Sarah stepped back and turned away from the Unseelie queen. Her gaze fell on the wall beside her door, on the poetry scrawled into the stone, left unfinished because she could not remember.
"I arise from dreams of thee," she murmured softly, reading the words engraved there. "In the first sweet sleep of night/ When the winds are breathing low/ And the stars are shining bright." Words that belonged to another time, another place. Most of all, words that did not belong here.
"That's beautiful," Elipsabet said behind her. "Did you make it up?"
Sarah closed her hands into fists at her sides and whirled to face her again. "Tell me where he is."
Elipsabet shrugged. "They are at my lord's palace, of course."
Of course. She should have known that. "How do I get there?"
Elipsabet arched a brow and considered her skeptically. "The usual way, dear."
"Define 'usual'," Sarah snapped.
"Well, you fly, of course."
"Of course," Sarah said hollowly. She crossed her arms over her breasts and tilted her head back with a sigh. Finally she admitted, "I can't fly."
Elipsabet laughed. "Of course you can, dear. Everyone can fly."
That phrase, 'of course' falling from her lips every damn time she opened her mouth was starting to grate on Sarah's nerves. In her experience, the only people who used that term so lightly were those who took most, if not everything for granted. People like the queen who had never had to learn what the true meaning of loss was.
"Everyone," Sarah said patiently, "except me."
"Well that's odd," Elipsabet said. "Is it a mutation of some kind, dear?"
"Something like that," Sarah said. "And for fuck sake, stop calling me 'dear'."
"I do apologize—"
"Look," Sarah said, "are you going to help me or not? Do you know how I can get there without flying?"
Elipsabet considered it, her forehead scrunched up in concentration. "Your Jareth has a scrying glass, doesn't he?"
"If you mean that stupid mirror at the foot of his bed," Sarah snapped. "You already know that he does."
"No need to get testy about it," Elipsabet said. "I'm just trying to help you."
"I don't have time for this," Sarah hissed. "I don't even know why I'm trusting you. It's your husband that—"
"You don't really have much choice," Elipsabet said, her own voice hardening a little in irritation.
Sarah ran a hand through her hair in frustration. "Okay. Fine. What about the mirror?"
"It's a scrying mirror, dear," Elipsabet said, as though talking to an illiterate child. "You can speak through it—"
"I know that."
"Or you can walk through it," she finished.
Sarah suddenly had visions of Alice climbing through the looking glass into Wonderland. She shook her head. "What?"
Elipsabet sighed. "If you—"
Sarah grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the chair. "Show me," she said.
She ran down the tower stairs with Elipsabet close behind her trying to keep up and at the same time, hold her cloak up with her free hand so she wouldn't trip over it. Sarah practically dragged the queen across the throne room, up the stairs, and down the hall to Jareth's rooms. When she finally let go of her hand, the Fae woman was panting and out of breath.
Sarah used the knocker—which cursed her in a language that sounded suspiciously like Mexican Spanish—and pulled Elipsabet into the room. She released Elipsabet's hand and pointed at the mirror. "Show me," she said.
"Well, first . . . you say . . . forgive me, dear, I am a bit winded from our mad dash." She paused to catch her breath, while Sarah waited anxiously.
She could feel her urgency rising with every passing minute. Somewhere, Raspiel had Jareth. Somewhere, things were happening to him. Raspiel wanted something from him, she could guess that much, and he was the kind of man who would go to extreme lengths to get what he wanted. And Jareth, well, she knew how stubborn Jareth could be. Jareth would not give the king anything, and the more Raspiel wanted it, the less likely it was that the Goblin King would give it to him.
Jareth would make Raspiel hurt him.
"Please, please hurry," Sarah whispered.
"Well, dear," Elipsabet said, having regained some of her breath, "first you say the words, and then—"
"What words?"
"The spell to awaken the mirror," Elipsabet said in exasperation. "Really, don't you know anything?"
"I know enough," Sarah snapped. "Why don't you just say them for me and hurry this along?"
"If you like, I suppose—"
"I like. Now say them, and hurry up."
Elipsabet smiled faintly and patted her arm in what Sarah supposed she thought was a comforting way. She turned and addressed the mirror, and spoke in that odd lilting, almost Gaelic language that Sarah had heard Jareth use once before. As she did this, she took Sarah's hand and pressed her palm to the glass. It felt cold at first, like glass should feel, but as the queen spoke; it warmed until Sarah almost drew her hand away. It felt like flesh under her hands, not glass. Still smooth, but somehow alive.
When Elipsabet's voice trailed off, Sarah looked at her, but did not quite dare take her hand away incase it would break the spell. "Now what?" she asked.
"Where do you want to go?" Elipsabet asked.
"You already know where—"
"Yes, I know," Elipsabet said patiently. "Now tell the mirror."
"This is just ridiculous," Sarah grumbled. She eyed the mirror warily and took her hand away, relieved that nothing changed. "What is the name of your palace?" she asked Elipsabet. She could not recall ever hearing the place referred to by a name.
"The Castle in the Rocks," Elipsabet replied, smiling a little.
"That's nice," Sarah said. She turned back to the mirror and stared at it. Mirror, mirror on the wall, she thought, a little hysterically. Jesus, she had Disney on the brain, and today of all days. "Show me Jareth," she said aloud.
The reflection in the mirror became a flowing blur of images, like watching a movie played at the bottom of a rushing river. She felt her eyes want to cross, but didn't look away. When the images finally stopped and the mirror cleared, for one of the few times in her life, Sarah almost fainted.
"Oh dear," Elipsabet said inanely.
Sarah glared at her. "Are you coming with me?" she asked.
Elipsabet backed a little away from her. "I would help you if I could, but I cannot."
Sarah's eyes, now dark with rage, narrowed. "Why not?"
"Because—" she faltered. "Because I can see it in your eyes that you mean to kill him, and I could not stand by and watch that. Don't ask me to."
Sarah did not try to deny it. Elipsabet was right; what she had seen in the mirror, what she was looking at now—oh yes, if the opportunity presented itself, she would hurt Raspiel for what he had done. And if Jareth were dead—and it looked like that might be a real possibility—she would do her very best to kill him. If he could be killed.
"You're going to stay here then?" Sarah asked her.
"Yes, I think . . . I mean, if that's alright," she said.
Sarah considered for a moment putting the queen in one of Jareth's oubliettes, just to keep her safe, but dismissed the idea for several reasons. The most important reason was that, because there were so many of the damned things all over the Labyrinth, and the maze had this annoying habit of shifting around whenever it felt like it, Sarah was afraid that Elipsabet might become, well, lost. She also thought about putting her in the dungeons while she was gone, but then decided that was probably not very nice when the woman had helped her when, honestly, she really shouldn't have. Then there was the tiny little chance that she and Jareth would not be coming back, and if that should happen, who was going to let her out? Certainly not the goblins. They'd likely think it was great fun to poke at her with sticks through the bars.
"It's fine," Sarah said. "But don't wander into the maze."
Elipsabet looked relieved. "I won't, I promise," she said. "Oh, and Sarah—?"
Sarah paused with her hand once again on the mirror, ready to step through. "Yes?"
Elipsabet shifted nervously and clasped her fingers together in front of her. "You won't tell Raspiel . . . that I . . . well, you won't tell him that I—"
Sarah smiled faintly. "That you helped me?" she finished for her.
"Yes."
"No, my lady," Sarah said solemnly. "I am not in the habit of turning people over to my enemies. It makes for bad friendships."
Elipsabet smiled at her in thanks. "Thank you," she said. "And good luck."
Sarah took a deep breath, then stepped through the glass like she was walking through a waterfall.
The poem that Sarah was reading at the begining:
'The Indian Serenade'
By: Percy Bysshe Shelley
I arise from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low,
And the stars are shining bright
Iarise from dreams of thee,
And a spirit in my feet
Hath led me -- who knows how? --
To thy chamber window, Sweet!
The wandering airs they faint
On the dark, the silent stream --
The champak odors fail
Like sweet thoughts in a dream;
The nightingale's complaint,
It dies upon her heart;
As I must on thine,
Oh, beloved as thou art!
O lift me from the grass! I die! I faint! I fail!
Let thy love in kisses rain On my lips and eyelids pale.
My cheek is cold and white, alas!
My heart beats loud and fast;--
Oh! press it to thine own again,
Where it will break at last.