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“I wish that the Goblin King would come and speak with me. Right now.”

Sarah held herself strictly poised, back ramrod straight, until she heard the wind outside pick up, shrieking suddenly at a disturbance no mortal senses could detect. When the crack of thunder doused the lights, leaving the room illuminated only by the intermittent flashes of lightning, she took a deep, careful breath.

In the next instant, her knees buckled beneath her and she dropped onto the couch, letting her head fall against the backrest. When the dark, imposing figure stepped into her living room, she merely tilted her head and gazed at him, examining him for the first time in over a decade.

Still tall and lean, he had eschewed his armor in favor of tight black leggings and an open-necked, black poet’s shirt held almost closed with a black vest. His knee-high, high-heeled boots were, she was unsurprised to see, also black.

It seemed to be a theme with him. Was he in mourning?

Her eyes traveled wistfully back up the length of his body, noting the carefully rigid stance that he held himself in, the way he had cocked one hip slightly in a show of arrogance. She almost smiled at the familiar gesture, as though she had seen it every day of her life.

When she reached his face, though, his cold eyes pierced hers, and she lost herself in them unintentionally, unable to look away.

“Jareth.”

The name slipped from between slightly parted lips, half prayer, half heartfelt plea.

He blinked once, slowly, and took three leisurely strides to the edge of the couch, standing over her with his cold, untouchable mask still lowered over his features. “Yes?” he asked quietly, his voice inflectionless.

She reached up and slowly threaded her fingers through his, never breaking her gaze from his. He could have pulled away, could easily have shaken her off and disappeared, but for some reason, he let her tug on his arm until he settled onto the wide couch across from her.

“I need to know something, Jareth,” she whispered, almost too softly to be audible. Her fingers were still laced through his, the pads of her fingers tracing aimless patterns on the leather gloves. He silently raised an eyebrow, and a faint pink glow rose in her cheeks.

“I...I need to know...” She seemed to quail at the thought of confessing her insecurities to his silent, brooding monarch, and her eyes had already dropped to their entwined hands. After a long moment, she rose silently and walked to the fireplace, where she took something from a small box on the mantelpiece.

When she sat back down, she gazed at her closed fist, then took a deep, shaky breath and lifted the small object between pinched forefinger and thumb.

“Do you know what this is?”

It was small and delicate, beautiful in its fragile way; a slender gold band in which nestled a clear, shining gemstone.

His expression, carefully neutral and detached until then, slipped enough for her to see the black rage and naked possessiveness that now darkened his eyes.

“He left yesterday for two weeks,” Sarah told him quickly, forestalling anything that he might say or do, “and I told him that I would give him an answer when he returned.”

She lifted her eyes from the small ring and gazed deep into his eyes, not bothering to cover her emotions. “There are thirteen days before I must decide my path...forever.” She closed her eyes and took a third shaky breath. When she opened her eyes, she spoke the words that she had meant, and failed, to speak earlier.

“I need to know if there is—if there could be—anything between us.”