"You are not here," He was totally assured in what he was saying. "I know… I know all that happens in this place."

"Certainly you do." The quiet apparition smiled that kind smile. She moved, like a watery image riddled with awkward shadows and strange unnatural patterns, and settled like a bird nesting in his throne. Arms folded against the circling edge of the seat she leaned her head down and blinked lazily.

"Then why are you here?" He almost laughed, but he was smiling. How he could be smiling now was beyond him. But then not so beyond his comprehension, she had that way about her that called for smiling. As unclear as her image was, blurred and moving, her color was exactly right, if not made brilliant by the passing of life. Her eyes were still pale green jewels, darker then they had been before, a sweeter green. And her hair was pulled away from her face in a long ponytail; a stray stand was curling into the curve of her jaw. It was hazy, but rich with its mysterious color, brown like an old tree with dark whispers of black.

"I suppose there was a glitch in the Matrix," She laughed to herself.

"Yes," He nodded; the mortal reference did not strike him as humorously. He was occupied instead in staring at her, trying to break down the chemical make-up of her spectral appearance. He could see through her image, could count the ribbons of light and other small beads of color that she was made of. Dissecting her was simple, but sending a gentle current of magic distorted the image.

"Ouch." She grumbled as her image regrouped and solidified. "What was that?"

Frowning he rubbed his chin. "A spell to turn you human again, it clearly didn't work."

"And it hurt." She held her head in pain and rubbed her eyes. The movement made her image quiver.

"How did you get here?" He took a single step toward her. A ripple went through her and she looked suddenly tense.

"I don't know," She said. "The last thing I remember is going to sleep."

"Where?"

"In bed." She looked at him curiously. "Did I frighten you?" This thought sent a glimmer through her, and she turned rosy with delight. A child scare the Goblin King? He tried not to laugh, the idea was preposterous.

"Girl, you could never frighten me. Your appearance is remarkable though. I wonder as to how you achieved it." He took a second step closer and was pleased with her tremulous reaction.

"I told you," She said, straightening herself she took her ponytail in her hand and wrung her hair out. A glittering display of color droplets dripped down from her hair. She giggled and met his questioning gaze with perplexed eyes of her own. "I didn't know I could do that."

He closed the distance between them and reached for her hair, but found his grasp met only air and damaged the image when he took his hand away. Her ponytail dissolved into nothing and was struggling to refabricate itself again.

"Tell me," He said as she fretted over the air of where her hair had been. "Can you feel anything?"

"Like this chair? Or my hands?" She nodded. "I can feel it."

"But what about the bed you fell asleep in, or the air you're breathing, you are not breathing Underground air." He dared not reach for the specter again, afraid to permanently destroy the dream.

She hesitated and closed her eyes, searching for the sensations he was describing. After a few quiet moments she opened her eyes.

"I can't feel anything anymore," She was shaking now. Her ghostliness jumped and fidgeted violently in the throne and she looked from side to side, unable to meet his gaze.

"I must leave you for a moment." He said. Now he was worried. At first glance, she could have been the astral projection of her soul, a dreaming self that had made the difficult journey here by chance. Memories drew dreamers back to the Labyrinth, back to an old memory. He'd seen other runners, other visitors; even stolen children pass through the halls of his castle or the grounds of the labyrinth in a hazy half real form. Their visits were brief, their meetings short and many of them did not speak. Their images did not hiccup and quiver or vanish at the slightest touch into the air. She was not an astral projection, but what she was he could not tell. His only choice was to turn Aboveground and search for her, find her human self. Discovering the connection of her image here and her body above was the only key to the puzzle.

"Don't go." She whispered, but fiercely and her image was bright with nervous color.

He had been ready to shift from this world to the next, raw magic was tapping his sense impatiently, curious of its unused state. He dissolved it for her and looked. Looked straight into her pixel eyes and breathed deeply. This was not Sarah, not her completely. The air was full of the stink of chickens, of goblin sweat and the tang of his cologne. But the flowering, delicate scent of Sarah was nowhere to be smelt. Had she truly been here, breathing and living, her smell would have overwhelmed him by now. It would have followed her and tickled his nose mischievously. He would have felt it, softly rolling in his skull, touching his memories and rekindling the warm desire she always inspired in him.

Something in her face changed, shocking him from his trance of memories. She moved awkwardly up, her body and limbs now awkward and quivering.

"You doubt me." She said, and the words stung like fire. He immediately regretted his musings over her existence, of course it was Sarah. She may not have been all there but it was still her, right down to the last gentle wrinkling of her dimples. He pushed aside his worries for the moment and focused his attentions solely on her. She was here.

"To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?" He tried to sound as genuine as he could, but when it came to the green-eyed girl he tended to show off. At this particular moment he was not as fashionably dressed in the fantastical pieces of dreams that his runners supplied him with. His hair too was shorter and his eyebrows less fae-like. These traits had developed over the years, after prolonged exposure to the human kind he was prompted to employ himself with. He could barely remember a time when feathers once sprouted from his arms; his eyes had been larger, hair much longer and the bones of his body sharp as blades. He did not think his ancient form would please Sarah quite as much as the more human body he was slowly adjusting to. At that moment though, taunted by her half-formed quality, he almost wanted to scoop a handful of magic into his hand and change himself to his original self.

"I did not mean to visit, but I suppose at desperate times you always return to the place you most desire." She smiled warmly, her image less agitated.

"Well, I shall consider your arrival a great honor, but tell me Lady Sarah, why is it that you decided to visit the Labyrinth once more?" He would address "desperate times" in a moment.

"Indeed a wonderful honor. I promise this time I shall not destroy your world." She teased.

"I did not think that message had made it across when you were fourteen." He grumbled. He took a seat on a goblin's stray stool, and cursed when the dam thing wiggled on uneven legs.

"You were quite clear with me on that matter. Your ambiguity failed you in the Escher Room."

"The what?"

"The Escher Room?" She looked surprised. "The room with all of the stairs and the skewed perspective." She looked horridly surprised.

Jareth pondered heavily over the journey she had made, trying to remember what fabrications of the trek were her own, or his own Labyrinth itself.

"My dear," He said. "Forgive me for not remembering, but the Escher Room was your own creation. When a runner comes to the Labyrinth they make up much of their trial on their own. I took the inspiration from your mind and brought it to life for you to try."

"Can you do that with anything anyone thinks?" She asked.

"Mostly," He ventured to answer more but gave up. Too much of an explanation without an aid of magic would be confusing. And magic couldn't touch Sarah right now. Even the thought of it sent a little spurt of magic toward her and she squealed in pain and gave him a dirty look.

"I apologize."

"Perhaps I should leave…" She made to rise, but something in her face told him she had no clue how to leave in the first place.

He humbled her teasing anyway. "Dearest, do not leave now," He stood and came to the side of the throne, the closest he had been to her yet. He could smell something now, a raw smell, like a cold slap of meat in butchery. This was unnerving, and he focused evermore on her image, suddenly seeing microscopic images in her form, hints of a dark terrible color that was splattered on her face and body but appeared to his sight only in quick dull flashes. Her ponytail had regenerated, but was jumpy and unclear in its color. Her eyes were truly the only real color that was rich, everything else had begun to fade.

He needed a question to distract her, he could not use his strong magic but he could sense a curtain hanging over her image was changing what he saw and he needed to remove it.

"Sarah, how old are you now?" He said. He stripped a layer of her magical curtain from her body, but nothing changed.

"Twenty-four," She whispered through gritted teeth. The magic had hurt her, but was obscure enough that she didn't realize it had been the magic that hurt her.

"What is your favorite color?"

Another, stronger surge of magic ripped a layer of disguise from her and he could see the blood stains on her face and legs. He struggled not to focus on them.

Understanding suddenly what he was doing she screamed and leapt in a rush of color out of the throne.

"Stop!"

"What is your brother's name?" He was half-yelling, "Say his name!" He hurled a heavy wave of magic. She screamed but lay still sprawled on the ground, image shaking horribly, all colors dulled by the blood on her face, the bright green leaves in her hair. The clothes she had been wearing were vanishing off and on.

Above all the chaos, and the pain she managed to whisper. "Toby."

"What is my name?" He whispered, he crawled toward her and laid his ungloved hand down on her chest. He pressed down and she suddenly quieted when a surge of light came from under his palm. He was not even sure of the spell he was using, but he needed her disguise gone. It had finally vanished from her ghostly form, she was now laying before him half naked, covered in blood, newly murdered.

"Jareth," She was hushed as cold wind. "Jareth…"