It had been around eleven when Sir Didymus shooed the Fire Gang and the other Goblins out of Sarah's bedroom before taking his leave for the evening, with Ludo in tow. Hoggle had stayed behind to help Sarah clean up the glitter, streamers, feathers, and fur their impromptu celebration had left behind; but finally he had departed as well, with a lingering hug and a promise that he would never be further than a wish away.

And so Sarah found herself sitting alone in front of her mirror sometime shortly after midnight when a glimmer of something outside her window caught her eye. She slowly stood and walked to the window, leaning her hands on the sill and peering out into the moonlit night.

Just a few feet from the glass was a barn owl, perched on a tree branch. Its body was orientated toward her, but it had its head turned completely around so that it was looking out across the yard at the next house over. Sarah debated for a moment whether to ignore it, but after holding her hand hesitantly on the window latch for just an instant she unhooked it, and slid the window open. She'd done it as softly as she could, but it still made enough sound to get the owl's attention, and the bird of prey abruptly swiveled its head back around and stared at her imperiously, causing Sarah to step back and let out a gasp she quickly stifled. She stepped forward again, back into the moonlight.

"It's you...isn't it?" she asked meekly.

The bird blinked its eyes once, lazily, but she couldn't be sure if that was any sort of answer. Sarah put her hands on her hips.

"Seriously," she said, sounding a little more sure now that she'd had a moment to regain herself, "I know it's you. I saw you outside the window earlier, when the Goblins were here. What were you doing, anyway? Keeping an eye on them?" she asked, just a little haughtily.

The owl rotated its face a full 180 degrees so that it stared upside-down at her. Sarah stifled an unwanted smile by pressing her lips tightly together, and crossed her arms over her chest.

"Oh please," she scoffed, "are you trying to be funny?" She lifted her foot off the ground and took another shaky step forward and leaned out into the night, both her hands on the windowsill.

The owl slowly turned its face back right-side-up and blinked lazily, looking into her eyes. For a moment neither moved.

"It really is you though, isn't it?" Sarah whispered. "The Goblin King."

The barn owl blinked once more and then, slowly, tipped its head in what Sarah thought might have been a nod.

She glanced over her shoulder toward her mirror, debating whether she should ask Hoggle to come back. But she felt safe, at least for the moment. The Goblin King was far less intimidating as a bird on a tree branch. That, and the moment of her victory over him still was fresh in her mind. What could he possibly do to her now?

"Well..." she said, and then realized she didn't know quite what to say, now that she was certain whom she was talking to. She cleared her throat to stall for time, and then lifted her chin. No matter who—or what—he was, she told herself, she had every right to know what game he was playing at.

"Why did you come here, Goblin King? What do you want?"

For a moment the bird just looked at her, not moving; but then it let out a rasping screech that startled her so badly she bumped her head on the open window before toppling backward in a heap on her bedroom floor. From her vantage point she could see the owl in the tree lower its head and slowly open its wings; and then it cast itself into the air, so effortlessly it seemed as though invisible hands lifted it from the perch, and glided the few feet to the windowsill before throwing its claws forward and sinking them into the wood as it landed. It peered down at her and made a low, creaking sort of sound, and then clicked its beak several times.

Sarah scooted backward to put a few more feet between the two of them. She'd felt significantly more confident when he'd been something she could shut out with a window latch; but now that he'd entered her space, every unnamed threat he'd represented only hours earlier came hurtling into the present.

"W-well? What do you want from me?"

As she watched, the owl in the window seemed to morph into a shadowy blur; the shadow stretched and strained until it blocked the window entirely, and lengthened until it reached the floor; then finally the edges of the shadow sharpened into a familiar and frightening shape. The moonlight filtered through the thin fabric of the white cloak that hung lightly from his shoulders—the same one he'd been wearing when she last saw him. The backlighting from the moon cast his face in shadow, but the memory of his feral smile rose sharply in her mind at the sound of his growly laugh.

"Now now, Sarah," he tut-tutted, "surely you can't be afraid of me." His arms were held open, his hands turned upward in an almost conciliatory gesture. He crossed one leg in front of the other, bringing his booted toe down with a thud. "I merely came to congratulate you."

Sarah pulled one knee up to her chest.

"Like I believe that. Why are you really here?"

"Contrary to what you may think," he said, putting his hands on his hips, "I can be gracious in defeat. How is your head, by the way?"

"Excuse me?"

He sighed impatiently.

"Your head. It looked to me like you may have dented it in the midst of your...hasty retreat." He smiled like he just couldn't help himself.

Sarah reached back and gingerly touched the back of her head, and hissed. The spot prickled and stung, and a throbbing ache was spreading out from it. She rubbed her fingers together, trying to ignore the fact that they felt just a little damp.

"I hope I don't have to call a healer for you," he said, in a mocking tone.

"It's fine," she growled, eyeing him warily as he stepped toward her—and staring when he proffered a gloved hand.

"Oh, come come, Sarah; this is undignified. On your feet."

She considered the offered appendage: There was no obvious treachery afoot—but, then again, this was the Goblin King.

Still, the gesture seemed sincere; so against her better judgment she took his hand, and allowed him to pull her back to her feet. He stood in front of her, close enough that she could make out his features in spite of the darkness of the room: his shock of white-blond hair, the sharp lines of his cheeks and jaw, the rockstar eye makeup that hinted at his avian form, and his odd-eyed gaze—which, at the moment, was fastened on her.

Sarah lowered her eyes uncomfortably, and made to pull her hand back, but he tightened his grip.

"Ah-ah, Sarah," he chided with a smile, his just-slightly-sharper-than-they-should-be teeth glinting softly in the dim light. "Just a moment." He took her hand in both of his and turned it over: Her fingertips, and now his glove, bore a few tell-tale smudges of red. He frowned.

"As I thought," he said tersely. "Let me see." He released her hand to reach for her head, but she moved away from him.

"Don't!" she squeaked.

"Sarah," he said, a little impatiently, "surely you don't think I came here to harm you?"

The girl scoffed.

"You're the one who tried to trap me in the Labyrinth."

The Goblin King laughed.

"I seem to recall you entered willingly."

Sarah opened her mouth to answer, but as nothing seemed to want to come out for a moment she was obliged to close it and try again.

"You...you...set the Cleaners on me!" she yelled, pointing an accusing finger at him.

The Goblin King cocked his head to one side, a thin smile playing across his face that was only slightly less predatory than usual.

"Which, apparently, you thought would actually harm you."

Sarah stared at him.

"Are you kidding? I almost got torn to pieces!"

"Don't be foolish," he smirked. "That was just a bit of Glamour."

She stared blankly, and his smile evaporated.

"It was a trick, Sarah," he said, seemingly exasperated. "You were never in any real danger."

Sarah made a show of putting her hands on her hips.

"Oh really? Then why was Hoggle just as scared as I was?"

He blinked.

"Who?"

"The Dwarf," she snapped.

"Oh. Him." He rolled his eyes. "I suppose he was scared because everyone tells stories about 'the Cleaners,' but if you were to ask Higgle—"

"Hoggle!"

"—Whatever, I am fairly certain he would tell you he'd never once actually seen them. Honestly, Sarah, you spent a bit of time in my Labyrinth: Did it look to you like it receives a regular cleaning?"

The involuntary beginnings of a laugh slipped out of her, but she quickly regained her composure and reminded herself she wasn't done being angry with him.

"Fine. Then there was when I had to choose between two doors—one of which led to 'certain death'."

He smirked.

"Death is always certain, Sarah, in the long run. But you'll note that the guards never said it was certain and immediate."

She cocked her head.

"Then, by your definition, didn't either door lead to 'certain death'?"

He smiled, surprised.

"I suppose you have a point," he said with a faux-gracious nod. "Perhaps I ought to speak to the Oubliette's guards."

Sarah's nostrils flared.

"Oh, and while we're at it," she snapped, "let's talk about that as well."

Jareth raised an eyebrow.

"Let's."

"You dropped me in the Oubliette!" she shouted.

"Technically, the Helping Hands dropped you in the Oubliette—by your request, if you recall."

"That's not the point!" she snapped.

"Oh?" he said. "Then what is?"

"YOU DROPPED ME IN THE OUBLIETTE!"

The Goblin King shrugged, completely unfazed by her outburst. "And?"

"'And?'! And I could've been stuck down there for ages!"

"Ages? No!" he said, looking momentarily affronted. But then he smirked and the look in his eyes turned wicked. "Forever," he purred.

Sarah wasn't sure if her face felt hot or cold suddenly.

"But, of course," he added off-handedly, "You didn't get stuck down there. In fact, I believe you were rescued almost immediately by that Dwarf, What's-His-Name—"

"Hoggle!"

"—whom I sent—"

"To try to get rid of me!"

"—To get you out of the Labyrinth you were apparently so worried about being trapped in. So," he growled, "the point is moot, I think." He punctuated the last word by swiftly turning his back on her.

"Well, what about...uh..."

The Goblin King slowly turned back on his heel, and raised an eyebrow as he watched her flounder.

"Yes...?"

Sarah closed her eyes for a moment with a groan, trying to recollect herself.

"What about the guards who attacked us in the Goblin City?"

He chuckled a little at that.

"I don't exactly receive many threats these days. I hand-selected my so-called 'guards' based on whether I found them amusing. They are many things; but, as I think you saw, dangerous is not one of them."

She sighed impatiently.

"And the Bog of Eternal Stench?"

He tilted his face down slightly, making his outrageous makeup take on an even more avian aura.

"Oh, the bog definitely smells awful; I'll give you that. But 'eternal'? You met a good number of my subjects; did you notice any who reeked of the bog?"

Sarah thought a moment, and shook her head.

"Indeed," he said. "And how likely do you think it is that, of all the Goblins you encountered, not one had ever, on accident, slipped into the bog? Not even Sir Didymus, who lives in the middle of it?" He stepped a little bit closer, and smiled mischievously. "Not ever?" he asked, leaning toward her. "Not even the tip of one...tiny...toe?"

Sarah noticed that, for some reason, the Goblin King seemed much bigger up close and personal than when he kept at a safe distance (if there was such a thing). She didn't realize she'd been staring at him until he cleared his throat and moved back a little, scowling at her in a way that made her think he found her terribly dense.

"It's nothing but rumors, Sarah, rumors that I have allowed to flourish—and that," he added with a flowery twist of the hand, "as necessary, I have augmented with a little bit of...trickery." With a flick of his wrist a crystal ball appeared, resting on his fingertips. He held it out to her.

"So much of what I do is just that," he said. "Crystal balls, smoke and mirrors—fantasies and dreams." With another artful flourish the crystal vanished. "Surely you must know by now that things are seldom what they seem."

Sarah's eyebrows knitted together; she was trying to mesh her experiences from earlier that night with the Goblin King's words now.

"So, all that time... You were just trying to scare me?"

"I told you before: You wanted me to be frightening; so I played the part. You wanted an adventure that lived up to your imagination, and you got it."

He shifted his weight slightly. She could clearly see the pale blue of his right eye tracing a slow arc across her face, and she assumed its darker twin, which was hidden in shadow, did the same.

"Sarah, I say this without malice—which I know you may find difficult to believe," he added with a smile that bared his teeth slightly. "If I had wanted you dead, then you would be. But as it stands, you escaped my Labyrinth without a bump, scratch, or bruise. Honestly now, think about it: not a splinter, not a papercut, not even a broken nail. So, does it seem likely to you," he asked, his voice dangerously close to becoming patronizing, "that I intend to harm you now?"

When she said nothing, he slowly set a gloved hand on her shoulder; but this time she didn't recoil from him.

"Now," he said, slightly more courteously, "let me see."

Sarah looked up at him, not sure what to make of his request. When she couldn't think of a threatening reason he'd want to see her injury, she tilted her head down, so he could see the spot where she'd hit her head on the window.

"Hmph. Come sit," he said, pulling her by the arm over to the chair at her desk, and sat her down. As she watched him in the mirror, he again conjured a crystal in his hand. He rolled his thumb over it a few times, somehow causing it to split in two; then he rolled these two in a slow circle across his palm, and slipped one into his opposite hand. He made a wide arc with his left hand, and the crystal transformed into a small bowl that looked like a pearlescent sort of ivory; and when he dropped the remaining crystal in, it transformed to water, and he set the bowl on the table. Reaching into his sleeve, he pulled out a wisp of white fabric that appeared to be made from the same material as his cloak, and he set it into the water.

"You're going to get your gloves wet," Sarah said, watching his hands. "Shouldn't you take them off?"

He eyed her in the mirror as he rung out the excess water back into the bowl.

"No."

Something in his tone made Sarah decide against arguing any further, and he daubed the sore spot on her head with the cloth. Each time he removed it he examined it—to see if she was still bleeding, she guessed. Then he returned it to the bowl, and repeated the process.

She watched his face in the mirror as he worked: His face was wan and thin, his lips pale, and dark shadows hovered under his sharp eyes and beneath his bony cheeks. Perhaps he was tired because it was late at night? Or maybe he'd looked like that when she'd last seen him, but she hadn't noticed.

When he had pressed the cool cloth to her head for a while without moving, and the silence had stretched on long enough, she simply said, "Thank you." For the first time since he'd begun his ministrations his eyes met hers in the mirror. She wasn't sure how to read his expression.

He picked up the bowl and upended it: The remaining water fell into his free hand, abruptly reconstituting itself into a crystal ball again. With a twist of his fingers, the bowl did the same. He pressed his hands together, and the two crystals vanished.

"Couldn't let you injure yourself on the very night of your...victory," he said, the corners of his mouth pulling into a frown for just a moment before he mastered himself. "It would be unsporting of me not to assist—especially since I was the cause. More or less."

"I should be used to barn owls by now," she said dismissively. "You startled me, was all."

She noticed the piece of cloth he'd used was bunched in his hand: Somehow the drops of blood had gone, and it looked already dry.

"Goblin King," she said; he stepped to her side, looking at her directly.

"Yes?" he asked.

Sarah looked down at her lap for a moment.

"Why have you come? Really."

She glanced back up at him, but he had turned his gaze to the mirror to look at her indirectly.

"As I said. I came to congratulate you on your victory."

He paused, but something in his expression suggested he had not said all.

"And?"

"And..." He closed his hand tightly around the bit of fabric, until just the barest trace of it still was visible. "I came to tell you that you will not see me again."

Sarah frowned slightly, trying to decide if somehow this was bad news.

"What about my friends—Hoggle, and the others? Can they—?"

"Yes," he sighed impatiently, holding up his empty hand. "Normally, I'd be cross with them for coming here without my permission; but I'm feeling unusually generous, so I'll let it be this time. So your friends," he said, lingering bitterly on the word for an instant, "may still visit you. But you should be aware, Sarah, that I will know when they do."

He smiled again, and this time the moonlight drifted through the window at just the right angle that it glinted off one of his pointed teeth in a way that reminded Sarah of precisely how dangerous he had seemed to her earlier that night.

"You should know that it is very difficult keeping anything from me," he said. He stepped back from her, circling behind and coming to stand at her other side, closer to the window. "But, as I said, you will not be seeing me again—unless," he added, raising the hand that held the cloth, "you specifically call on me."

Sarah turned in her chair so that she was facing him.

"Why would I do that? Why would I want you to come here again?"

The Goblin King's face shifted somehow, becoming a practiced blank that she found unreadable. He set the delicate white cloth on her desk.

"If you should want me to return, you know how," he said darkly. "Say your right words."

He stepped back toward the open window, looking at her for a moment.

"Oh, and Sarah," he added, the mischievous smile returning, "I might still send you a gift, now and again. Just to remind you that I'm never very far."

His tone suggested both promise and threat, but the grin that came with it suggested rather more of the latter. Sarah stood, but before she could think of anything to say he seemed to take on a glow: After a moment she realized it was the moonlight from outside filtering through him as he became transparent.

"Take care of yourself, precious," his disembodied voice echoed as he faded from sight.

Sarah spent most of the night tossing fitfully in her bed or pacing the room, by turns. She couldn't make up her mind what to think about the Goblin King's visit. He said he'd never wanted to harm her. And it was true: She'd gotten out of the Labyrinth completely unscathed—which, the more she thought about it, the more it seemed unlikely that that was due to either her skill or luck.

But he'd also taken her baby brother, and had seemed genuinely intent on keeping him. Okay, so he may never have tried to hurt her; but if she hadn't solved the Labyrinth, what would have happened to Toby? What would have happened to her?

Sarah stood looking at herself in the mirror, taking the Goblin King's token in her hand. Had it really all happened that same night? It felt like she had wished her brother away a lifetime ago. Part of that was the strange way time passed during her adventure: While it had taken her hours to get through the Labyrinth and rescue Toby, when she returned home she found she'd been gone only a short while ("I have reordered time," he snarled as he circled around her).

But it wasn't just that. It wasn't just that it felt like a memory from long ago: It felt like the girl who wished her baby brother would get stolen by Goblins was another person; and this girl, gazing back at her from the mirror, was... Who? Why did the girl in the mirror suddenly look like a stranger to her? And why did looking her reflection in the eye make her feel like someone else was staring back?

"Hello?" she called, now deeply unsettled by the feeling that there was someone watching from beyond the glass. "Is somebody there?"

Sarah sighed, wondering if it was a cliché to think she was going crazy, and lowered her gaze, twisting the bit of fabric in her hands and watching how the moonlight played across it. It felt feather-soft and fragile.

The Goblin King said he had come to congratulate her. But despite his words, she very much doubted that he was the kind to be so sportsmanlike as that. And she knew she'd seen him outside the window soon after Hoggle and the others appeared in her room. But, now that she thought about it, she also remembered looking out the window again sometime in the midst of the festivities and seeing he'd gone.

Which meant he'd left and then decided to come back.

He said she would've died if he'd wanted it, she thought with a shiver. But then he pointed out that, quite to the contrary, she'd come through her ordeal completely unharmed. He'd stressed that point, in fact. What was he trying to tell her?

She thought of the moment when she'd been chasing Toby around the Escher Room, and, in a desperate bid to get to him before her time ran out, she'd jumped. She should have fallen; she should've been hurt. Badly. But as soon as she'd done it, the room spun apart, and she found herself facing the Goblin King once more—for what she'd hoped would be the last time.

He had looked haggard then, she realized ("I'm exhausted from living up to your expectations of me," he sighed). At the time, she'd been so focused on saving her brother (that is, fixing her mistake, she thought guiltily) that she hadn't given much thought as to why the room had fallen apart like that, why she had drifted slowly to a safe landing.

Had he actually saved her?

No, she thought forcefully. Whatever he might say, the Goblin King wasn't the sort. He had threatened to take her baby brother from her forever; he'd forced her to run the Labyrinth; he'd tried to terrify Hoggle into betraying his first friend; he'd taken hours off the clock when she was advancing too far for his tastes; he'd manipulated, lied, and terrorized, trying to get what he wanted. And, when none of that had worked, he'd offered her her dreams—if she'd betray her family for them.

She wondered if he even knew how deeply that cut. But then, he'd warned her he could be cruel, hadn't he?

But when he showed up outside her window, and she'd been prepared for another confrontation, he utterly surprised her: No more risky wagers, no more veiled threats; no more tempting promises, either. And he'd seemed genuinely something-like-concerned when she'd hurt herself. He'd actually helped her.

At least, Sarah thought he'd helped her. Touching the sore spot on her head gingerly, she noted that it did feel a bit better—and wasn't sprouting horns, or doing anything else strange. She held up the bit of cloth and examined it more closely. It was definitely made of the same stuff as the Goblin King's clothes; and, just as she'd suspected earlier, it was somehow completely dry, and didn't have a mark left on it. Her stepmother would kill to know how he got those stains out so easily, she thought with a smile.

There was something else, though: When she held it close to her face (something she felt suddenly compelled to do, even though she couldn't quite say why), she caught just the barest hint of a scent to it—something that reminded her of the air at the very beginning of a rainstorm, and the crackle of lightning. But there was also an earthy note to it, like the leather binding of an old book. And, tucked away within all that, there was also the barest trace of an herbal sort of something, crisp like evergreens on the first day of snow, but with the sharp tang of some rare spice.

Sarah became so intent on identifying the elusive scent that she carried the scrap of fabric back to bed with her, without entirely realizing she was doing so. She curled up in bed, the square of cloth twined in her fingers, and pressed it close to her face. Finally, it seemed, her body's need for sleep was overtaking her mind's anxiety over her unwanted visitor.

And, now that she thought about it, "unwanted" seemed a bit harsh, really. It wasn't as though he'd done anything wrong. Actually, he'd been rather nice, hadn't he? Perhaps the Goblin King wasn't so bad after all. She found herself thinking of one moment in particular, when she'd apparently fallen asleep during her quest: The memory had become hazy, but she remembered feeling like a princess from one of her stories, wandering through a royal ball, looking for... What was it again? And then, she remembered, there had been singing—such a nice voice, she thought, so reassuring. Soothing, really. But she was getting so sleepy all of a sudden; she couldn't quite remember the details. Perhaps the Goblin King would know whom she'd heard singing; if she just asked him to tell her...

And then suddenly the peaceful stupor she was slipping into evaporated, replaced by a dread like falling down into the Oubliette again: and all her mind seemed to scream at once, IT'S A TRICK!

"No!" Sarah shouted, to no one in particular. She was sitting upright in her bed, thoroughly removed from the dream that she'd been caught up in a moment ago. It was the peach all over again, she realized angrily, and some phrase about Greeks bearing gifts stirred in her mind. She looked down at her hand, but the treacherous bit of fabric was gone: In its place, she had only a fistful of owl feathers.

She growled, and stomped over to the window—which, she now noticed, she'd forgotten to close.

"Ugh! I've had enough of your tricks!" she shouted into the night. "I don't ever want to see you again! Never!" She tossed the clump of downy feathers into the air; they drifted through the branches of the tree where the Goblin King had perched before, and were scattered by the wind, drifting far off until they were all out of sight. As she stormed her way back to her bed, she shot an angry glance at her mirror: The unsettling feeling that unseen eyes were watching her instantly vanished.