Janus' key is heavy in my hand. It's five days until All Hallows' Eve and I've got a plan.
Tip-toeing down the hall, I make my way to Asher's room. Light glows beneath the door—she must still be awake. The time has come to figure out what exactly it was that she promised the Autumn King, but she has to know that I understand. She needs to trust me.
Knocking gently, I push the door open to find her sitting cross legged on the bed, a book in her lap.
"Evening, Asher," I say, closing the door behind me. "Would you like to go on an adventure?"
Asher's eyes narrow, but she closes the book and climbs to her feet. "Where?"
"The past," I say, grimly. "Mine, not yours." Not yet.
"Ok," she replies, ducking to find her shoes. "Let's do this." The grave expression she wears tells me she knows where this is going to lead, but she's willing to see it through.
Turning back toward the door I just came in, I insert Janus's key into an old fashioned keyhole which wasn't there before and give it a twist. When the door opens, I pull out the key and beckon her forward.
The world beyond the door is a white haze. Of course, I'd bring her here first—to the place where desire initially claimed me—a glimmering mimic of a ballroom.
"What is this?" Asher asks as we walk into the memory. The masked attendants don't pay us any mind as we pass a sunken sitting area and climb up the almost disembodied staircase. Reality holds no sway in the Labyrinth let alone the dreams born within it.
"This is where I realized the Goblin King wasn't just after my brother, wasn't just meeting the demands of a wish gone awry. Our game morphed into something very different while I raged against the clock and rampaged through his world," I say, pointing toward a humongous pile of hair in the distance as I motion for Asher to take a seat on the edge of the floating stairs with me. It is the best view of the bubble ballroom.
"Is that you?" She asks in not so subtle disbelief. "You're so young and that dress is ridiculous."
"Shush, it was the 80's a strange and troubling time for fashion. We depleted half the ozone with hairspray alone that decade," I say, smiling as my younger self stares around her, eyes wide and uncertain. "Look."
Asher turns her attention on memory me.
It is strange to smile at myself. So young, so innocent. And, there's the king, his ancient feral eyes watching me. What on earth did he see in me? I hardly understood what I saw in him.
It is clear now. We are both fierce, dramatic, and absurd. The perfect playmates despite his immortal years and my mortal fragility. The pleasure he takes twirling me about this dream world is amusing now, even it felt bitter and confusing to me then. I just wanted him to kiss me. Why did he not kiss me then?
"You two don't look so strange together," Asher whispers. "Oh shit you're running. What are you doing with that chair...you didn't?" She turns to me as the ballroom explodes around us. People laughing, screams, as the world goes tipsy turvy, downside up.
We are standing in a junkyard now, the castle in the distance.
"You busted it," Asher says, a little awed.
"I did, it wasn't real, and I had to find my brother. It was my fault he was in trouble, but I knew then that he wasn't the only one. It's hard to want someone who doesn't necessarily think or feel the way you do. Jareth wants me, but..." I start, taking Janus's key and fitting it in the keyhole of a broken door beneath our feet.
"...he wants me on his terms," I finish, leading her into another memory, the edges of this one soft and dreamlike too.
"Everything that you wanted I have done. You asked that the child be taken. I took him. You cowered before me, I was frightening. I have reordered time. I have turned the world upside down, and I have done it all for you. I am exhausted from living up to your expectations. Isn't that generous?" He asks, so bewildered.
"The poor Goblin King, confused and torn. He'd never meant to love me," I tell Asher, as I watch a girl who is braver than I am know face him. "The immortal don't understand our fickleness, the levity of our wishes. Their words are true. He did everything right, but it was oh so wrong."
"I ask for so little. Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave," Jareth says, as we watch.
"Oh, come on," I grab her hand and yank her over to a floating shard of door. There's no logic to the gravity in this place. I've only just found the keyhole when those world-ending words fill the air.
"You have no power over me."
The door swings open as once again the younger me rips a hole in Jareth's realm, and probably his heart. I pull Asher into the dark halls of Janus's palace just in time.
"You have no power over me!" Asher rounds on me with those wide eyes of hers. "You actually said that?"
"Well, to be fair, the words weren't mine. They were from a story, but stories are the best places to find magic words." I shrug. "You see, I'd already won. I'd made my way through the Labyrinth and I'd found Toby. The terms of our initial exchange were met. That was just the king trying valiantly to make a last deal, but you can't make deals with the fae. You can't make them promises. There's no way out of them once you do."
My hands are on my hips as my eyes meet hers. "Now I need to know what happened between you and Gywn. So we can figure out how to stop him."
The girl's shoulders slump as she reaches for the key I pulled out of my pocket once more.
"You don't have to show me, but knowledge is our best weapon against what is coming...in a few days time," I say.
"I know," Asher says, taking the key and crossing over to one of the gateways which has conjured up a solid door for her to use.
A cold wind whistles through the bare tree limbs on what has to be Halloween night. The full-bellied moon hangs heavy above the twisted fingers of the tree-line in the distance.
We are in a park. The setting feels familiar because of the obelisk—the obelisks. Park it is not.
"A graveyard on Halloween? Really, Asher?" I can't help but roll my eyes even if she can't see me in the dark.
The girl doesn't answer as she steps around the nearest tombstone. A candle burns in the distance and memory Asher sits beside it, tears in her Bette Davis eyes.
I move closer to the memory girl. Her honey colored hair catches the moonlight as it stirs in the wind, black eyeliner smudged against her pale skin. She might be dressed as a Victorian vampire, black lace dress and gloves to match, but I can't be sure.
"Never found he rest and quiet; Ever in this awful riot. Must he hurry on half-crazed. Nearest him, of all the shadows, coursing over lake and glade, through the night-mist of the meadows, was a pale and slender maid," a cold voice says as a wraithlike man ambles down the steps of a nearby tomb. He hadn't been there a moment before, or at least I hadn't seen him. It figures the master of the wild hunt would lead with poetry when locking eyes on a helpless girl.
Asher startles, jumping up from her seat to put the candle between herself and the sharp-eyed man now sharing the graveyard with her. It would be easy to have assumed he wore a costume. The knee high hessians, the leather jerkin over a white shirt with billowing sleeves—he looks just like a character from a well financed period drama. Well, except for fae features and burning eyes.
"Why are you crying?" Gwyn asks, his eyes not meeting hers.
Asher just stares like a deer caught in the headlights. At first she doesn't answer. There's so much sorrow written in the lines of her face, her eyes blaze against the black of her mascara. "It's stupid," she finally says.
"How can something stupid cause you to weep so? I heard your sadness as I passed by," Gwyn leans against the tomb, arms crossed.
Asher bites down hard on her lip as she looks him over once again. I would've known he was nothing but trouble. Of course, like her, that probably wouldn't have stopped me.
"There was a dance at school," Asher begins. "I was supposed to go with Adam Thompson, but he didn't pick me up. When I got to the dance, he was with another girl. I couldn't stay, it was too embarrassing, but I can't go home yet either, so I came here to visit Aida." Asher points to the tombstone the candle sits upon.
"If she hadn't died, I would've just gone with her and everything would be fine," Asher dragged a hand across her eyes, smearing the black liner even more.
"Your sister?" Gwyn asks.
"My twin," Asher nods. "It sucks."
"You shouldn't waste your tears on boys," Gwyn says, pushing off the tomb, taking her chin in his gloved hand. Which I know is actually a claw. The very idea of his hands on her face makes me shiver. "There are more significant things to cry over."
Asher doesn't move, but her eyes find his. Gwyn doesn't look away this time. "Have many girls wasted their tears on you?"
The master of the wild hunt, the Autumn King, cants his head and smiles.
"They have haven't they," Asher grins, brave, stupid girl. "You've left a trail of broken hearts in your wake."
"I assure you, I have not," Gwyn answers. "The hearts I break rarely belong to young girls."
"Oh, I think I'd love to have my heart broken by you," Asher says, reaching out to brush her fingers against his sharp cheek.
If I didn't need to see this, I'd bury my face in my hands. The audacity of youth.
Gwyn laughs. It is a soft, self-deprecating sound. "Would you? I think it likely you'd break mine."
"Would you let me?" Asher tilts her head back, leans in toward him. The little tart.
"Yes, I think I might. Will you promise to mend it once you've cracked it open?"
No. No. NO. Physically, I take a step toward them even though I know there's nothing I can do to stop this. How can he ask her to make such a deal?
"Will you promise to be mine?" Gwyn asks, dipping his head close to hers. The heartbeat before his lips ghost over hers she says yes.
Damn it.
What the hell am I supposed to do with that?
I turn to catch the current Asher's eyes. They are full of tears once more. Grabbing her hand, I drag her up to the tomb and insert Janus's key, pulling us back into her bedroom.
"You deserve honesty. I have no idea how we are getting you out of this one," I say, shaking my head at the girl.
"It's hopeless," she says, falling back on the bed. "I just thought he was a strange boy. You know, pale, beautiful, perfect."
"You've just described every bad idea I've ever encountered," I reply. "Well, it's a good thing we can hide you in the Labyrinth. I suppose this will be a yearly event."
Without another word—I am speechless really—I wave her a goodnight and slip out into the hall, retreating to my own room. But, before I step inside, a bad idea all my own convinces me to put Janus's key into a door once more. Turning the knob, I step into the Labyrinth.
The place is in an uproar. Two steps inside and Ismael hands me a rapier. Maybe I should've just gone to bed.
I am the worst. I freely admit it. I've been working on a novel, which is now finished, and I am querying! Very exciting, but I am still a horrible fic delaying monster. I will get the last chapters of this story up! I have them planned!