While still in her bath, Beth passed out long before David returned

At Catherine's insistence she remained in the hot water for over an hour, and this was the position that she was in when David returned.

He wasn't angry any more, Sarah noted, when he stood at her side again, he looked sad and tired, almost resigned. She didn't think that she had ever seen anybody look so wretched in her entire life.

"Will you please tell me what's going on?" She asked him desperately, she had been watching the events unfold for over an hour, and she was no closer to working out what was happening.

David sighed before he spoke "Beth is going to have a baby" he told her in a low voice, "Drinking a bottle of gin and having a very hot bath…" he paused "It's a technique women can use to get rid of it."

Sarah gasped, that was terrible! She knew that things had been difficult between Beth and David lately, but why would she want to get rid of their baby?

Before she had time to voice her opinions to David he walked away. He probably didn't want to talk about it, Sarah reasoned, after all, who would?

When Beth awoke the next morning she was in her own bed. Somebody had carried her back upstairs and gently wrapped the covers around her. She looked around the room, early morning sunlight was pouring through her window and David was sleeping in the chair next to her bed, his hand clasped in hers. She gently pulled her hand away in order to push away the hair that was matted to her face, but despite her efforts the movement roused him from his slumber.

"Hey" he smiled at her, more warmly than he had for a long time.

"Hey" she smiled back gingerly, now that she was fully awake the feeling was starting to seep back into her body.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, passing her a glass of water, which the dehydrated Beth gulped down "I bet you have the mother of all hangovers" he remarked, sounding almost brittle.

"Did it work?" she suddenly asked, she needed to know what had happened last night "is it gone?"

"No, Beth" he told her softly

She sat up and whispered something in his ear. Something that she couldn't bare to say to him out loud. She was glad that she couldn't see his face, because she knew that, like her own, his heart was breaking.

"Please David…" she started to ask, clasping his hand, but what ever her request was going to be she couldn't go through with it "just go" she finished.

Without saying another word David got up and left her room.

Sarah was worried about David.

She was fairly justified in her worrying, as she knew that the rest of the party, working their way towards the library in the Castle Beyond the Goblin City, were worried too. The fact that David was chattering away as if he didn't have a care in the world, didn't help. In fact it was only making it worse.

"And then the fireys turned up", he was telling them about the last time he had been to the castle. "So as you can imagine, we all just turned and ran like hell."

"You know" said Rhett "you're not really filling us with confidence here!"

The others laughed.

Sarah looked at David, her eyes filled with concern as they met his, but before she had chance to speak he cut her off "Don't Sarah, just don't." He increased his pace and soon he was quite a way ahead. There was no way that he was going to talk about it.

"Is he alright?" Rhett asked Sarah, concerned.

"I don't know" she replied sadly.

He slipped her hand into his and squeezed it. The gesture was reassuring.

Hand in hand they kept walking, and soon they reached the hedge mazes. It had been decided yesterday morning that a small group, led by David and Sarah would head over to the Castle, to see if they could find the Goblin King's library and hopefully some information that they could use against the King and Queen.

Sarah hadn't been in the labyrinth proper since she had wished Toby away, over a year ago. It was making her feel uneasy, the high walls, so enclosed, not being able to see what was around the next corner. She felt uneasy, but the thing that was really making her stomach churn was the fact that; it was in the hedge mazes that she had first met Ludo.

Despite having seen with her own eyes the beast that he really was, Sarah still struggled to equate the sweet cuddly giant with the monster that would rip out her entrails as soon as look at her.

Unlike David's last trip to the Castle Beyond the Goblin City, the journey was fairly peaceful, taking just over an hour for them to reach the city gates. Rhett used the time to tell stories of his childhood, being raised in a medieval castle, his tales fascinated Sarah, and Sarah's stories of street cars and skyscrapers fascinated him.

"No!" Rhett was shocked "you're making that up"

"No, really" Sarah argued "people really have walked on the moon."

Soon the path they were following stopped twisting and turning and became wider, it wasn't just a route through a maze anymore; it was the main road into the Goblin City. There were many roads into the city, each fraught with danger, the roads were used by Goblins daily and the other, more menacing, inhabitants of the Labyrinth laid in wait for them just out of sight.

This was the most dangerous part of their journey.

The group had been walking in silence for over ten minutes; they didn't want to draw attention to themselves, when Sarah saw something. She wasn't even sure she had seen something, just an orange blur to her right, hidden in some bushes. Panicking, she grabbed David's sleeve, and when he turned to face her she mouthed the word 'RUN'. He didn't have to be told twice. Sarah and David leapt into action, their feet pounding the hard earth, the rest of the group following them.

They ran and ran until they felt like their heart would give out and their lungs would bust. Their feet continued to pound the pavement and yet, they did not stop running. To stop running would be the last thing that they ever did.

Eventually they reached a fork in the road. To the right lay a path back into the hedge mazes, where they could probably loose the beast in its endless twists and turns and then back to the encampment, having found nothing. To the left lay the Goblin City and beyond that the Castle and the library, but it was a straight road, they would have to be able to outrun the beast and they couldn't keep up this gruelling pace for long.

There wasn't really a choice which way to take. The encampment had rules, strict rules, to guarantee that at least half the group would survive; if a group was being chased, at the first available opportunity split up. It made sense. The beast could only chase after half the group.

"Rhett and Sarah. Left" David panted the instructions "Dean, Phil, Tom. Right."

So the group split and David, Rhett and Sarah found themselves the only ones continuing to the library.

About 50 feet after the fork in the road there was a small outcrop of rock, David nodded to them and they ducked behind it, waiting to see which path the beast would choose. Sarah sucked in breath desperately, her lungs and legs already aching, she was breathing hard, preparing her body, should they have to run again. The three of them were peeking over the top of the rock, frantically trying to stay hidden, if the beast were to catch sight of them it would definitely give chase. For once luck was with them. Sarah watched silently as the beast lumbered up to the fork in the road; not seeing their hiding place he decided to go hunting in the hedge mazes. Breathing a sigh of relief they continued on their way.

The rest of the journey to the Castle was completed quite uneventfully. Still mindful that the beast was prowling, neither Sarah, nor Rhett, nor David felt much like talking. Within half an hour they had arrived at the gates to the Goblin City, unlike Sarah's first visit to the capital, there was no guard posted there today. With the exception of a group of the larger Goblins throwing stones, their passing through was barely noted.

They snuck into the castle through an open window and made their way up three flights of stairs, down a long corridor, taking the third door on the left, then back down two flights of stairs. They paused and hid seven times, believing that they could hear the sound of the Goblin Queen's skirts floating.

Eventually they made it to the library. It wasn't the vast room that Sarah had been expecting, walls filled with books from the floors to the towering ceiling. Instead it was a fairly pokey little room, small and dark, with old dilapidated books perched on shelves that looked like they would fall apart at the slightest nudge. "Well then," said David "lets get reading."

It was David that found the book and in years to come he regretted it, because in his mind, anything could have been better than the events that followed. The information that they had been looking for was in a large book, leather bound and written on vellum, the title simply said 'HISTORY'.

"Sarah" he said "I've found out what happened to the humans, the ones that used to live in the castle."

"What?"

He handed the book to her and her arms sagged under its weight, it must have been over a thousand pages long. "Read the last ten pages or so" he told her.

She picked up the book and started to read, so engrossed in the book that she didn't see another figure join them.

"Well, Well. What do we have here?" a voice drawled lazily from the doorway. "What in the Underground could you possibly be doing here?"

"We were just looking around" said Sarah, tucking the volume behind her, trying to seem casual, but failing miserably.

"Yes" piped up Rhett "Sarah said that she had never been in the castle, so I thought I'd show it to her." It was a very transparent lie. Sarah knew it, Rhett knew it, and the Goblin King knew it. After all, Sarah had been in the castle before.

"The question still remains" said the Goblin King "what are you five doing in my personal library?" he asked coolly "Looking for summer reading material perhaps? A romance" he winked at Sarah "a thriller" he now pointed his eyes at Rhett, then turned his attention to David "or perhaps a murder mystery?"

"If you don't want us here, Your Highness" said David recklessly, the last two words dripping with loathing "we'll head on home." They started towards the door.

"Wait right there" the King replied, authority ringing out. Everybody stopped in their tracks.

Panic coursed through Sarah's veins. Please make him go away, she thought just make him leave. Her heart was beating faster now and beads of perspiration started to appear on her brow.

The Goblin King started to approach, "Sarah my dear," he ran a gloved hand across her cheek "you look awfully flustered, what have you been reading?"

Sarah said nothing.

"Show me" he commanded.

She turned around slowly, but instead of reaching for 'HISTORY' she reached for the book lying next to it. She handed him 'An Encyclopaedia of Firey Behaviour' silently.

He tossed the book away, disinterested and moved closer to Sarah, moving his arm to rest on the bookshelf behind her. She tried to step backwards, but there was nowhere for her to go. "Sarah" he traced his fingers along the line of her jaw "a pretty girl like you shouldn't be reading a dull book like this, there's much more to life," he bent forward and whispered into her ear, his voice low and seductive "I could give you everything you desire…if you were to desire me."

"Let her go" to Sarah's surprise it wasn't David that spoke up for her, it was Rhett. Sarah sank to her knees in relief.

"The knight in shining armour," he smiled at Rhett sardonically "how sweet."

Then, all of a sudden, the King lost interest in them. He was whimsical like that Sarah thought. With a simple wave of the hand, not only had they been dismissed, but they found themselves back at the encampment.

"That was kind of him" Rhett was surprised.

"No it wasn't" corrected David "he didn't want us reading any more of that book – I doubt Sarah fooled him." He turned his attention to Sarah "Did you finish reading it?"

"No, he came before I could read more than a couple of pages" she saw David's shoulders sag in defeat "which is why I brought them with me" as she finished she held up a handful of paper, that had been ripped from a very old book.

"Sarah, you are a genius!" Rhett picked her up and spun her round. When he put her down their faces were very close. "We have to tell the others" he said, stepping back.

"No" replied David, his voice sad "I want to tell Beth first."

"Okay" said Sarah quietly, not really understanding, David had been going out of his way to avoid her for weeks, and he was almost making a point of not asking for her opinion on any topic.

"Sarah, could you go and find her for me, I want to go wash this grime off my face before I speak to her"

"Sure" she agreed softly, placing his arm on her shoulder.

After a few enquiries Sarah found out that Beth was in the woods, a little to the west of the Encampment. Despite the fact that her feet hurt from her trek to the castle that afternoon, Sarah decided to go look for Beth straight away.

It didn't take long to find her.

Sarah wandered into a section of the forest that she had always liked. A small clearing, which on sunny days let bright light filter down through the leaves, giving the forest a safe, airy feel. Today it wasn't sunny and this area of the forest was as dull as any other. The fall was coming and the leaves were just beginning to change colour, most no longer lush green but yellowing slightly, while some had changed to burnt oranges and vibrant reds. In the middle was a small mound, raised about six feet off the ground.

It was at the bottom of the mound that Sarah first saw Beth sprawled onto the floor. As she watched, the older girl picked herself up, climbed up to the top of the mound and launched herself off. A few minutes later she repeated the action.

Before last night, Beth's actions would have puzzled Sarah. But now she thought that she understood. Beth didn't want the baby and she was trying to get rid of it.

Sarah started forward and stepped on a cracking twig and Beth spun round, now aware of her audience.

"David sent me to find you" Sarah said apologetically.

"Did he now?" Beth sounded like she really couldn't care less.

"Don't you want the baby?" Sarah asked, not really understanding the motive behind Beth's erratic behaviour, after all David was a decent enough guy.

"Of course I don't want the baby!" Beth practically screamed at her, scraping back the hair that had gotten stuck onto the blood now running from her temple, before continuing "How do you think I got stuck in this godforsaken place to begin with?" not waiting for an answer she carried on "Because let some goddamn bastard knock me up, that's how!"

With that she turned and headed back towards the encampment. Sarah followed.