They may not have been tired when they returned to the Castle, or even for several long, sweaty, pleasurable hours after that, but neither of them had slept much in the past two days, and exhaustion was starting to wear on them both.

After one disorienting and strange, albeit exciting, hour spent making love in the Escher Room, not entirely sure if she was on her back on the floor, pressed against the wall, or stuck to the ceiling, Sarah demanded they go to bed—for the purpose of sleep—and Jareth happily agreed.

They fell into bed roughly around midday—Jareth's bed this time—and slept wrapped around each other as though dead.

Sarah awoke suddenly several hours later to a loud insistent tapping sound. She lifted her head from Jareth's chest, glanced around blearily in the dark, then let it fall back. She was almost asleep again when the sound came again.

"What!" she barked irritably in the direction of the door. Jareth tensed beside her and she knew that she had woke him up. "Midge, what is it now?"

There was no answer.

"What the devil are you yelling about?" Jareth groaned.

"Someone knocked on the door," she told him.

"Well, tell them to go away."

She glared down at him—or she would have if it hadn't been so dark she couldn't even see him. "What do you think I was just doing?"

"I did not hear you tell anyone to go away," he said. "I distinctly heard you ask them what they wanted."

Grumbling to herself, Sarah got out of bed, pulled on her robe, and fastened it with an angry jerk before opening the door. There wasn't anyone there. She stepped out into the hall and looked around, but the corridor was empty in both directions. A portrait of a frizzy-haired woman with a raccoon in her lap watched her with bored disinterest. Sarah paused in the doorway on her way back into Jareth's bedchambers just long enough to flip her off.

"Well, I never," the frizzy-haired woman huffed.

"With hair like that, I bet not," Sarah muttered, then slammed the door.

"What did he want?" Jareth asked, his voice was muffled by the pillow he had covered his face with when she opened the door.

"He?"

"Midge."

"There was no one there." She took her robe off and threw it over the bed-post.

Jareth grunted and edged over a little when she dropped heavily back on the bed. "Then who knocked?"

"Don't know," she said. "Probably just a couple of goblins nigger-knocking."

"What?"

"Means they knock on the door and real quick run off before you get there and—well, basically what just happened."

"Oh."

There was another loud tapping sound. Sarah growled into Jareth's chest.

"Go away!"

Tap, Tap, Tappity-Tap.

"Oh, Jesus fucking Christ," she grumbled. Jareth took the pillow off of his face and laughed. "Shut up," she told him.

He snorted. "It's not the door," he said.

"What? The hell it isn't, and when I catch the little monster that's doing it, so help me—"

"Put your robe back on, we have company," he told her. He lit the candle on the bedside table and pointed to the full-length mirror at the foot of the bed.

Sarah crossed her arms over her breasts with an alarmed squeak. There in the mirror were King Raspiel and Queen Elipsabet, both looking cool and mildly amused.

Sarah snatched her robe from the bed-post and put it on, clutching the front of it together tightly. "Why didn't you tell me your mirror did that?" she hissed at Jareth.

He put a finger against her lips to shush her, then reclined against the head-board and flipped the edge of a sheet over his lap. "Good evening King Raspiel, Lady Elipsabet."

"Good evening," Raspiel said, his odd lavender eyes darting between them. "Are we interrupting anything, by chance?"

Sarah grumbled something under her breath that Jareth didn't quite catch. However, he did discern the words 'sleep' and 'wanker', and so could not really be blamed for the grin that suddenly appeared on his face.

"Nothing of any consequence, I assure you," he said politely.

Sarah caught Raspiel looking her over with curiosity that was barely shy of suggestive and glared at him wrathfully. Her forward manner seemed to unnerve him and he turned his attention back to Jareth.

"My lady and I wished to speak with you about your invitation," he said.

Jareth lifted a brow and gave the king a cold look. "Yes?"

"It is still open, I assume?"

"You assume correctly."

"Oh, Jesus," Sarah muttered and rolled her eyes. She looked longingly at her place on the bed, where she would be soundly sleeping that very moment if Raspiel and Jareth had settled their shit at the stupid masquerade ball.

"Are there any specific times that you would find preferable?" Raspiel asked. His wife had not said a word, just sat there looking acutely bored with the whole thing.

"Yeah," Sarah said, cutting off whatever response Jareth had been about to make. "How about any time that's not now?"

Raspiel looked at her and curled his lip disdainfully.

Sarah almost laughed. Oh please, she'd been snarled at by ritually scarred gang members that she knew for a dead certainty kept sharp objects hidden in their lockers and were not afraid to use them. This guy had a lot of work to do before he could scare her with a look.

"You want to come for a little visit, right?" she asked.

"That would be correct," Raspiel said cautiously.

Sarah looked at Jareth. "What about you?"

He regarded her with his brows lifted and a small smile curling his lips. "What about me? You seem to be handling things well enough without me."

"I meant, do you have a problem with that?"

"No," he said. "I extended the invitation after all. It's only fair that—"

"Fine," she cut him off. "When?"

"Whenever is convenient for them is fine."

Sarah looked at the king inside the mirror. "When?"

"Well, we were thinking perhaps tomorrow if there are no objections. But—"

"Fine. Tomorrow." Sarah deliberately took the blanket from the foot of the bed and tossed it over the mirror, blocking them out. "See you then."

"Did you have to do that?" Jareth asked when she climbed back on the bed.

"No, I didn't have to," she said. She yawned and curled up on her side with her head on his belly. "But think of how much damned time I just saved us both."

"It wasn't very polite."

"Politeness is overrated."

He didn't have anything to say to that, and he was just as tired as she was, and he didn't really give a damn if she had just insulted the Unseelie monarch or not, so he slid back down on the bed, yawned, and closed his eyes.

"Jareth?"

"Hmm?"

"Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Sarah."