Thanks for the reviews, all. Nothing much to say this update, other than to ask people if there's a way to edit chapters without deleting the reviews connected with them.

Chapter 10

As Sarah walked into Toby's room she half-expected guards to seize her and toss her out of the castle for good, but none did. Toby's nurse, a pleasant-looking but motherly Changeling named Erithni, simply glanced at Sarah as she entered and left the room - an obvious sign that no one in the castle, save for the Changelings that had been present in the kitchen, knew that Sarah had been fired.

Sarah jumped as she heard an excited wail come from around the corner, and her brother ran (sans sword, to Sarah's relief) and leapt into his sister's arms.

"YOU'RE HERE YOU'RE HERE YOU'RE HERE!" Toby screamed and Sarah couldn't help but laugh at the disbelief in his voice, like, despite being transferred to a magical realm and being appointed heir to the Goblin Throne, the little boy just couldn't believe his sister could be punctual for an appointment.

"Of course I am!" Sarah replied with mock surprise, setting Toby down and getting a good look at him.

She felt like, in the five days she hadn't seen him, he'd grown more than possible for that short amount of time. He still wore the striped yellow polo shirt and jeans he'd arrived in, though both articles of clothing were faded to suggest continuous washings, and Sarah assumed that the modern-day, six-year-old boy just didn't have the taste for the sort of silks and velvet regalia customary for a prince in the Underground. She enjoyed that thought. She wanted to keep as much of Toby as 'Toby' and not 'Prince Tobias' as possible, and his affinity for modern clothes meant he wasn't entirely lost in all the chaos around him.

Toby tugged Sarah over to a small, half-circle wooden table pressed up against the stone wall of the boy's new 'Royal Bedroom'. It was located just beneath a window and Sarah prepared herself for a wave of guilt at the sight below, but when she sat down at one of the little wooden children's chairs she was relieved to find that this tower was apparently on the opposite side of the Castle and overlooked a wide view of what seemed like red-clay desert spotted with several scraggly trees. It wasn't very interesting, until she turned to the left and saw a range of purple-green mountains and thick forest.

"The Underground's an eclectic place," she muttered to herself.

"Huh?"

Sarah glanced back at Toby and shook her head, "Nothing," she assured him, and looked down at the table where he was setting up a line of intricate little wooden figurines: a dwarf, several goblins, a curious gremlin-like creature that Sarah recognized as a Fiery – one of the beings that had tormented her during her last stay in the Underground – and some small, strange animals that Sarah couldn't name. Though they were wooden, the figurines were extremely detailed and painted with bright, fantastic colors that the art appreciator in Sarah found fascinating.

"These are the creatures of the Underground," Toby intoned, similar to the voice he used when reading a report for his first grade class. "They are the backbone of our civ-i-zay-chun-" he pronounced this as carefully and accurately as a six-year-old who had no idea what he was saying could manage "-and they all bring wonderful things to our world. The dwarf-" he pointed to said creature "-is great at finding gems, making jewelry that can be sold at market, and polishing rocks and stuff to greater benefit our eco-nimmy…"

Just as he was about to point to the goblins, Sarah stopped him with a laugh.

"What are you doing, Toby?" she asked with a quirked brow.

Toby picked up the Fiery figurine and made it perform little dancing movements as he answered, "I'm teaching you the stuff I learned when you were away. Miss Erithni teaches me things that she says is to prepare me for when I become the king, things about all the different stuff in the Underground that's different from back home. It's like school, only instead of learning junk about letters and numbers I get to learn cool things about goblins and fairies and all that... We always talked about things I learned from school back at home when you'd come to visit for holidays or my birthday..."

"That's true... but we don't have to do that right now." Sarah picked up the dwarf figurine and inspected it closely, trying to figure out what was used to paint the thing so vividly. She shrugged and set it back down, and Toby snatched it up again as any kid his age would, but he no longer seemed all that interested in it or any of the others. He shrugged and set the figures to the side, closer to the wall.

"So what's up?" he said with all seriousness. Sarah recognised both the saying and the expression on Toby's face as something she and her friends used to say to each other and laughed again, answering a "Nothing much," between giggles.

Toby made a face at her laughter and that only made Sarah giggle more. She was all giggles today. After all, she's finally free of her servitude to the Goblin King thanks to Mrs. Noriche and she's having a great time visiting with her brother. What is there to not be happy about?

Erithni brought out Toby and Sarah's lunches on porcelain - 'Elvenware' - plates like the one Sarah and Thilly had broken, before returning back to the hallway silently. All the dutiful servant.

As time passed, Toby appeared to be completely occupied with his lunch but Sarah couldn't bring herself to concentrate on the food when, like a great big Grandfather clock ticking in her head, she knew she only had moments before the rest of the castle knew about her dishonorable dismissal from the servant payroll and she'd surely be sent away. She needed a plan to get Toby out of the castle, and she needed one before the lunch hour was over.

"Sarah?" Toby inquired, breaking her thought pattern. He prodded what looked to be small, quartered potatoes. "I know Miss Erithni said you're only allowed to be here during lunch, but I want to go on a trip... like the ones we used to take back, before... Like that one time you took me to the carnival and I rode the merry-go-round and had ice cream. Could we do that?"

Sarah thought for a few moments, a plan etching itself out in her mind. Then she spoke, calmly and cheerfully, and thanked fate or the mind of a bored six-year-old or whatever it may have been to give Toby the sudden urge to leave the castle.

"Sure, Toby," Sarah said. "I know just the place. In fact, I've been planning to take you to a carnival just like that one - only better, because instead of a fake merry-go-round there'll be real horses for you to ride, and fairies and lots of new people, and the kind of cool food here in the Underground."

Toby's face lit up quickly at the thought and he jumped from his chair to run to Sarah's side, hopping madly.

"When when when?!" he said, loud enough so that Erithni peeked in from the hallway and looked at them both strangely. Sarah smiled and waved at Erithni, who shrugged and closed the door again. Sarah turned back to Toby and put her index finger to her lips, shushing him and forcing his voice to a whisper as he continued to ask "When, when, when?!"

"Tonight," Sarah whispered back. "You have to make sure not to tell anyone, though, because we don't want people spreading the word and getting everyone jealous, do we?" To emphasize this Sarah slowly shook her head, and Toby duplicated the action. "You have to pack your favorite things up in..." she looked around a bit before finding the bag that Toby kept his wooden figurines in. Dumping the toys still inside out onto the table, Sarah pushed the cloth bag into Toby's hands, "this, see? Your cape that you wore the first day here, maybe some of the simpler clothes Miss Erithni gave you, some-"

"What about my sword?" Toby cut in.

Sarah nodded, figuring that, since Toby only had one set of clothes he actually enjoyed wearing, there would be room for the sword. "Yes, you can bring that, too. And I'll even bring Thilly and Hoggle - the real Hoggle, the one the figurine is modeled after, you'd like to meet him, right? - and we'll all go to the carnival together, okay?"

The grin on Toby's face then as he nodded emphatically made Sarah hopeful that this plan would work wonderfully. It didn't matter to Sarah that there wouldn't be a carnival at the end of their journey - the journey itself would be enough excitement for him, and the outcome of saving her brother from Jareth would be a prize to Sarah. After all, she didn't lie entirely - the chances of them meeting various strange creatures was a high one, the chances of discovering new and exotic Underground food was almost a guarantee, and perhaps there would even be a horse or two along the way...

But, in the back of her mind, a little voice berated Sarah. A little voice that whispered, Liar, liar...