to reach the Castle and retrieve their children. She should have felt proud of such an accomplishment, because not even those twelve would have made it without her. But she couldn't help thinking of the ones she had lost.

Thirteen hours, and no more, was all the time they and she hand been granted. That too, was an unbreakable law of the maze, and she had not broken it. But in order to get any of them safely to their destination, she had had to leave some—those less capable, and less able to adapt—behind. And there was always, in the back of her mind, the promise that Jareth had obtained from her before they set out on their separate quests. Promise me that if it comes down to a choice between them and you, you will be selfish and pick you. And she had, more than once, been forced to choose. She had left a man, searching for his twin daughters, behind in the forest, surrounded by malicious, capering Fireies. She had lost a woman somewhere after they left the Bog. She had not wanted to leave them behind, but she had. She had thought of going back for them several times, but she had not.

In the end, she had been selfish. She had lost and abandoned more than ten men and women, all striving to save their young daughters and sons from the Castle Beyond the Goblin City. And now that it was done, did she regret it? No. She regretted only that she was unable to regret it. She regretted that, faced with the same decisions, her choices would not have been different.

She turned her eyes back to the Castle towers, reaching for the sky like the pillars of some great, dead Roman city. "Hello, Jareth," she said when the white owl lit on the wall beside her. "Everything went well with you, then?"

Jareth became a man in a flurry of false-wind and glitter. "Yes," he said. "I merely switched a few words around, got rid of a few others. The story is the same, but there is no summoning magic in it anymore."

"Good," Sarah said.

They stood together in silence for a while, listening to the faint chirrup of birds awakening with the dawn, and the little sounds of morning that arose everywhere as the first rays of sunlight touched the ground and spread to every corner of the Labyrinth. If Sarah had doubted before that the maze lived, she did not doubt it anymore.

"Sarah, what—?"

"'I am a guide to the Labyrinth," Sarah murmured in what Jareth had come to recognize as her 'quoting' voice. "'Monarch of the protean towers/ on this cool stone patio/ above the iron mist/ sunk in its own waste/ breathing its own breath'."

"Yeats?" Jareth asked.

She smiled sadly. "No. Jim Morrison. He was a musician," she clarified at the puzzled look Jareth gave her.

Her melancholy tone made him wonder, so he asked, "Someone you knew?"

She laughed. "No. He was dead before I was born. I never even saw him in concert." She smiled and reached out to clasp his hand in hers. "I'm not sure I would have wanted to anyway. He had this fascination with human behavior and liked nothing better than to incite his audience to violence and . . . well, the concerts often ended in orgies, or so they say."

"Why were you thinking about him then?"

She sighed. "I wasn't exactly thinking about him. His words seemed to fit the moment, that's all."

"I take it your mission was not as successful as mine," he said.

"I only got twelve of them to the Castle. I lost—I don't know how many."

"Twelve?" He lifted a brow at her. "That many?"

"I lost almost the same number," she said.

"But twelve . . . I'm impressed."

"Don't be." She lifted his hand to her mouth and pressed her lips to the back of his knuckles, taking comfort from his presence, and the intimacy that came with her ability to do that whenever she felt like it. "Jareth?"

"Hmm?"

"I could really use a cigarette right now." That wasn't the only thing she thought she could really use at the moment, but she thought it best to pace herself a little. Distantly, she knew that what she was feeling was some minor form of shock, and though she was seriously tempted to shove Jareth up against the nearest wall and jump his bones, she contented herself with the pack of Marlboros he passed to her.

"I hope those are what you wanted," he said.

She grunted and lit the tip with a snap of her fingers. Marlboros weren't her favorite, but they were better than the bland tasting smokes she had thus far managed to summon, and they were certainly better than nothing.

She cast Jareth a speculative glance and inhaled deeply, savoring the first rush of nicotine to her system. She exhaled and watched him with mild amusement. He was fidgeting.

"What's up with you? You're practically dancing in place."

"I . . . well, I brought you something else."

For the first time, she noticed what he was wearing and after she had convinced herself that, no, she was not hallucinating, she laughed. "Jareth, what the hell is that?"

He was wearing a black t-shirt with the words HELP! I THINK I'M A ROCK-STAR! across the front of it in glittering pink letters.

He grinned at her reaction, glad that he had not been wrong about it. "I thought you might think it was funny."

She snorted. "Yes, and it's very appropriate."

"I got one for you too."

Her eyes widened. "What the hell were you doing up there?" For the life of her, she could not visualize the Goblin King going shopping for novelty t-shirts. It was just too damned weird. "What's mine say? HELP! I'VE BEEN KIDNAPPED BY GOBLINS?"

"Don't be absurd."

"No, wouldn't want that, would we?" She said sarcastically. The whole fucking situation was absurd in her opinion. She finished the first cigarette and used it to light another one before she crushed it out beneath the toe of her shoe. "Well? Let's have it then."

Jareth removed the second t-shirt from his little leather pouch and shook it out. It read I LIKE POETRY, LONG WALKS ON THE BEACH, & POKING DEAD THINGS WITH A STICK.

Sarah couldn't help it; she coughed on the smoke in her lungs, then sat down against the wall and laughed. He certainly had her pegged, she had to give him that.

"Do you like it?" He asked.

"I love it," she said. "I swear. Thanks. Now, about that bottle you were supposed to get me . . ."

"I have it here," he assured her, and passed it to her.

"Thank God," she said with feeling. "I could really use a drink right now." She took the bottle from him, opened it, and took a long deep swig. She swallowed and put the cap back on. "So what happens to the kids I didn't save?"

Jareth looked at her sharply. "Don't blame yourself for that, Sarah. You sent more of them home than would have ever made it without you."

"But not all of them," she said.

"No. Not all of them."

"So what happens to the ones that are still in the Castle when we get back?"

"I think you already know the answer to that question," he said, not unkindly.

"They turn into goblins," she said, her voice flat.

"Yes."

She took a shuddering breath and pressed her hand to her forehead, where a monster of a headache was brewing. "Jareth?"

"Yes, Sarah?"

"Take me home."

"Are you tired?" he asked. He could definitely understand it if she was.

"No." She smiled faintly. "Are you?"