Bringing back my Labyrinth fic. But it's written in past tense and now I write in present tense so I just need to edit it hahaha, it's 17k words, not long or anything... Here's the preface, oooh suspens woah :
Annabeth wasn’t expecting Chiron’s Iris Message right in the middle of her lunch break.
“I’m sorry to ask you this, Annabeth.”
Not in the slightest.
“I’ve delayed this call as much as I could.”
Not when she’s finally done with gods and quests and happy in New Rome University getting with brio her architecture degree.
“But I need your help. We need your help.”
Not when Apollo has gained back his godhood months ago and the waters are supposed to be calm, the monsters in hiding, and the power-hungry immortals having issues with Olympus all gone.
“You’re not the only one I’m calling, rest assured. You’ll meet with familiar faces.”
Not when they are supposed to finally be safe. When the only thing she’s supposed to be worrying about is finishing her master.
Not rushing to the other side of the country.
“You’re not the only one, unfortunately.”
She has managed to convince Percy to stay, to focus on his studies.
“Travis is also coming back. Clarisse and Katie too, I think. We’ll be fine.” She reassured him and Percy has reluctantly let her go.
“It’s happening again.”
As much as he hates staying on the sidelines, Annabeth knows he understands why he can’t join this. For the same reason he has left Camp years ago to rescue her from under the sky.
“Campers are disappearing.”
Only this time, Annabeth is the one rescuing someone else. As are Travis, Katie and Clarisse.
“Malcolm, Connor, Sherman and Miranda vanished two days ago.”
Summary: Plagued by guilt of getting herself, and her friends trapped in the Goblin King's castle. Sarah decides she won't sit idle as Jareth’s prisoner. New feelings come to light, and Sarah works to undo a wrong done long ago.
Warning(s): None that I can think of, as usual, If I miss something please let me know
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“That stupid, arrogant, glittery bastard,” Sarah grumbled as she glared out the window of the chamber they’d been given. Half grateful that none of the windows had any kind of glass, or metal to block out the cool breeze of the night. It helped quell her boiling blood a bit.
Layla winced at the profanity, “I know you’re upset, but you should really try and rest, Sarah.”
“I knew this would happen,” black tendrils fanned out as Sarah whipped her head away from the window, “I knew he’d trap me here if I ever came back.”
The blame was hers and hers alone, she couldn’t deny that. Unlike the rest of her company, she had no plans for sleep. How could she possibly when she’d walked straight into her nightmare? Pale-green eyes drifted towards the two bundles coiled up in the bed across the room. Toby didn't seem to share his sister's lack of sleep, sprawled out on his back atop the lavish bed. Blankets tangled around his legs and one pillow half-hung off the side of the white sheets. Daegmund laid next to Toby, the Fiery had the back of his left hand slapped over her brother’s face. The two times he tried to push it away, it just found its way back. Come the third time, Toby gave up.
“Sarah,” Layla’s calm voice filled her ears, quiet footsteps alerted her of the woman’s approach. She took Sarah’s hands in her own, giving them a reasurring squeeze, “I don’t blame you, and neither does Toby. We’re okay. If there’s a way in, there’s a way out, right? We’ll find it, I know we will.”
What Layla said was right, everyone was safe, Sarah could at least find peace in that.
“I’m…I’m gonna go for a walk, get some air. Maybe it’ll help me sleep. Will you stay with Toby?” Sarah squeezed their joined hands, giving her friend a small smile.
Layla nodded, “of course. But uhm, are you sure it’s okay to go wandering around?”
To her surprise, Sarah actually managed a laugh, “If Jareth has a problem with it he can suck it up, I’m not scared of him.”
She pushed the chamber door open as quietly as possible, giving Layla a final nod before she stepped out. Sarah walked on cat’s feet through dark tunnels. The castle had probably been the one part of the Labyrinth Sarah never explored, she reached out a hand, and let her finger follow the lines where the bricks were patched together. She couldn’t explain how she knew these halls, how she knew a right turn would likely take her to the kitchen Layla had taken refuge in. For a fleeting moment Sarah wondered if the Goblin King’s castle was like all the others in the fairytales she’d read.
It had a ballroom, so did it have a library?
There were guards, so there had to be a war room, and an armory.
Her feet halted as she passed a peculiar looking room, one without a door. Instead the passageway was partially hidden with a tan curtain. The room didn’t have a place in her memory, curiosity got the better of her, and she decided it wouldn’t hurt to look inside. “Oh wow,” her eyes lit up with wonder.
From the floor all the way up to the ceiling Vines and moss protruded from the brown stones, dried herbs strung up about the room. There was a stain-glass window with a wooden bench beneath it. To the far right of the room, a cluster of bookshelves constructed from branches and twine. Each shelf bombarded with numerous bottles, jars, and unusual trinkets.
She strolled through the room, running her hand along the circular table at the center of the room. Based on the labels on some of the jars, Sarah guessed she’d stumbled into some kind of healing chamber. A glimmer caught her eye across the room, a chest with its lid slightly ajar. Open just enough for her to catch sight of something silver.
Checking over her shoulder to ensure someone wasn’t coming, Sarah knelt in front of the chest, and opened it further. Pushing the lid back slowly to avoid it making a squeak or any kind of sound to alert someone she was snooping. Stowed away in the chest was a beautiful dagger. The handle adorned with two opals, wrapped with copper X’s between the jewels, and on the butt of the dagger two crescent moons sat with their backs pressed together. To better admire the weapon, Sarah carefully lifted it from the cloth it rested upon. She turned it this way and that, admiring how the opals reflected the moonlight. Sarah couldn’t explain why but she felt…almost drawn to the dagger.
A noise echoed from the otherside of the curtain, she couldn’t quite make it out. Head tilted towards the doorway, she tried to focus her hearing. “Footsteps, someone’s coming,” it dawned on her with a gasp. Sarah quickly shut the chest and armed herself with the dagger. Unsure of who- or what to expect, she scurried under the table.
The ambiance of a light danced on the walls, not too bright, but enough to show a shadow flicker. A lanter? No- Sarah could hear a faint crackle, it had to be a torch. A shadow passed by without a moment of hesitation. Once it left her sight, Sarah sighed in relief, she’d managed to evade detection. For now at least. Maybe Layla was right, snooping around the castle without really knowing her way around might not have been her best idea.
Quick but quiet she advanced on the silent figure, hugging the edge of the wall, Sarah pushed the curtain aside and poked her head out into the hall. Dark brows pulled together as she just barely caught sight of Jareth turning the corner.
What was he up to?
Curiosity got the better of her, slipping out of her hiding spot, Sarah made sure to keep a reasonable distance as she tailed the Goblin King. Who glided down one corridor after another like a ghost. A curse danced in a whisper off her lips, she'd lost sight of him after a right turn. Deja vu hit her full force, in the blink of an eye she was fifteen again. Running down the halls in search of the Goblin King seconds before the thirteenth hour.
She’d found him in the Escher room before, maybe it shouldn’t have been such a surprise to find him in the throne room.
From the half-hidden protection of the archway, Sarah studied him. Even on the precipice of defeat Jareth carried an aura of intimidation, a demand for respect, and obedience. Yet seated in the empty throne room, he looked strangely out of place. Gloved fingers threaded together, why did he always wear gloves? They covered the lower half of his face, disappearing into bellowed sleeves of what looked like a shawl. The black fabric had what looked like twisted roots spanning along the shoulders and halfway down the chest. His elbows were perched on his knees, obscuring some of her vision but from what Sarah could tell the shawl hung open, some of his bare-chest visible. Like always, he still had the strange pendant around his neck.
Rather than ponder its meaning, her attention was drawn to the dark circled that plagued the skin beneath tired, mismatched hues that seemed to stare off into nothing. Her brows drooped as a frown blossomed on her lips. She’d been too young to see it, she realized. Too driven to get her brother back to name exactly what hung around the Goblin King like a noose. Loneliness.
The tapping of claws echoed around the room, which seemed to snap Jareth out of whatever trance he’d fallen into. His posture changed immediately, back slumped, a crystal spawned and he rolled it between his hands in a masterful motion. A cheshire smirk curled his lips, “Styx, good evening.”
“Your majesty,” Lavender strands slipped from her shoulder as she dropped into a low bow. Hands crossed elegantly at her front. “Apologies for the disturbance, Grüempy has requested an audience with you, he’s come to report the latest strand of cracks. Would you like for me to escort him in?”
Jareth pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh, and kept the position for several moments. He leaned back further into the throne while waving his hand, “I suppose. Send him in, afterwards retrieve a map from the archives.”
“Yes, your majesty,” Styx bowed once again before disappearing in the direction she’d come from.
Sarah lingered, unsure whether she should stay or go. Part of her wanted to stay and lay witness to exactly how The Goblin King ran his kingdom. If it didn’t so heavily feel like she was invading his privacy, she would have. Sarah took a step back, her back collided with something- someone who grabbed her wrist.
It happened faster than she could process. Her fight or flight instinct kicked in and the next thing Sarah knew, she had Jareth pinned to the wall with the dagger at his throat. The silver dagger she’d completely forgotten she’d been holding up until now. A battle of dominance rose in their eyes as the pair starred one another down, first to break eye contact would accept defeat and bend to the other’s will. Amusement flickered in Jareth’s eyes so intensely Sarah swore it oozed out of every pore. Holding her gaze still, one gloved hand swiped the dagger from her.
“My my, quite the little deviant aren’t we sweetling? First I find you snooping around my castle,” he waved the dagger as if for theatrical effect. “Now stealing?”
Sarah’s eyes widened, “how did you-”
“Know you were hiding in the doorway?” Jareth grinned. “I am a supernatural being, did you really think I wouldn’t be able to sense your presence?”
She stepped away from him, the hand he’d taken the dagger from shook. An arm laid across her front Sarah hid her face in her hand, “I couldn’t sleep. I just wanted some air. I wasn’t trying to sneak around, I just wanted air, that’s all I wanted. I can’t- I can’t breathe in here.”
Jareth stared down at her as silence befell them, almost like he was debating whether to give her what she asked for.
“Sarah.”
She looked up, surprised to find him offering his hand to her. Confusion knit her brows together as she met his gaze.
“There is a balcony nearby,” he informed. “I’d rather not have you wondering my castle unsupervised.”
“If you drop me in an oubliette or something-”
“I gave you my word, neither you nor the boy would be harmed upon your return to my kingdom,” he reminded.
After some silent consideration, Sarah once again found herself picking her heart over her head. She slipped her hand into his and let him guide her towards the balcony in question. Sarah wasn’t sure how long they’d walked for, the halls all looked the same. For as lavish as a person Jareth seemed to be, she was surprised he didn’t have any kind of art hanging around the castle.
Once they’d gotten to the balcony, Sarah let go of his hand to lean against the railing. The full sky of stars over her filled Sarah with an unusual sense of peace. The night was quiet, below she could see various trails of the Labyrinth, some of it disappearing towards the forest. The forest looked…smaller than she remembered. Sarah wondered if the Labyrinth crumbling had something to do with it. The same cracks she’d seen upon their arrival stuck out to her like a sore thumb, she could see Goblins below repairing broken walls here and there.
“It really is breaking,” Sarah muttered in realization.
“Do you really believe I would lie about my kingdom being in shambles,” Jareth came up to stand beside her, looking over everything. “Of everything, the Bog remains unaffected.”
A chuckle rang in her throat, “why does that not surprise me. I bet you’re relieved about that, still having somewhere to put the people who annoy you.”
“Yes, well your ever faithful knight would inform me of any damages. For the time being it remains unchanged,” Jareth crossed his arms, tilting his head back to look up at the moon.
“Didymus? He’s still in the bog?” Sarah couldn’t believe Jareth hadn’t done away with the creature, considering the fact he did betray his king.
“To be quite honest, I had every intention to do away with him. Along with the dwarf as well,” Jareth paused for a moment. She could hear the wheels in his head turn as he considered his words. “I ultimately decided to refrain from such. If you ever did return, I wouldn’t imagine you’d be exactly pleased to hear I’d punished your friends. Even if they did betray me.”
“You didn’t…for my sake?” She tilted her head in confusion. Why would he do that?
Jareth rolled his eyes, “I am just as capable of generosity as I am cruelty, I’ve told you that before.”
For the first time, Sarah found herself speechless. Jareth had everything to gain by lashing out at her friends after his defeat. Yet he stayed his hand, and all on the principle that he didn’t want to give her another reason to hate him. Because he knew what Ludo, Didymus, and Hoggle meant to her.
“You were right, ya know,” Sarah admitted while staring up at the crescent moon.
The Goblin King threw his head back with a roaring laugh, “now those are words I've been dying to hear.”
Rather than reward him with a reaction, Sarah held her tongue. She tried to map out the sentences in her mind, to organize her thoughts in a way he'd understand. The last thing she wanted was to stroke his ego. Sarah tore her eyes away from the moon, pale-green eyes instead looked back towards the forest. When the words finally came to her, she set them free in a whisper.
“Everything you did was because I asked you too. I'm the one who wished Toby away, I taunted you in the tunnel, and the whole ballroom thing. The drugged peach was wrong and I'm still not letting you off the hook for that,” she looked at him then, only to meet his gaze with a glare. Except it unexpectedly softened when she saw his expression. How he intently listened to her every word. “I think there's always been a part of me that's known you were never really the villain in my story, Jareth.”
Jealousy Versus Envy (Yandere Jareth/Goblin King x Reader)
Request: I would like to see some Jealous!yandere! Jareth the goblin king content! ❤
There was no telling how long you had been wandering the Labyrinth. Time flowed past as either individual grains of sand sluggishly falling through an hourglass or as fat dollops plunging past, without any sort of in-between. For all you knew, it might have been no time at all since you began your quest, or your thirteen hours might have nearly ended.
A large part of you wondered whether this odd passage of time was simply natural to the Labyrinth, or if this was some extra trick of the Goblin King. It was impossible to be sure, but you swore that you could feel his gaze on you, could hear his cruel laugh each time the moments slipped past your fingers like water. He was trying to disorient you, you thought, trying to make it so you couldn’t deduce how much longer you had left and trying to make it so you couldn’t stand one more moment of stumbling through his maze. And as much as you were loath to admit it, his attempts were working.
Although you had no way of knowing it, your assumptions surrounding Jareth’s interference were exactly right. The haughty king watched from his crystal your attempts to keep track of both the Labyrinth and how much time you had left with mirth in his eyes. Truthfully, he thought as he observed you hesitate in confusion as you came to yet another fork in the path, you were just precious. And yes, while Jareth did generally enjoy creating more challenges for the runners, there was a unique joy he felt from doing the same to you. Never before had he found a runner of the Labyrinth so fascinating, so enchanting. He couldn’t look away from you.
Leaning up against a thick tree trunk, one that sat right next to a beautifully clear pool of water, you paused to consider your strategy. It was clear that just wandering through the maze would not bring you any closer to the Goblin City, but you were still at a loss for what to do instead. The only other possibility that came to your mind was trying to appeal to one of the strange denizens of this realm for help, but you hadn’t seen a single soul in ages. Biting your bottom lip in a way that the ever-present Goblin King found positively alluring, you gazed into the pool as though you hoped an answer would suddenly appear there.
“Hello there,” came a voice.
Understandably startled, you looked around the glade to try to find who had spoken, but still there was no one to be found.
“Down here.”
Approaching the edge of the pool, you peered down into the water, at first seeing nothing but your reflection. After a moment though, your reflection began to ripple, until it was no longer your image shown in the water. Rather, you saw instead the image of a dark-haired man, one with sparkling violet eyes and a charming smile. It wasn’t like you were looking at someone who was swimming underwater though, but more like the very surface of the water had revealed some spirit to you. And considering what you had seen of the Labyrinth thus far, that was certainly a possibility.
“Uh, hi,” you said, a bemused smile on your face.
The longer you stared at the strange face before you, the more oddities you noticed about him, if any of his beautiful features could truly be called odd. His canines were particularly sharp for one thing, and the tips of his ears were pointed as well. With those features and something more that laid hidden in his eyes, he reminded you a bit of Jareth.
At the joy of meeting a friendly face, your fear of the Goblin King was slowly forgotten. In fact, when Jareth’s still-present gaze grew from affectionate to bitter, you failed to notice the change, even as the air around you became heavy with the king’s stormy thoughts.
“What brings you to my corner of the Labyrinth?” the stranger asked. “It’s been quite some time since I had a visitor, and such a lovely one at that.”
The nymph’s words alone, so unashamedly flirtatious, were enough to make Jareth burn. How dare that fool speak to you in such a way when you had already been claimed! How dare he try to steal what belonged rightfully to his king! Clearly, Jareth sneered to himself as his gripped his crystal tightly, that dolt’s mind had become water-logged.
Yes, all of that was bad enough, but it was your response that truly set the Goblin King aflame with anger.
“Oh, um, well,” you stammered bashfully as heat rose to your cheeks. “I was tricked into wishing myself away, and now I’m trying to solve the Labyrinth so I can go home.”
You blushed. You actually blushed.
Roaring in fury, Jareth threw the crystal he had been watching you with at his bedroom wall, watching with satisfaction as it shattered. His breaths heavy with rage, Jareth couldn’t get the image out of his head. You, averting your eyes shyly as a blush creeped over your cheeks, it played over and over again in his mind. You had never once looked at him in that way. You had never once taken his compliments of you seriously. You had never once shown him an ounce of such warmth as you did to that imbecilic bottom feeder.
And hadn’t Jareth done so much for you? Hadn’t he taken you into a world that no mortal could imagine? Hadn’t he offered you your very dreams? Hadn’t he offered you his love?
No, such disrespect would not stand, the king decided. He had spent too long simply watching you, allowing you to forget who exactly controlled your strings, who exactly you belonged to. He would teach you of your quickly approaching destiny as his for eternity, and he would teach all others in his kingdom what would happen if they tried to take you from him. With that determined, Jareth journeyed into the shadows until he came to the glade where you sat at the water’s edge.
“Ah, I should have guessed,” the nymph was saying. “As wondrous as the Labyrinth is, even it could not create a creature as beautiful as you.”
“Um, yeah. I’m actually just here because I was tricked by the Goblin King.”
“How many times must I tell you to call me Jareth, pet?”
Heart stuttering in your chest, you looked up to see Jareth standing a little ways beside you, his mismatched eyes boring into you possessively. Not wanting him to tower over you so easily, you scrambled to stand up, only for Jareth to place a hand on the top of your head, keeping you firmly in place. He smirked down at you, greatly pleased with the sight of you kneeling at his feet, and began to stroke your hair softly.
“Isn’t this better, pet? Isn’t this easier?” he cooed melodiously. “You know in your heart that this is where you are meant to be, under my loving hand. Wouldn’t it be so much better to stop fighting the one who loves you?” As you stared up at him with wide eyes, Jareth thought that you might finally see sense, might finally give in, and his heart rejoiced at the thought of finally being able to take you home. But a moment later, your eyes hardened.
“I will not stop fighting, not even if this were love.”
“Oh, I promise you, pet,” Jareth snarled, grasping your hair tightly in his hand, “it is.”
“But,” he continued, smirking once again, “you will soon have an eternity to learn that. Your companion here, on the other hand, will not be so lucky.”
Your eyes turning back to the stranger in the pool, you saw that much like yourself, he was staring up at the Goblin King with fear in his eyes. Unable to bear the thought of Jareth punishing an innocent person, you moved to take Jareth’s free hand into your own.
“Please, don’t!” you begged, your pride forgotten. “He didn’t do anything, he wasn’t trying to help me!”
“Oh, I know that. Truly, I believe I would have preferred that he was. For while he might not have tried to assist you, he did something worse. He tried to lay claim to what is mine.”
“Sire,” the nymph pleaded, “I swear on my life—”
Whatever the nymph was about to swear, neither you nor Jareth would ever discover. For the mere sound of the nymph’s voice reminded Jareth of how his subject had tried to charm you, and how well you had responded to his flirtations. So before the nymph could finish his plea, Jareth gave a rough wave of his hand and froze each inch of water of the nymph’s home. The nymph himself was still visible in the ice’s reflection, though he was frozen as the water itself. And while you were just barely beginning to hope that one day the ice might melt and the stranger would be freed, Jareth’s heel came down on the ice, piercing through it was though it were paper-thin glass, shattering the image of the nymph until he disappeared completely.
“All that,” you choked out, “all that because of your envy?”
Chuckling, Jareth cupped your chin gently in his hand, lifting you up so that you could see the twisted fondness lying in his discordant eyes.
“Not at all,” Jareth purred. “That was not envy, but jealousy. I refuse to let anyone take what is mine. And make no mistake, you are mine.”
sorry for being a bother but i read a fanfiction some time ago that i havent been able to stop thinking about lately, but don't recall a single important thing about it like it's name, who wrote it or where i even read it. all i can remember is a scene where sarah, jareth (+ the original characters) are in vienna(?) and the men are taking part in a boat race, jareth gives sarah his glove which is supposedly swoon worthy. if either you or your followers know what this is from i'd love a name :00
Are you thinking of a Forfeit of Dreams by KL Morgan? It’s one of the classic early 2000s Labyrinth fics about Sarah going through the Labyrinth to save a classmate and there’s a whole chapter or so of her having this extended dream in Venice (so not vienna) where she and Jareth fall in love and shit.
So I’ve been contemplating on this for a while and even discussed with a few friends of mine, and I’ve finally come to a conclusion with this particular issue.
I’ve decided that I won’t be continuing Labyrinth anymore. I’ll probably just delete it given it includes my own characters so just orphaning it would feel a bit odd.
I do feel kind of bad about it because I’m aware there were people who liked it and some even asked me when I’ll continue it, but at this point....I just can’t do it?
I don’t actually like that fic much, not because I think it’s bad, but because it’s not my style, like at all.
It lacks pretty much everything I usually enjoy doing when writing stories; moral complexities/morally gray characters, lore building, complex plot, the list goes on. I’m genuinely bored trying to write it. I don’t even like going back to re-read it to maybe try to reignite my interest/trying to remember something about it, because, well.... again, I just get bored...
I guess I was trying to spread my writer wings and try out something new, but in this case it just didn’t work. I just don’t enjoy writing it, the setting, the story idea, it’s all too uninteresting to me.
I’m really sorry to everyone who liked that fic and wanted to see it continued. I just can’t force myself to write something I don’t enjoy, it won’t come out well in the end and will just stress me out needlessly.
Summary: Two years after her original adventure, Sarah is adjusting to a new town and school after her family's recent move. When she receives word that her friends in the Labyrinth are in trouble, she decides to go and help. Reunited with old friends, and a few new ones, Sarah sets off to help save the Labyrinth from ruin. (FF.net or AO3)
The Power of Innocence
Summary: The sequel to Beyond the Thirteenth Hour. Sarah and Toby return to the Labyrinth to help their friends vanquish a dangerous enemy that threatens to destroy the entire Underground forever. (FF.net or AO3)
The Briny Willow Wars
Summary: The Sequel to Power of Innocence. The Labyrinth group venture to the birthplace of the late Queen Susan. While there, they find themselves in the middle of an ongoing war between the Mages and the Nereids. (FF.net or AO3)
The Chase (And Other Stories)
Summary: A series of anthology stories set in the same universe as Beyond the Thirteenth Hour/Power of Innocence. Feel free to send me prompts for future chapters. (FF.net or AO3)
'For reasons wretched and divine', Sarah and Jareth?
Between you and me I wrote three whole pages of a Wild Huntscene, read two romance novels of questionable quality but with a GREATconcept, scrapped the lot, and wrote this AU instead.
For this ask meme!
Some things about archangels just don’t come through overthe TV.
Everyone says as much, but it’s not until Sarah’s standingsix feet from one that she really gets it. Sarah prides herself onher unflappability—flappable vampire hunters don’t live too long, and Sarah is immaculateas vampire hunters go—but just seeing the Archangel of New York touch downon the roof knocks the air from her lungs. He’s slim, dressed in a loose white shirt that looks like it belongs ona stage, a black vest so tight it’s almost a corset, and his trademark painted-on pants, with wild blond hair,and for a split second Sarah helplessly remembers how many people she knows whowould kill to be this close to him.
Then he starts walking toward her, eggshell-white and palegold wings mantled behind him and his trademark slim smirk on his lips, andSarah feels her lizard brain sit up straight and inform her that if he wantedto kill her, there wouldn’t be a damn thing she could do about it. It’snot fear, not really. Sarah is intimately familiar with fear. It’sjust inevitability, and for an alarming moment Sarah feels herself lockup like a rabbit in headlights.
“You must be Miss Williams,” he says as he drawsclose to her. He sounds amused—he always sounds amused, it’s part of whyhe can hold his territory so effortlessly. It’s hard to contest someonewho won’t even give you the dignity of sounding displeased while he turns thefull brunt of his power on you. Jareth never sounds more than mildlyinconvenienced, and as a result he’s held North America more or lessuncontested for a long, long time.
Three years ago, some vampire under Jareth’s command triedto rebel, betrayed him to Maeve, the archangel who holds most of Europe. Unfortunately for the vampire, Maeve told Jareth. The vampire lived—butjust barely. Jareth had laughed outright at the one and only reporterwith the brass balls to ask him about it. Sarah does not want tobe the next cautionary tale about crossing an archangel, and if she’d had anysay in the matter at all, she wouldn’t be here right now. Angels arepretty to watch and necessary to control vampires, and Sarah is perfectlycomfortable seeing them at a distance, thank you kindly.
But Jareth and the rest of the Cadre want a vampire hunter,and saying no when invited to the Tower isn’t a good way to keep adistance either. Even the most easygoing archangel is used to beingobeyed, quickly and without a fight, and while there are crueler archangels outthere, Jareth isn’t exactly known for being easygoing.
Sarah realizes abruptly, after solidly ten seconds ofwatching Jareth like a snake about to strike at her, that he’s expecting aresponse, the angle of his smirk going sharper and more amused with each momentof silence.
“Yes,” she says. “I’m SarahWilliams.”
“Sarah,” he says, consideringly. He hasn’tever adjusted to the American accent, much less New York, and retains somethingthat sounds most fundamentally British, with a trace of the same exotic,nameless drawl that every angel seems to learn at birth. It makes hername sound like something rare and strange, rather than one of the most commonnames in history. Sah-rah. God, Sarah wants to be out ofhere. “I’veheard of you.”
That gets her attention. Normally, vampire huntersoperate in relative obscurity—only someone paying close attention to reports ofescaped vampires or to the Guild’s rare public announcements would have pickedup on her name. Even though everyone agrees that Sarah is thebest–that’s why she’s here—her childhood dreams of being famous diedwhen she realized she had the gift for tracking vampires.
“I’m flattered,” Sarah says carefully. There’s something about his expression that says you should be withoutthe slightest flicker of change.
“Sit,” he says, gesturing to the tidy table setwith something between a tea service and an elaborate breakfast. Thechina looks like it might cost as much as Sarah’s apartment, and the neat towerof scones bears the sort of perfect uniformity that only skilled professionalscan manage. She’s been scrupulously ignoring the table since she reachedthe roof, for fear of more or less this exact situation. “Eatsomething. My chefs are the finest in the world, you’ll taste nothinglike their food elsewhere. Even on a Guild hunter’s paycheck.”
Sarah hesitates, and his gaze sharpens, just slightly.
“Sit,” he repeats.
Sarah sits. But she doesn’t take any food, nor touchthe numerous pots of tea and coffee. Something about the way he givesorders, like the world will rush to bend itself to his word, makes herbristle–he’ll get civility from her, but he needs her. Sarah doesn’tknow for what, not yet, but until such a time as she’s served that purpose,she’s reasonably sure that he won’t cut out her heart and leave it in her handsjust yet.
“Not hungry?” Jareth asks, almost silken, as hesettles across from her, wings flared neatly behind him and one eyebrow cockedas he arranges himself in a casual slouch that is doubtless completelyintentional, right down to the careless drape of his hand on the table.
“Ate before I came,” Sarah lies.
Jareth smiles at her. It's not news thatarchangels are beautiful, every one of them. Having every inch ofJareth’s beauty directed at her feels like a revelation, like Sarah’s neverseen beauty before, and it makes her frantic cocktail of nerves and awe andfear settle into a much more comfortable status quo ofslow-burning anger.
“No,” he says, still smiling. “Youdidn’t.”
It’s been—a long time, since someone called her out thateffortlessly. Vampire hunters live and die on their poker faces, andSarah—well, Sarah’s the best.
“Why am I here?” she asks, throwing caution to thewind. If he wanted her dead, nothing and no one could stop Jareth fromtossing her off the edge of the roof, to drop a hundred and forty-fourstories. She’s seen how fast archangels can move when they want to, andhonestly, if he wanted to, she probably wouldn’t even have time to reach forher hidden knife before her head parted company with her shoulders.
That’s very gruesome, Jareth’svoice says in her mind, still threaded with laughter, as if her mental image ofhis long elegant hands neatly ripping her head off is high comedy. I’mdisappointed. I’d have expected something more creative from you, Sarah.
“Get out of my head,” Sarah says, forcing hervoice to remain level, “and tell me why I’m here. The down paymentfor this job was–" Ludicrous, she wants to say. Insane. Enough zeroes to fill a textbook. Instead she opts for somethingapproaching diplomacy and finishes, "Impressive. Why did you want meso bad?”
Does it matter? I am prepared to pay you anunfathomable sum of money.
His gaze is fixed on her face, a riveted attention thatdoesn’t match the pose of laconic good humor he’s affected. His eyes aremismatched, and Sarah used to believe that one was dark. Now she can see,at such hazardous close range, that they’re both the same shade of impossiblemetallic blue, but that one is all but consumed by pupil, endless black staringback at her with only the thinnest rim of blue around it. It makes theskin of Sarah’s throat prickle, her heart racing in her chest and her breathingpicking up the pace just enough to make her a little dizzy. Shedecides immediately that she doesn’t care for the feeling.
Sarah can smell snow—no, frost, she can smell frost andstone, too strongly to be imagining it, but it’s a warm June day and there’snothing near her but concrete. None of the vampires she met in the Towersmelled of frost and stone, and it’s not a vampire sort of scent anyway. They smell tempting, enticing, like wine or chocolate or even paper, but she’snever met one yet with a scent as unfriendly as frost. Maybe she’sfinally losing her mind.
Sarah takes a breath, does her best to set the scent aside,and says, "I don’t work for people who won’t tell me what I’m doing,I don’t care what you’re paying me.“
Are you sure? I could pay you in more thanmoney. His humor takes on a harder edge inher mind, and a memory surfaces unbidden, of herself as a child dressed up incostume jewelry and dancing around her room, in a young teenager’s bestimpression of a waltz. The memory is shadowed with her younger self’simaginings, an ornate ballroom and beautiful music, dancers all around not quiteas beautiful as she, and an indistinct prince, looking nowhere but atSarah.
In the memory, the prince blinks mismatched eyes and says,"I could pay you with your dreams, if you would prefer.”
The air leaves Sarah’s lungs in a rush, and for a moment,she’s herself as a teenager, dressed in a white and silver ballgown out of somebygone era, staring up at Jareth, too much in shock to even answer.
Then she shoves his dream-self away from her, hard,and closes her hand around the blade of the knife hidden at the waistband ofher jeans.
“Stay the fuck out of my memories, Jareth,”Sarah hisses as blood seeps through her fingers. The pain helps, itclears her head just a little, and the vision of them dancing evaporates likemist under sunlight. “And tell me what the job is, or I’m goinghome.”
Something in Jareth’s expression cools. “You lackrespect,” he observes. Sarah can still feel him, pushing at theouter edge of her mind. Not trying to break in, just nudging the wholething slightly off kilter, like taping a penny to a gyroscope. She’spretty sure the penny is labelled obedience, and she sets her jaw.
“Get. Out." The words come out groundfine through her teeth, against the sudden pressing urge to agree, agree,agree. "Fuck off. Either you hire me as is, or you tossme off this roof.”
“You seem very ready to entertain the latterpossibility." Jareth’s wings flare around him, idly, and Sarahthinks semi-hysterically that they’re patterned like a barn owl. Thisisn’t the first time she’s noticed it, but no one ever says it aloud—eventhough his wings look crafted out of barely off-white bone china and palestgold, it’s just too common a bird to safely associate with the Archangelof New York, who holds all their lives in his easily-bored hands. "Do tell, why should I hire someone who clearly has such a death wish asto tell an archangel to fuck off?”
Well, to hell with it, Sarah decides. Might as well behanged for a sheep as for a lamb.
“Here’s what I’ve figured out,” Sarah says. “You and the Cadre need a hunter—not just any hunter, the best hunter,because Didymus is my friend and he admitted outright to me that you personallycontacted him looking for someone on those terms. You’re anarchangel–”
“Well spotted,” Jareth says in his mostcoldly entertained tone. Sarah ignores him and silently hopes thatDidymus will remember to send her bank account details to her brother, alongwith the announcement that, unfortunately, Sarah got mouthy and got herselfkilled by an archangel.
“—so obviously you don’t need a soldier. Anything youcan’t take out would turn me into a smear on the pavement in under a second.That means you need a bloodhound, and I’m hunter-born, the strongest tracker inNorth America. So you have an old, powerful vampire who’s managed toelude you—maybe a couple of them. The most I’ve tracked on a normal jobwas five, so it would need to be quite a few. The only thing I can’tfigure out,” she adds, musing almost to herself, “is why you paid somuch. You don’t manage your own finances, I assume you have people forthat, so it’s not that you’re unaware of the usual fee per head. Evenaccounting for hazard pay, it’s way too much. So all I can think is thatyou wanted to be sure I’d be here, even though only an idiot would meet anarchangel on terms like these, and expected me to say no right away. Youeven had a table set up, like this was going to be a nice chat rather than ajob interview. You’ve been trying to make me want to agree, soobviously you think I’m going to say no. Which would mean…”
For the first time, Sarah follows that thought all the wayto its conclusion and she does not like it.
For the first time, she’s seeing Jareth unamused, and shedoesn’t like that either. His angular face is harsh without humor, themismatched blue of his eyes sharp enough to slice her to ribbons, and insteadof a smirk, his thin expressive lips are twisted into something alarminglyclose to a snarl.
She wonders if this is the last thing that traitor vampiresaw, before Jareth’s hands broke open his chest and lifted out his heart, stillbeating.
Do continue, precious, hisvoice says in her mind. It’s not laughing now. It’s as quick andfrigid as a snowmelt river, and infinitely more lethal, and it tastes likefrost and stone. Tell me your conclusions.
“You’re desperate,” Sarah says, almost awhisper. Her voice picks up strength as she goes on. “Youthink that, whatever this is, it’s so bad that it’ll affect the whole Cadre ofTen. Something that could hurt archangels. You want to make sureI’ll work for you, and do it fast and quiet, before anyone can realize there’ssomething wrong. You’re–” oh God Toby, she’s sorry she’s about todie like a moron “–you’re scared.”
“And tell me, Sarah,” Jareth says aloud, leaningforward. He doesn’t look casual or careless anymore. He looks likea falcon in mid-dive, every fiber of him focused on his target. “Wasthat a difficult conclusion to reach?”
“It was a piece of cake,” Sarah says, numb to thebone with the knowledge that she’s absolutely not going to live throughthis. Live through this meeting, maybe, if she’s right. Livethrough the job, increasingly unlikely. But afterward? She’s rightthat they’re scared—that something, somehow, has frightened the Cadre, the mostpowerful beings that have ever lived—and that information is an undeniablethreat to them.
“You’re clever, precious,” Jareth says. Heleans back and rises to his feet, pacing slowly around the table until he’sstanding next to her, wings mantled around him as he bends down to speak intoher ear. She can feel his breath on her skin, stirring her hair. The smell of frost rises so sharply that Sarah has to repress a shiver. “You were only wrong about one thing,” he says.
“What was it?" Sarah does not turn herhead. She keeps her eyes fixed directly ahead, not allowing them to evenflicker toward him—he’s trying to get a rise out of her, and goddamn him, it’sworking. She unsettled him and now he’s unsettling her right back.
"I don’t need you to hunt a vampire,” he says, andreaches down to pull her bloodied knife out of the hidden sheath at herwaist. She shivers properly this time, as he tosses the little knife ontothe table, where the blood still clinging to the ceramic blade stains the whitetablecloth. Some security guy is going to have a very unpleasantconversation with an archangel, unless she’s mistaken, for letting her get thatpast the front door.
Jareth brushes her hair back behind her ear and murmurs, lowand sweet and lethal, “I need you to hunt an archangel.”
