In the Eyes of the Queen [ Labyrinth ] ✔

Chapter Eleven

Jareth stands aloof in the candlelight, watching me intently with a smirk forming at the corner of his mouth. Oh, no. My desire to stay here battles my need to go home as my infatuation begins overtaking my fear.

"Good evening," says that alluringly arrogant voice as he steps farther into the circle of flickering light and a few more candles light as if of their own accord.

The movement draws a subconscious reaction from me; I bolt to standing, half of me pushing to run to him, the other half of me cautioning to find shelter. A treaty is signed somewhere in my mind, resulting in a stiff and defensive position, my calves pressed against the settee, my arms crossed childishly over my chest.

He is the same as I remember him. I try not to let my mind wander, but I cannot resist looking him up and down. He wears all black: knee-high boots hug his calves and slim trousers hug his lean hips and a deep-necked waistcoat pulls his otherwise billowy shirt tight against his torso. In the folds of his open shirt, a partially obscured pendant gleams in the candlelight.

The pendant distracts me. I wonder if he always wore it. I wonder what it looks like. I feel that pull again. That same pull that called me to pick up Davey—though I resisted it then—the same pull that drew me toward the Labyrinth with Alice in tow, that makes me forgive the goblins their mischief, and that causes me to yearn for the company of my friends. The same pull, I admit, that coaxes me into my dreams at night and will not let me overcome my unintelligent infatuation with the man before me, who will probably enjoy once again punishing me for defying him. I hope that he does not succeed this time. Maybe he will just send me back, therefore meeting both our needs.

"Jareth," I breathe. 'So much for a firm voice,' I grumble mentally. I feel childish again, juxtaposed with his cool demeanor.

With the speed of darkness, he is in front of me. My mind cannot comprehend the movement. He bends forward and I put all my willpower into staying still. His breath is in my ear.

This is much more dangerous than I thought.

"Why are you here, precious?"

I freeze. Even my heart freezes. I cannot find my words. Why am I here? Why am I here? Ah! "As ironic as it may seem, I am here to go back."

He raises one graceful eyebrow as he steps back. "What?"

"I got here, but I don't know how to get back."

"How did you get here if you did not want to?" Jareth asks almost rhetorically, and as if the answer is amusing.

"I did want to. Circumstances dictated that I make a difficult decision, and that once again that led me here." Without so much as a note to my parents.

"And now you want to return." With his strangely admirable self-assurance, Jareth frames it as a statement rather than a question, though I hear a note of outrage in his voice that would have otherwise caused it to come out a question.

"No," I answer honestly, though the real answer is not that simple.

The smirk at the corner of his mouth spreads.

"I do not want to go back, but I need to."

Something flashes in his eyes almost too fast to read. I just reopened an old wound, didn't I? He considers me for a moment and leans languidly against the books.

"Well, if you tell me how you got here, maybe I can tell you how to get back."

I have the distinct impression that he has no such intention.