A short while later, Jareth left Sarah in the very capable hands of the Chief Healer, a Halfling of Gnome and Elvin decent by the name of Leena Paisley.

He made his way to his chambers in order to change his clothes before thinking on all that had transpired. Wearily he sat on his bed after changing into something a little less flamboyant than the costume he had worn to DG's birthday party the night before. He closed his eyes and prodded his magick.

It seemed healthier today than it had in nearly ten years.

A wistful smile graced his lips as he thought about what it all meant: Sarah had returned and the bonding was moving forward as it should have done ten years prior. His heart was no longer empty.

He opened his eyes in determination as he was brought back to the issue raised to him the night before: DG's emotions. She had admitted to him that she felt nothing for the men she saw around her - just as he had felt nothing for the women that had been flocking around him for the past ten years. It could only mean one thing and one thing alone. Bonding interference.

Sarah hadn't been supposed to win back the child all those years before. She was supposed to stay with him and be his queen - the Labyrinth had decided on it. The bonding had already begun, even before they had danced in the Crystal Ballroom made of dreams and faeries' webs.

The bonding had already begun.

Jareth knew the pain she would suffer if she left him after the bonding was complete. He knew and he refused to put her through that pain. So he had eased the strings on the binding, freeing Sarah to leave him, and taking the burden entirely upon himself.

The cost: his ability to feel anything at all toward women unrelated to himself.

And now, it seemed, DG was suffering the same consequences of a tampered binding. He could already guess at who the culprit was this time.

With a look of majestic, righteous anger Jareth rose to his full height, ready to confront his sister for her crime against her once-daughter.

--

"Maybe if I had more say in the matter I wouldn't be so adverse to having them here!"

Servants could hear the loud voice of their princess boom through the halls even through the large, solid oak doors that separated her and General Devon "Huffypants" Dugan from them.

"It's not that you don't have a say in the matter, your highness, it's just that you didn't want to listen when I approached you with the issue."

"Don't put this back on me, General! You know I was helping my uncle reconcile the wants of the mining union with the needs of the companies in the West. You approached me about the issue right before I had to leave to help him inspect the mining conditions." To say DG was mad would be a gross understatement. She was so far beyond livid she couldn't see the signpost marking "Livid" anymore.

"That's hardly the issue at hand," General Dugan argued. "You just don't want to have to deal with the suitors now that they're all here."

DG glared at him, and lowered her voice to a reasonable level, "I can't deal with them. You need to send them all home."

Dugan shook his head, "I can't do that, your highness. They are here now and they will remain until they decide to leave themselves, or until you find your consort."

She sighed in irritation, crossing her arms like an irate child, "Can you at least make sure that they don't interrupt my daily schedule? I'd rather not have to have them tripping up the staff as well as myself if they must be here at all."

Dugan felt a smile pull on his lips, "I'll see what I can do, Princess."

She grudgingly smiled in return, "Thanks, Devon."

--

Queen Aerenesa and Prince Consort Ahamo were in the middle of a military briefing when she felt the magick currents change. She halted the general who was speaking with a motion of her hand, just as her brother appeared in the back of the room.

There was some mumblings among the generals and colonels present at the sight of the imposing man - they all knew who he was, of course, having heard stories about the Goblin Kingdom since they were lads … but none had seen him in person before.

Jareth gave them all a haughty look with his mismatched eyes that told a tale better left forgotten. He turned his attention to his sister and her consort, "We have an urgent matter that requires an immediate audience with you, Queen Aerenesa." His displeasure was poorly masked behind the coolly spoken words.

The Queen arose, motioning for her husband to remain seated. She gestured toward an inner chamber, "By all means, King Jareth, we will give you audience immediately. Please continue in my absence, gentlemen."

When the siblings were alone, Nesa cast a silencing spell over the room as Jareth rounded on her. "You interfered with DG's bonding!" The fact that it was not a question was added to by how vehemently Jareth said the line.

Nesa made no attempt at denying it. "It was my only chance to mitigate the damage caused by the melting of the Dark Witch."

Jareth scoffed, "Mitigate the damage? You have no idea what sort of damage you caused with your meddling hands, woman!"

Eyes blazed in anger as she turned on her brother, "I did what I thought best."

"You thought best. Do DG and me a favor, sister: stop thinking." He shook his head in anger and disgust, "If you knew what you had condemned her to, you wouldn't be so quick to defend your actions."

"And you do know what she's going through?"

"Yes." The hissed out reply was not the one that she had expected and Nesa gaped at him in surprise. Jareth sneered at her, "You have condemned your flesh and blood to live without a heart until her unknown bond mate is found and returned to her side and the bond completed."

Nesa sat down on the settee with a thump. Her eyes were vacant and hollow as the gravity of the situation crept upon her. "Sweet Lurline, what have I done?"

--

Az watched the meeting of military minds with mild disinterest from her perch on the balcony. It was the same old story as it had been for the past five years: King Jackson Le Monté was using his much larger, meaner military forces to heckle farms on the eastern border between the two kingdoms. The Eastern Guild was in dire need of Ozarian military assistance if it was to hold the border.

She sat up in surprise when she felt the magick currents change to accommodate the arrival of her uncle. Azkadellia had never seen him so agitated before - even when one of her weekend visits to his realm had coincided with a child being wished away and the wisher refused to run the Labyrinth to win the child back.

The Crown Princess watched as her mother and uncle secluded themselves in the inner chamber, and she felt the silencing spell that was put into place. Worried about what might have happened, Az couldn't concentrate on what the military commanders - even the doubly notable Colonel Wyatt Cain - were telling her father.

Cain was notable for two reasons, really: the first, he was really, really good looking; and the second, he was given his rank as a reward for some great, decisive military action that no one would talk about but everyone knew the vague description about. Some claimed that he had risked the life of his own son to make sure that a set of King Jackson's spies were captured, while others claimed he took on ten of the enemy soldiers single handed and captured them all. Az wasn't sure what to think - all she really knew was that Wyatt Cain looked damn good in a dress uniform.

Presently her mother came out of the room, her face drawn and pale. The Prince Consort, the unofficial commander of the Ozarian army, briefly explained to his wife the actions that had been suggested. The Queen stiffly nodded in approval. "See to it. Dismissed."

Fleetingly Azkadellia wished that she could have the free range of motion denied her and granted to her sister. How she would love to spend one day out of doors without a battalion of soldiers accompanying her.

--

Free time was something that DG knew very little about; being the Crown Princess, and all, her days were pretty full of lessons and meetings. But two months after her birthday, she was finally able to ditch the majority of her guards (somehow she could never ditch all of the goblins as they preferred to hide in shadows and were quite good at it) and ensconce herself, with the book her father had given her, in a corner of the currently unused, ever changing outer stone maze of the Labyrinth.

The words she read within the pages did truly seem wise to her - she'd have to ask her uncle about the time in which they were written.

Once she had turned the last page DG thought about how she was going to get back out of the oubliette … she could always levitate and let the Helping Hands pass her up to the surface, or she could navigate the tunnels outside the oubliette, … or she could attempt to teleport herself directly into the throne room and freak the shit out of the 'baby snatching squad' as she so fondly called them.

She grinned mischievously. Teleportation is was, then.

Of course, she wasn't expecting that teleporting into the throne room would give her a front row seat to her uncle attempting to remove Sarah's tonsils with his tongue.

DG looked away in embarrassment and teleported again before they could see her, this time to her room. This had the added benefit of making the maids who were cleaning her room screech in surprise and shock. Maybe there was something to this teleportation thing after all.

--

Cain watched his son during his lessons in hand to hand combat. Jeb was coming along nicely in the palace school that also taught the Princess Azkadellia self-defense. He would be eternally grateful to the Prince Consort and the Queen for that: all of the children of those housed at the palace were given an education on par with the nobility that lived in Central City.

He hated having to tell his son yet more bad news. The news had just arrived from the local police station: Adora had been arrested and was demanding to see her ex-husband and son.

How was Wyatt supposed to tell his son that his mother wanted to see him after all these years? The boy was eleven and had a mind of his own … how was he going to take seeing his mother again? This wasn't a request that Wyatt felt he had the right to ignore. He knew in his heart and mind that Jeb would never forgive him if he kept this from him.

The proud father smiled as his son approached him after the lesson's end. "Dad," he said, with a nod. "What'd you think?"

"You did good, son." Wyatt shifted his weight nervously, motioning for his son to follow him as he began to walk away. "I need to speak with you about something."

"You getting deployed again?"

Wyatt shot him a look and Jeb shrugged, "You're usually only this nervous when you're about to tell me that you're leaving. Or something bad happened." He gave his father a wary look, "Something bad didn't happen, did it?"

His father shook his head, "I'm not sure how to answer that. I guess it depends on how you look at things." He cleared his throat, not looking at his son as he said, "I was just contacted by your mother. She wants to see you."

Jeb stopped walking and his father turned to look at him, his face blank. "Why?" the harsh whisper was filled with an anger that Wyatt could all too well understand.

He shook his head, "I can't tell you that, Jeb. I don't know."

"Where is she?" the young boy asked, his gaze locked with his father's.

The older man hesitated before answering, a sure sign to his son that the answer was not good. "In prison. She was caught smuggling aliens into the O.Z."

Jeb turned to gaze at where Princess Azkadellia walked arm in arm with her mother's advisor, their heads close together as they spoke about one thing or another.

"She can rot for all I care."

A/N: Ooooohhhh. Betcha weren't expecting that, now were you?

This may be the last chapter for a while because my internet is down and I won't have access to the computer I'm posting this from for a while. That's why this one was posted so quickly. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it, if nothing else, I'll try to have something up within two weeks.