Chapter 13

Toby blinked.

"What's going..." Jareth disappeared in a cloud of what looked suspiciously like glitter "...on?" he finished, confused.

He checked the crystal, and saw that Sarah was still making steady, albeit slow progress. He wondered if it was strange that she had not encountered any of the Labyrinth's denizens apart from Jareth? Well, there were a few imps and goblins running around "obliviously" dropping obstacles into her path, but so far, none of them had done anything worse than putting rocks in her path. True, she had lost her chair, but his sister seemed undaunted.

He was interrupted from his musing by a small, terrified, screaming paint-splattered child being carried into the room by five goblins, who promptly deposited her in the pit before backing away quickly.

"Loud!" one complained, ears flattened to try and muffle the sound.

"Noisy!" another agreed.

"Will make a good goblin!" grinned a third.

The other goblins grew matching grins, and then darted away, cackling, leaving Toby alone in the room with the child.

After a few seconds, Toby decided that the kid might make a good goblin, but she'd make an even better opera singer. She had some serious lung power!

"Oi!" he shouted, startling her.

The kid, who Toby figured couldn't be more than about four, immediately stopped screaming and cringed away from him.

"Oh hey," Toby said more softly. "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."

The kid looked up at him through big, brown eyes, covered in red, green and yellow paint. She looked slightly ridiculous, and entirely miserable. Toby immediately felt sorry for her.

"Did you get wished away too?" he asked her.

"Somebody wished you 'way?" the little girl sniffled, in a funny accent that Toby thought might be Irish.

Toby grimaced. "Yeah. My sister." He didn't elaborate though, as he had a suspicion that Sarah's reason for wishing him away was... not exactly usual. At least this time. From what she had told him about the first time, he suspected that that time at least, it had been pretty typical.

The little girl's lip trembled.

"M-m-my daddy wished me away. I ruined his-his painting!" she wailed. "I didn't mean to!"

Booger, Toby thought. Out loud, he said, "Oh come on, don't cry. Please? For me?" He thought desperately to figure out something that would distract her, then looked down at the crystal in his hands. "Oh hey, do you want to see something cool?"

Visibly blinking back tears, the kid sniffled and nodded.

Toby leaned forward, and showed her the crystal.

"See this crystal ball? It's magic!"

The little girl gave him a surprisingly sceptical look for a four year old.

"What?" Toby said defensively. "It totally is! Look!"

Obediently, the little girl looked into the crystal ball, and gasped at the sight of Sarah sitting, feeling the walls that marked a split in her path.

"Is this like a TV?" she asked.

"Sorta," said Toby. "I don't know how it works, but that's my sister. She's running the Labyrinth."

"She doesn't look like she's running," said the kid, bluntly.

Toby shrugged. "Well, she's moving as fast as she can, anyway. She lost her legs in an accident," he explained.

"Oh no!" the little girl gaped. "Like the lizards lose their tails if I'm not really gentle?"

Toby wasn't sure if he wanted to laugh or wince.

"Not quite," he said. "I think lizard tails usually grow back."

"Oh," said the little girl. She scratched her head, and one of the elastics holding her curly black hair into pigtails snapped. Her hair on that side immediately sprang out to form a dark nimbus.

"Whoops!" Toby snickered. "Do you want me to take the other one out so your hair's even?"

The little girl made a face and nodded.

Toby carefully eased the hair tie out of the little girl's hair. His best friend Jamie had a little sister, and he knew that she hated it when their elder sister wasn't careful enough taking her elastics out and it pulled. "What's your name, anyway?" he asked.

"Imena," she said. "But most people call me Immy. Daddy says my name means 'dream', and that it's from Africa, like Mummy was."

Toby noted the past tense, and was immediately curious, but decided not to ask anything that might start her crying again. He'd only just got her to stop after all, and since Sarah still had 12 hours to go of her 13, it could be a very long 12 hours if Imena kept crying.

He needn't have worried. Imena, now that she had started chattering, didn't seem to want to stop. "I can't remember Mummy very well," she confided. "Daddy says she got very, very sick and died of cancer," she said in the matter-of-fact manner of any four-year-old repeating what the grown-ups have told them. "So now it's just me and Daddy. He tries really, really hard, even though Grandma said when she thought I couldn't hear that he should put me up for adoption. But he said he wouldn't." Her face crumpled. "I was just trying to help with his important painting, but I ruined it, and then he got really angry, and then, and then, he wished me awaaaaay!" And then she was bawling again.

Toby stifled the urge to groan, and on instinct, opened his arms.

And that was how Jareth found his two newest Wish-aways a few minutes later, Toby hugging Imena, and Imena getting snot and tears all over Toby's shoulder. Imena's father had been distraught at what he had done, which was gratifying. Jareth had encouraged the man's feelings of fear and self-loathing, which had been easy enough to do once the man realised the consequences of saying the right words. Apparently the fool had not realised that magic was real. Well. Jareth had cured him of that belief pretty quickly. Jareth felt his mood on the improve. It was always gratifying to see some real regret, instead of ridiculous accusation. The Labyrinth did not force them to say the right words – it was their own damn fault for saying something they would come to regret.

Words mattered. Especially around magic.

That said, it was the Wishers who refused to become Runners that really made Jareth's blood boil. Their Wish-aways he always took the greatest care to settle into a good home, because obviously the one they had just come from was sub-par.

Idly, he wondered if Duncan, Imena's father, would run across Sarah.

Unlikely, he decided. After all, the Labyrinth was a very large place, and he had not even let them both in the same entrance.

Later, he would remember that thought, and laugh at himself. After all, he was forgetting the Labyrinth's sense of humour.