For the record, I did not pick the name Maria. That is information from the section on Jareth in Jim Henson's Labyrinth Bestiary.

CHAPTER VIII

A SHADOWY GLIMPSE

Life in The Hidden City was rather different from what she'd known in Milan. It wasn't until Maria had come to live there that she understood the importance of those differences.

Understood they were a sort of magic all on their own.

For starters, one could find humans amongst the fae city's population—those who'd fallen in love with a fae and chosen to leave their old life behind, as she had—but one would never find a fae living amongst the milling throng of a human city's populace.

No currency existed here, bartering was the way of their world, necessities and luxuries alike paid for by task or trade. The fae didn't know crime as humans did, didn't understand it. Her world frightened them, and in that she could certainly say she understood their reluctance to venture out into it.

They welcomed her as they had welcomed all peaceful, kind-hearted humans, though she disliked a little that kindheartedness was a thing fae could literally smell from a person. While she recognized this was a natural ability—a way to protect themselves and their kind from those who would seek to harm or exploit such a gentle society—it was a little disconcerting to be read so easily.

Those of less than kind intentions were the people from whom the tales of 'mischievous sprites' came, while seemingly-sudden disappearances of those who were accepted by the fae—who had chosen to live among them—had unfortunately given rise to the stories of faeries stealing people. The fae, of course, would never trick one of their humans, humans whom the fae could sense would eventually bring them miseries, however, were fair game for all manner of chaotic pranks.

It kept them far from the City, protecting its residents without need for violence. As a result crime was unheard of in their society, and Maria was of a mind that they should do whatever possible to keep it that way.

She hadn't been looking for anything that day when she'd strolled through the forest near the village over which her father presided. The village itself was a lovely collection of streets on the outskirts of the city proper and one Maria's favorite past times—as many a foolish maiden in so-called fairytales, she was aware—had been slipping away to walk through the trees. Truly unladylike in how she'd remove her shoes to run barefoot through the grass! Her mother would have had fits had she known.

But sometimes she wondered if perhaps that was what she was hoping for deep down. For the faeries to come and snatch her away.

On the day in question, she'd learned she was to be married off in one month's time. Father's bid to expand his lands by joining with—or as he had claimed quietly, out earshot of her betrothed's father, absorbing—the house and holdings of a lesser noble family had been met with wide and glad acceptance.

He had taken everything into account, it had appeared. Well, unless one considered Maria's happiness. That factor had been of little consequence if any at all. Mother, for her part, seemed relieved.

She'd said it was because a parent's truest desire was to know their child would be cared for, but Maria knew better. She understood things about her frightened the woman, and Mother would be glad to be rid of her, though unlike the crass manner of other nobles behind closed doors, Mother would never say such a thing aloud.

Maria knew all the same, as she always did.

That day she did not skip through the random beds of wildflowers. She did not run through the soft, damp blades of unkept wild grass. She strolled, slow and somber and strangely purposeful despite being utterly without purpose, shoes dangling from lifeless fingertips as she ambled in some unknown direction.

In the distance she could hear the babbling of a stream and pivoted on the ball of her foot to wander toward it.

Until a pair of feet clad in soft, strangely-stitched leather came into view before her.

Sniffling, she lifted her gaze—she hadn't been able to look at anything the entire time she'd been walking, her attention stuck to the blades around her feet as breezes whispered and rustled through them. She was too aware of the dampness on her cheeks as found herself staring up at a man unlike any she'd ever seen before.

Long hair, such a light blond it was nearly white, fell over dark eyes set into pale, perfectly symmetrical features. Those eyes stared back at her seemingly in wonder, his head tipping side to side, as though he'd never seen anything like her before. His fanciful clothing, glittering and sleek, spoke to some sort of regal lineage she thought, but there was something … not quite common about the materials. Silks and satins and velvets and soft leathers from the look of them, yes, but even so the way the materials gleamed under the sunlight was in no way a thing she'd ever glimpsed before.

Swallowing hard, she knew she should feign shyness. That she should cover her face and feel embarrassed for being so out of sorts in front of a complete stranger. That she should realize it wildly inappropriate to be in the presence of a man unchaperoned and leave at once! Yet … the way he continued to gape at her, as though she were the pretty alien thing in the forest, only made her smile.

A laugh bubbled out of her, surprising them both, and the man visibly relaxed, uttering a laugh of his own.

"Whatever are you staring at, Sir?

"Uhh," he started, the utterance unexpectedly graceless, staring about with wide eyes before he could focus upon her again. "I am sorry. I simply …." Stepping closer as though invited and she did not stop him, his gaze trailed over the glittering lines of dampness on her cheeks. "I have never seen something so beautiful yet sensed so much sadness."

She had fallen in love with him in that moment. She knew she had. Right then and there.

Her heart swelled beneath her breast as she stared up at him. "Who are you?"

He smirked. "I will tell you my name if you tell me yours."

She smiled again, brighter, wider this time. "Maria."

The bridge of his nose crinkled as if this were the oddest name he'd ever heard. But a deal was a deal. "Killian."

"I …" Maria sighed and shook her head, dropping her gaze to the ground. No, no. She was a smart girl—as Father often said, unfortunately smart—and no one appreciated a girl for her wisdom.

She heard the breathy sound of him snickering. "You what?"

When she only shook her head again, she was surprised by the sudden but gentle touch of his gloved hand cupping her chin. He lifted her gaze to meet his. "Go on?"

Maria struggled to find her voice. She was transfixed by this strange, beautiful creature before her. "I simply wondered what you meant. One could tell easily from looking at me that I am sad, but that was not what you said. You said you sensed it." This close she realized his eyes were not dark like she had thought. Bluer than hers, but the pupils so large they altered the appearance from a distance.

Faerie eyes.

Again a smirk touched his mouth. "Caught the difference, did you?"

"Yes, well, I am clever. Sadly so."

Those seemingly dark eyes narrowed in consideration. "Why 'sadly'?"

The tip of her nose stung and her smile lost its brightness. "As my father often tells me, what use has the world for clever women?"

"Oh, no, no," he said in a tone gentle and cooing. "Do not be sad again, please. My heart could bear it were I to watch you cry."

She felt everything in herself go still at his words. Continuing to blink up at him, making no move to put space between them, no attempt to take her chin from his delicate hold, she could only puzzle over what sort of person cared so very much for the sorrows of a girl so clearly leading a life many others would consider charmed—her clothes, her manner of speaking, how she carried herself.

Sooner than she could help it, the question spilled from her lips, "What are you?" It occurred to her only as she asked that he seemed something other than human.

"If only I could tell you," he answered, his voice musical even as it was tinged with regret.

He was speaking in riddles, though she thought she already knew the answer to her own question. Still, from what she had heard in all the stories, they loved curious minds. "What stops you?" With another sniffle, she hastily wiped at her cheeks in a very unladylike—very human—way with the length of her sleeve and he couldn't help but smile again.

He let out a deep chuckle, enchanted. "Well, I can't tell you unless … we strike a deal. You would have to first do something for me."

"What would you want?"

Killian's eyes grew serious, but that soft smile still curved his lips as he said, "You to become my bride."

Maria's brows shot up as she gaped at him, her crystalline eyes unblinking. "Your bride? Why would you want me?" She was rather certain he could ensnare any woman he might happen across just as he'd ensnared her.

His hands slid up, cupping her jaw in a careful touch—as though he thought her made of dandelion fluff, something delicate and ephemeral, something that would vanish were he to try too desperately to hold it—as he lowered his head, his mouth hovering over hers. "Because everything in me wants nothing more than to ensure you never shed another tear."

She had a sense … a moment's intuition. Mother called it that, anyway, and always told her never to mention the impressions she experienced to anyone.

She could not ignore what her intuition was telling her now.

Letting her shoes drop into the grass, she slipped her own hands up to circle his wrists with her fingers. She did not pull his hands away, only clinging lightly to him. "Were I to say yes, I could never go home again, could I?"

He let his gaze drop from hers to search her features before flitting back up to make eye contact once more. "Unfair to ask so many questions with no offerings in return."

"I offer you a kiss," she said, without hesitation. Strangely, she did not surprise herself—she was rather certain she'd wanted to kiss him since the first moment they'd seen each other.

"A tempting offer it is. I accept."

She was aware of his head lowering further still to make contact and she closed her eyes. Maria had never been kissed before, but whatever she had thought one was supposed to feel like, she doubted the warmth and tingles that coursed through her entire body at the mere, faint brush of Killian's lips over hers was supposed to be it.

Although that was her first kiss, she wasn't completely uneducated about … matrimonial matters. She ignored the sore temptation to wonder that if that was how a simple, chaste kiss from him felt, then how would more intimate moments with him feel? She didn't fight it when, her eyes still closed, he gathered into his arms, holding her to his chest in a tight embrace.

"No," he said, his voice impossibly soft in her ear. "If you accept me as your husband, you can never go back. I will be yours forever."

Something in the way he spoke—of himself as hers rather than her as belonging to him, the way she'd been spoken of her entire life, her parents', her church's, her betrothed's—sparked a fluttery, hopeful warmth in her chest. "Forever?"

"Forever is the only way my people know," he answered.

Forever with someone whose mere closeness made her feel so … whole and perfect.

Someone who claimed he would never cause her tears.

And all she had to do was give up everything. Maria rested her cheek against his shoulder as she considered it. What was everything? A gilded life of jewels and pretty dresses yet less freedom than a tavern maid? A forced marriage that was little more than her father trading her for land? A mother who thought her strange and was counting the days until marriage took her only child from her home?

All things that … she would not miss were she to wake up without them tomorrow.

Lifting her head, she pushed lightly on his chest, gently forcing him back just enough to meet his eyes.

"Yes."

Killian arched a brow. "Yes?"

Eyes narrowing, she clarified, though she was perfectly aware he knew what she was saying, "Yes, Killian. I …." She carefully thought over the way he'd phrased everything. Like a lock but with words for a key, she realized.

They would only be binding if she said them correctly.

"I offer myself as your bride, and accept you as my husband. Forever."

Backpedaling a step from her, he captured her hand in his and dropped a kiss against the back of it. "An offer accepted. This day, my dearest Maria, you wed one of the Fae."

And like that, they were gone. Hours later, guards sent by her father would scour Maria's beloved woods. They would return with her shoes, but no sign of the missing young noblewoman.

As though she'd vanished into thin air. Snatched by a faerie, the commoners would whisper when they learned of the disappearance, unable to truly appreciate how right they were.

In hindsight, Maria had realized that could've all gone very wrong. It could've been a trick; her intuition could have failed her. But Killian had proved true to his word.

Whisking her away in a blink—literally, they had been in the forest one moment and at the seashell-encrusted gates of a glittering village the next—he had guided her through the streets of The Hidden City, gladly introducing her to everyone they passed. She was rather certain she should've expected the way they all greeted him with brisk, jaunty half-bows. They seemed a very informal people, but she had thought he was probably some sort of noble himself, and the behavior of the City's other residents confirmed it.

She was welcomed by everyone in a way she knew would never happen in a group of unfamiliar humans. There were always suspicions and whispers—stories made up to fill in gaps and explain a sudden appearance—but not here. Here her intuition told her that the smiles they showed her would not melt into frowns and sneers when her back was turned.

Killian's mother and father took her into their life as though she were a member of the family for whom they'd been waiting all this time.

They all had eyes like her husband's, their pupils enormous, as though always taking in every single detail around them at every moment.

And her husband ….

Killian wasn't only a fae-equivalent of a nobleman, he was also a celebrated playwright who had penned many a tale to entertain his people.

One year after they'd met—one year after they'd married without the ceremony or fanfare of human nuptials—they welcomed a child into the world. A son, special he was, his eyes a mix of both lineages and his father's hair. The first child to be born from a human-fae union.

It was shortly after the celebration of their son's first birthday that Killian was struck with the notion to write a new play.

"Whatever fanciful tale are we creating today, dear husband?"

Breathing out a quiet laugh at himself, he patted a hand over hers. "Oh, I wish I knew, my love. I can feel the tale forming, but … there is something missing."

Smiling, she made a shooing gesture and he set down his quill, opening his arms to her. Maria settled in his lap, shuffling amongst the papers before him.

"Killian, these pages are all blank."

"Exactly, my heart! The words are what are missing!"

Laughing, she slapped gently at his hands as his fingers tickled along her waist suggestively.

"Where is our son?" he asked, perching his chin in the crook of her neck to look down at the woefully blank sheets with her.

"Napping. Soundly, but not that soundly, Sir."

"Oh, fine then," he said, his disappointment only partially pretended at.

"What did you wish to write about?" She turned in his lap, draping her arm across his shoulders. "I know it all begins with some notion in there," she said, gently tapping a finger against his temple. "So, what was it this time? What did you see?"

"The images are still forming," he answered, pressing a kiss to her throat, "but … have you heard the stories the people tell? About the Dreaming Realm?"

Her brows pinched and she valiantly ignored a sore temptation to give into the brush of those lips. "A play about the Labyrinth? Well, the stories the people tell are just that—stories—no one truly knows anything about it. You could make something truly amazing from that."

"If inspiration beyond the setting sees fit to grace me."

Maria feigned a pout at his predicament and he laughed. "Perhaps a walk," he said brightly. "The forest always helps my imagination."

"Yes," she chirped the word as she stood. "There was that one time you imagined yourself straight into a marriage."

A breathy snicker sounded from him as he gathered up his writing materials and cinched them away in his pockets as though they took up no space at all. She would never get used to fae magicks, she thought in wonder.

"I imagined myself into the happiest two years of my life," he amended for her, standing and dropping a kiss upon the tip of her nose. "I shall return by nightfall then, my love."

As Killian exited the house, Maria felt something she hadn't in a long time. Her intuition was suddenly prickling at the back of her neck, an anxious, icy rippling in the pit of her stomach telling her something was wrong.

From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed a dark shape dart through the room. She turned to follow the movement but found nothing.

Cautious, she hurried to check on her son, who turned out to be snoring peacefully in his sleep. She could kick herself for that, even as she laughed, her inexplicable moment of fear forgotten. Killian had informed her fae did not snore, therefore their son must've inherited the unsightly trait from her.

Of course, she was the one to consider it unsightly. Killian found the strange sleeping sounds his wife and child uttered adorable and fascinating.

But night fell and Killian had not returned.

Days ticked past and there was no sign of him. As though he'd simply vanished, the way humans thought faeries snatched away their kind.

One month without word or sign from her husband and Maria was beginning to hate herself. She blamed herself, certainly, though she told no one. She would never forgive herself for not chasing after him when that moment of intuition had struck her.

For not recognizing that the warning she'd felt, the thing she had glimpsed, had been a danger to her husband, not her child.

The people were so kind. They doted on her and comforted her and searched beside her every day.

Two months had gone by before she accepted—with great and pained reluctance—that her husband must've met some terrible fate.

She had just set their son down to sleep for the night and retreated to the kitchen, prodding the room's enchantments to make her something warm to drink. She hadn't slept much herself since Killian's disappearance and she didn't imagine she'd start now, but she was so very tired.

She knew that was the real reason everyone was still doting on her. She had shown them how fragile humans could be—her child was the only thing keeping her going. The only thing that kept her from giving up. And they admired that even in that human frailty of hers, no matter how much her heart ached, she managed to drudge up the strength to remain a good, caring, dutiful mother for the boy.

She never let him see her sadness, but she thought in the same way his father could detect her emotions, it was likely an ability their child shared. Nevertheless, Maria did what she was able to shield her son from how the tragedy affected her.

As she crossed the threshold into the kitchen to take the herbal brew, she felt that same burst of dark intuition again.

Spinning to look behind her, Maria saw it this time. Dark and formless and darting across the floor.

And up the stairs.

"No!" Her heart hammering, she followed, rushing up to the second floor and into the nursery as fast as her body would move.

The curtains billowed wildly in the window and moonlight flooded the room. Perfectly illuminated was the crib, mocking her with its stark and silent emptiness.

Her eyes welled and she ran to the window, staring out into the equally, despairingly empty night. Her lips trembled and her throat closed as she shook her head, unable to fully comprehend what had just happened.

Putting her back to the wall, Maria slid down to sit on the floor, her tears spilling free as the beating of her heart beneath her breast seemed to go still and a lash of cold struck at her limbs.

"Oh, my sweet boy!"

She sobbed and screamed and wailed, yet only for a grueling handful of minutes did she permit herself to wallow, unaware of the people gathering below the open window, drawn from their slumber and out of their houses by her cries of agony.

Just as quickly as she had dissolved into tears, Maria gave a determined shake of her head, the next sound erupting from her something more like a growl, her hands swiping fiercely at her cheeks. "No, no!" She pushed up to stand and started back through the room, her footfalls steady, determined … angry.

"No! I lost your father, I shall not lose you, Jareth."