The boy—Toby—fell asleep mere pages into the book. Jareth wasn't surprised. His goblins had reported back about their previous night's antics. After hearing all they had done, he was amazed the boy had managed to stay awake at all through the school day. He'd checked on him with a crystal while Sarah slept. He was pleased to note that his original deductions about the child proved accurate; the boy was intelligent, quick to understand jokes, and seemingly bored by the idiots who surrounded him. He would be a wonderful addition to the populace of the Goblin City, even if he remained in his mortal form.

His concern for the boy wouldn't distract him from his true purpose. Toby had presented him with a gift, an opportunity to reclaim the woman who had slipped out of his grasp. Whether the gift was intentional or not, he would not forget the boy's kindness in giving it to him.

Sarah listened as he read her the story. Their story. She laughed at the jokes, frowned at the petty cruelties they had inflicted on one another, held her breath when they danced. And when he read her his promises, his desperate entreaties, she couldn't meet his eyes.

She slipped away from him as he finished the story, her mind somewhere else, somewhere far away from him. It was like losing her all over again.

The sun was sinking below the horizon when he finished. He closed the book and set it on the nightstand, glad the torture was over. How could he have been so young and arrogant as to write the words of his defeat onto those pages and not expect them to come true?

He pressed his hands together in front of his mouth, fingers steepled, and wondered if this was the moment he had hoped for. The opportunity to say goodbye and move on. Return to his kingdom a better, wiser, less pathetic ruler.

Sarah made a noise and he glanced at her. She still wouldn't look at him. But she wasn't completely still, as she had been in those last chapters. Now, she idly pulled at a loose string of her blanket, lips pursed in thought. "It's funny..."

"What, precious?"

"This story..." She laughed at herself, shaking her head a little.

"What about the story?"

"It feels so real." Her eyes met his, searched them, saw something there. "It shouldn't feel that way, right?"

"Why not?"

She shifted and readjusted her sleeping brother. "Because this is reality."

"Reality is simply a construct," he argued. "You have the ability to make your own world."

Her nose wrinkled. "You can't magic this life into something different."

Irritation rose. Sometimes she was that same foolish, naïve girl. "It does not require magic, Sarah. It requires a decision. A wish. That is all."

"Wishes can cut both ways, Jareth. They can motivate you and make you ungrateful for the things you still have." She shook her head. "I never want to take anything in my life for granted again."

"Again?"

Her eyes clouded, straining to see something he couldn't. "A few years ago, I...lost something. I've never found it again. But I know that I had made a choice to forget it. And no magic in the world can bring it back."

"I doubt you even tried." He wouldn't allow himself to give in to that tiny niggling of hope. He couldn't bear the disappointment.

"You don't understand," she commented, turning her head away to look past him, out the window at the sunset. "What a pity."

The words echoed in his mind, mocking him. "Help me to understand."

"I can't," she said simply. "I don't think anyone could understand me except for him..."

"Who?"

Her smile was feminine mystery and dark amusement and such brilliant, painful understanding. "The Goblin King."

He couldn't draw breath. Time stilled as she turned her head and looked at him with a piercing gaze. "I wish he were here right now."

He is.

His mouth was dry. "And if he was? What would you wish?"

Her smile dimmed and she gave a miserable, broken laugh.

"Sarah, tell me–"

She wouldn't meet his eyes.

"Do not defy me." An imprecation. A warning. A plea.

Spoken so softly. "I wish I could remember him."

Words were powerful. Words were binding. His oath held. He was her slave.

His voice was husky. "Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered–"

She stiffened. Looked at him with clear eyes.

"I have fought my way here to this hospital beyond the Goblin City, to take back the life you stole from me."

Were those tears in her eyes?

"For my will is as strong as yours. My kingdom as great."

She reached for his hand, clutched it, squeezed it as if she feared he would vanish from her sight again. "You have no power over me," she finished, her voice barely a whisper.

He lifted her fingers to his lips. "Oh, my precious thing, that is where you are wrong."