"She treats me like the wicked stepmother in a fairy story, no matter what I say," Irene pouted at her husband. He shrugged, not wanting to step between the two most important women in his life-or at least, that was what he always claimed.

"I'll talk to her," Robert said, as if to soothe Irene.

But Irene wasn't upset. She planned for this. The book, the handmade dresses, the nitpicking and fussiness she knew the teenaged girl hated-all carefully manufactured to prey on her angst. And the poor thing was performing beautifully. Irene had no doubt that when the time came, Sarah would be only too happy to wish herself away to the Goblin King from her story book.

Sometimes Irene even let herself believe that the story she had written had a grain of truth to it-that the Goblin King really did somehow fall in love with the girl… Or at least, that nothing awful would happen to her.

Because while Irene was willing, now, to sacrifice her stepdaughter, she really didn't hate her. But there was no contest when it came down to choosing between Sarah or Toby.

Robert came back downstairs and she followed him out into the car. Irene glanced back at the house once, a strange feeling brushing against her senses. Sarah's bedroom light was still on. No matter-Toby was asleep and would likely stay that way until they got back home. Sarah could pout all she wanted.

A bolt of lightning seared the sky.

"Looks like more rain," Robert remarked. Irene only nodded, her lips pressed tightly together, her mouth filled with the taste of bitter peaches. She told herself that she was imagining it, but couldn't taste dinner through the unripe fruit.

The careful steps of the ballerinas in Swan Lake were also not enough to distract her. Irene worried that the man had come and taken her Toby-a child for a child, as he'd promised all those years ago. She shied away from Robert's suggestion of cocktails at a lounge, citing exhaustion from the long day.

It was but a few minutes past midnight when she finally make it home. The first floor was flooded with light, like Sarah hadn't bothered to turn off any of them. The upstairs, too; Irene barely took note of it as she raced to her room, to her baby.

The taste of peaches, commingling with the sharp, heavy scent of hot metal filled her mouth and nose. Irene gagged.

Her hands trembled.

There was something in the crib.

Toby.

She leaned forward and held him in her arms, pressing him to her skin. Woken from his sleep, her squirmed, whimpering. Irene kissed the top of his head, feeling his wispy hair against her lips, tasting dirt and dust on his scalp. Irene shuddered, wondering-and dreading the answer of-where he might have gotten so dirty. But he was safe, which was more than she thought she could hope for. She licked the pad of her thumb and wiped away a smear of dirt from his forehead.

When Irene exited the room she shared with Robert, she was not surprised to see Sarah. The girl stood with her back against her bedroom door, palms flat against the paneled wood, head tilted slightly downward, only half listening to her father putter around in the kitchen. Her eyes were wide, but unseeing; she stared into the middle distance.

"I trust it was a quiet night?"

Sarah's reaction was telling. She snapped her head up and looked right at Irene, the ghost of some inscrutable emotion flitting across her face.

"Yeah-yes. He slept. I played. In my room," she finished, a challenging look in her eyes. Accuse me of lying, it seemed to say. Just try it.

Guilt. It was guilt that tinged the girl's face and seeped into her words, and in that moment, Irene wanted to slap her. She'd never wanted to hurt a child before; certainly, not as much as she wanted to now. But something had happened, something that reeked of magic and the strange man at the stones, and Sarah was at the epicenter of it all.

Irene pressed her lips together and fixed Sarah with a critical eye, wondering if she should accuse her of some other transgression-having a boy over, or rowdy friends, maybe. Something-anything!-to help vent the frustration and fear threatening to overtake her.

But Irene did not do that. Instead, she snorted out a short "hm," and watched as Sarah visibly relaxed. Robert came back up the stairs then, a glass of tap water in his hand, and if he noticed the daggers his wife was glaring at his daughter, he did not mention them.

"Goodnight, Sarah," he said, and Irene let herself he drawn back into their room. Where Toby was safe and sleeping soundly.

She counted her lucky stars that her son was still there, not stolen away in a burst of bitter, unripe magic like a fell wind. Sarah, on the other hand… it was time for her to go. Far from treating the story Irene wrote for her as a vaguely romantic promise, Sarah used it as an instruction manual and almost gave Toby up to the fate Irene had been struggling against for so long. It was clear that something needed to happen; it was even clearer that Sarah needed to be sent away. Quickly.

It was with this in mind that Irene watched how protective Sarah was over Toby in the intervening weeks. If the wind blew too hard, if a branch tapped against a window-anything unexpected, really-Sarah's attention immediately snapped to her baby brother.

The teenager's heightened vigilance did nothing to change Irene's mind; instead, it only made her more certain. Something had happened that night. Something bad. But Irene could not move immediately, not when Robert was still there, and not when she still had time left.

She would not be goaded into a rash action.

Sarah, over the course of another few weeks, relaxed.

Irene waited.

And then, as if orchestrated by forces outside of her realm of understanding, things arranged themselves. Robert was required to attend a business trip that just so happened to take place over her birthday. Irene acted upset about the situation, but was secretly giddy; that was one less thing to take care of.

On her way home from work one afternoon, Irene purchased a bottle of champagne.

That would take care of another.

Irene should have known that the contrary girl would not select the right thing from the story to take at face value. It couldn't have been that the king was in love with the girl-oh no, that would have been too easy. No, Sarah, Irene had a horrible suspicion, had actually wished away her baby brother as the novel's heroine had. And for that alone, Irene could never forgive her.

It was only with the faintest hint of guilt-a residual emotion-that Irene uncorked the champagne bottle and poured some of it into the two waiting flutes. It bubbled and fizzed, and into Sarah's glass, Irene poured much more. Against her own, the pressed her bottom lip so that the lipstick stain left behind would indicate that she'd already had some.

"Sarah," Irene said, tapping against the girl's bedroom door with the hand that held her own half-full glass. "I have something for you. Why don't you come out?"

There was a shuffling noise and a soft murmur-who on earth could she be talking to? Irene wondered-before Sarah opened the door. When she saw the champagne flutes in her stepmother's hands, her eyes widened slightly. They widened even more in confusion when Irene pressed the fuller of the two into Sarah's hands.

"Toby is asleep," Irene said, forcing a wide smile onto her face. "And your father isn't here. Come and celebrate my birthday with me. We'll have some girl time."

"Well…" Sarah paused and half glanced back at her closed bedroom door. "I don't-"

"Oh, it'll be fun," Irene interrupted. "Come one." And with that, she spun on her heel and went back downstairs. After a beat or two, Sarah's timid footsteps followed her.

"You're a very mature young lady, you know," Irene told her stepdaughter once they were both in the living room. Sarah sat perched on the edge of her father's wingback leather chair, the one that was usually off limits to everyone else. She held the champagne glass in both of her hands at a distance form herself, as if it were a bomb she wasn't quite sure what to do with.

At Irene's words, Sarah raised an eyebrow, a signal to Irene that she was laying it on a little too thickly.

"Or, you will be very soon, at any rate," she amended. Irene assumed a kidnapping by preternatural creatures would tend to make a girl grow up a little too quickly. Guilt washed over her, and she stared into her own champagne glass. Bubbled clung to the sides.

Think about how she endangered Toby, she reminded herself. Think about what will happen if she is not sacrificed.

Irene put the glass to her lips and took the smallest of sips; the champagne bit at her tongue. It did not help her think any clearer, but it did give her something else to focus on for the briefest of moments. Following Irene's lead, Sarah took a too-long gulp of her own drink and immediately pulled a face in disgust.

"It's an acquired taste," Irene commented drily, motionting for Sarah to try it again. "I didn't enjoy my first time drinking it either."

"To growing up, I suppose," Sarah said with a sigh, bringing the thin rim of her glass once again to her lips. This time the mouthful of alcohol passed easier, though she didn't actually seem to like it any better.

Irene offered her an encouraging smile, one that felt too tight on her face. Any minute now-but hopefully only after Sarah had been dulled by the drink-the man would show up to claim her, and Irene could finally wash her hands of the unpleasant business. But still, she would have to rely on his wicked sense of timing. He had given her no way of calling-not even a name-not that she thought she'd ever desire to do so.

It gave her pause.

What if he came and took Toby, claiming that Irene had not called him in time and he was free to take whichever of the children he chose? An icy shudder trailed down her spine.

"Um, happy birthday, Irene," Sarah said, breaking the uncomfortably long silence that had grown between them. Her glass was empty-she'd always been a fidgety girl.

"Thank you, Irene said, refilling Sarah's glass. "I've been thinking a lot, Sarah, of when I was your age. I used to live beside farmland and forests-of course, if you weren't in a city, that's really all there was-with green stretching as far as you could imagine. I used to be a lot like you, you know."

The taste of bitter peaches coated her tongue, drowning out the champagne.

Sarah laughed-a quick, staccato thing-before taking another long drink to hide her embarrassment.

"I know," Irene inclined her head. "It is funny, in its own way." She sneezed, once, the magic thick in the air irritating her sinuses. Irene wondered how Sarah didn't sense it.

"When I was young, I even lived by these stones that everyone said held magical healing properties, blessed by the fairies. That wasn't quite true, of course."

Irene sneezed again.

"Would you like a tissue?" Sarah asked, not hiding her desire for escape well.

"No, I-"

Behind her, the grandfather clock boomed, heralding a new hour. Sarah stood. Her glass slipped from her fingers and shattered on the floor.

Irene sighed deeply.

"It is time," he said, and Irene sagged into her seat.

"I know," she said.

"Irene! Get away from him! Get away from her-don't you touch her!"

From the corner of her eye, Irene saw the man step forward and peer at her stepdaughter.

"Good evening, Sarah. Do be civil, would you?"

Irene watched as Sarah's face went pale and then red with anger.

"You can't have Toby."

Four words.

Those four simple words told Irene everything that she needed to know about that night and more. Sarah knew who the man was. He knew who Sarah was. And most importantly, Toby was involved in some terrible way.

Irene stood then, fury arcing through her muscles.

"It's her. She is the child you can take." She pointed to Sarah, her manicured nail glinting in the light like a claw.

The man smiled in a way that spoke of no joy, and Sarah burst into tears.

"Please no, please don't, Irene, I'm so sorry, I didn't really mean it. Please, please, I'm sorry, please, I know I wished him away, but I got him back and-"

Sarah fell silent.

Jareth pointed at the girl and flicked his wrist. Her panicked shouts were replaced with muffled moans, and Irene watched, impassive, almost outside of herself, as Sarah's lips sealed themselves shut.

"Those betwixt should not speak," the man said calmly. Sarah fell to her knees, the scream from her throat caught behind her lips as she clawed at her jaws in a futile attempt to part them.

Irene turned to face the man completely, and found that she could not bring herself to look him in the eyes. Perhaps Sarah deserved that much, at least-for the person giving her away to actually look at the one doing the taking. Irene settled for looking at his shoulders, which were clothed in what looked like feathers and the bones of small animals.

"She is not of your blood," the man noted.

Irene, much like Sarah who was still struggling on the floor, could not get her words to work properly. She settled on shaking her head.

"But you have fed her, clothed her," he paused, glancing slyly from Sarah to Irene, "loved her. She is your daughter."

"Yes," Irene managed to say, her voice brittle. She grabbed her upper arms with her opposing hands-a facsimile of an embrace-and only then realized she was trembling. She looked down. Saw Sarah grasping at the shattered flute's stem.

And watched, as the world seemed to slow to a crawl, as Sarah launched herself at the man with the jagged shard of glass. Irene almost felt her heart stop-you stupid stupid girl you'll jeopardize everything-and she gasped.

He caught her and twirled her around, a macabre parody of a ballroom dance, and forced her fist open and her wrist back until the glass fell harmlessly to the floor. Sarah tried to pull away but was caught tightly. Irene watched, her lips quaking, as she raised a hand-but to do what? She could not stop him any more than Sarah could.

He held the girl close to himself, even as she struggled. He lowered his mouth to Sarah's ears and stroked her hair with his other hand and Irene, just barely, heard him whisper.

"Where is your will as strong, Sarah? Your power that bested mine?"

Sarah thrashed in his grip, but he only clamped down harder. Irene felt hot tears burning behind her eyes.

"Is your deal done? Take her. Leave me and my son in peace." She did not want to see Sarah's terror any longer, wanted no part in witnessing this monster take his sacrificial lamb. Couldn't stand the tugging on her heart strings. Irene closed her eyes.

"The compact is finished," he said. "Come now, Sarah, and mind your manners."

Irene was alone in the room, she could feel it; the taste of unripe fruit vanished with the man and her stepdaughter. It was done.

In the silence, something broke.

Like her mother before her, she fell to her knees and wailed for the loss of a child.

Upstairs, Toby began to cry.

A/N

Special thanks to tooralooryeaye, without whom this would not have come to be.