"We're not even supposed to be here," Jeremiah mused.

Jareth looked at him with a puzzled expression as he handed Toby the steaming cup of hot cocoa he had prepared for him in order to calm the boy down. "What do you mean?" Jareth asked.

"Did you have nightmares when you slept?" Jeremiah asked.

Jareth thought about it, but didn't wish to go into detail. "Of a sort," he finally answered. He vividly remembered the image of Jeremiah turning into a gruesome laughing mouth full of sharp, angry teeth.

"And so did Toby. You almost couldn't wake him," the old man said, looking at the boy. Toby met his gaze unabashedly, while the rest of his body squirmed at the sight of the man.

Jareth put a hand on the boy's knee. "You alright?"

Toby looked at Jareth and nodded. He sipped on his cocoa silently, then gave Jeremiah another skeptical look.

"My point," Jeremiah continued, "is that we haven't changed like everyone else, and we are susceptible to nightmares."

Toby finally spoke up. "I didn't dream about anything," he said. "I dreamt... black. Just the color black. All I remember is being really scared." Toby yelped when he burned his tongue on the steaming drink, and put it back down on the coffee table. He blew air out of his mouth to cool his tongue down, then smiled up at Jareth. "Too hot."

Jareth smiled in spite of himself and ruffled the boy's hair. "I guess you should just let it sit awhile to cool off."

Jeremiah seemed to be immensely frustrated that no one was paying him full attention. He pulled back the blinds to let the hazy light into the room. He put on his spectacles and looked through the glass, down to the street below. "There has been activity down there all night. I don't think anyone is sleeping," he said.

Jareth nodded his understanding and turned to the boy. "Do you need anything to eat, Toby?"

"I thought the hot chocolate was my breakfast," the boy answered, almost beaming.

"Well, if that's all you want, then it is your breakfast." Jareth scratched his head and laughed at himself for getting a chance to play the uncle of poor influence.

"Actually, I could go for some cereal," Toby said as he hopped out of the chair.

"Need help finding anything?" Jareth asked, yawning deeply.

"Nah, I think I can handle it." Toby turned to Didymus. "Want some breakfast, too, Didymus?"

"My stomach has been growling for hours, I thought you'd never ask."

Jareth watched the two enter the kitchen, and thought he spotted something strange in the hood of Toby's pullover. He looked more closely, and could swear that two very familiar-looking gnomish faces looked back at him. At least one looked back at him, and proceeded to give him a raspberry.

Jareth was taken aback, but quickly sobered and turned his gaze back to Jeremiah. The man was still gazing out the window, and hadn't caught sight of the gnomes.

Jeremiah jerked the curtains shut again and coughed. "Well, back to the book hunt," he said purposefully. Jareth followed him back into the study, but took a chance to peek into the kitchen. The gnomes were helping Toby get a box of cereal down from a high cupboard. Jareth blinked a few times, then realized Toby was completely aware of their presence. He decided to keep it under wraps for the moment.

Scotty and Fred, you damn rascals, he thought. What are you up to now?

Jeremiah pulled out a new stack of books and set them before Jareth. In an effort to keep his mind off the appearance of the gnomes, Jareth struck up conversation.

He sifted his fingers through his long hair and rubbed at his quickly-spreading beard in disgust. "Um," he coughed, "I, uh, wanted to apologize for lashing at you earlier. I wasn't myself."

Jeremiah straightened his glasses on his nose then turned back to the bookshelf as if he had ignored Jareth. But it was soon evident that he hadn't. "It's quite alright, you were concerned for the boy," he said as he put a book back on the shelf.

"I asked you this a long time ago, but you told me I was too young to know at the time," Jareth started. "Who was my father?"

Jeremiah turned around and looked intensely at Jareth. "What a strange question to ask at a time like this." As evidenced by his shifting gaze, it was obvious that Jeremiah didn't like the question at all.

"Can't you tell me?" Jareth asked, frustrated with his teacher's determination over centuries to be so willful in the face of perfectly straightforward questions.

"Don't you already know?" was all Jeremiah said as he pulled back the cover of another book.

"Why would I ask you if I already knew?" Jareth sighed in exasperation. It began to occur to him that he and Jeremiah were not all that far apart in age anymore... Being eighty years older than another man when both of you are gaining on five hundred doesn't mean as much as it does when the younger one is only twenty years of age. He wished the man would stop treating him like a boy.

""You and mother told me I had fae blood," Jareth finally added when he realized he wasn't going to get a further offering of information from Jeremiah. He opened a new book.

Jeremiah tried to dismiss the subject. "I don't think we should be discussing this right now. There are more important matters to be considered, and we already wasted enough time arguing."

"I know you, you're changing the subject." Jareth's brow rose at the man's stubborness. "And you know it's important to me. You're the only one who knows." He thought about his mother's pale face and sad smile. Over the years it had become very hazy and hard to remember, but he worked hard to preserve some part of it in his mind. "You told me I was adopted... but I look far too much like my mother for that to be true."

Jareth looked down at the book sitting in front of him, and didn't notice that Jeremiah was glowering at him. The man opened a book resolutely, and barely skimmed the page before he blurted, "Aha, I think we have it."

Jareth looked at him in shock, totally forgetting the former conversation as Jeremiah slid the book over to him. He was greeted by an entire page of a familiar language.

"Hmm, looks like Greek to me," Jareth said with a sly grin.

"Har har," Jeremiah responded. "It is Greek, you buffoon."

Jareth held back the urge to roll his eyes at the man. He had absolutely no sense of humor.

At that moment, Toby entered the room. He and Didymus both were munching on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. It looked like the fox was having a hard time with the peanut butter, and kept licking the roof of his mouth trying to get it off.

The gnomes were nowhere to be seen.

"Didja find something?" Toby asked hopefully.

Jareth bent over the script and tried to read it. "My Greek is a bit rusty," he said.

Jeremiah simply waved his hand over the text, and it was instantly translated into English.

"That's a handy trick," Jareth said, giving Jeremiah a look that peeled him away layer by layer.

"Well, yes, you don't live as long as I do and not know a thing or two," he answered gruffly.

Jareth flipped through the pages in search of an appropriate spell. "Interesting, this entire volume is intact," he noted.

"That is interesting," Jeremiah commented. "You know how these things work—the important pieces always remain in place for the story to play out."

Jeremiah's words struck an eerie chord in Jareth as he thought back on his musings of the previous night. "Yes, you're right," he said, trying not to let his suspicions get the best of him. He decided it was best to play the docile partner to Jeremiah's leadership until he could get a good grasp on what it was that nagged him about the man. So far his accusations had all been turned back to him, with such fitting, logical precision that he wasn't sure what he thought anymore.

Finally he found exactly what he was looking for. "Here we go." He read the left hand page. "How to separate that which should not be whole." He turned to the right hand page. "How to put together that which should not have been torn asunder." He looked up at Jeremiah, then Toby. "Well, I'd say that's exactly what we were looking for."

Jeremiah reached for the book, but Jareth pretended not to notice his grasp. He walked into the living room where Jeremiah had started a fire later in the evening, and pretended to absorb the knowledge on the page. However, as he neared the fireplace, he tore the pages out of the book and threw the book in the fire in one deft motion. He had already folded the pages up and slipped them in his pocket by the time he turned around.

Jeremiah only caught the action of throwing the book in the flames. "What-what in blue blazes are you doing, Jareth?" His eyes were wide with incredulity.

"I'm burning it so no one else can get ahold of it, that's what I'm doing." Jareth smiled in smug satisfaction. "I think it's safer, don't you? I've already memorized it."

Jeremiah ran to the flames and tried to scoot the book out of the flames with a poker, but it was no use. The book was already ash.

"Uh oh," Toby said, mumbling over his last sandwich bite. "Gail is going to be so mad at you."

"I think she would agree with the importance of keeping the book out of the wrong hands. There was nothing else in there that we needed, anyhow." He smiled keenly at Jeremiah, who was in quite a state over the loss of the book. "I'm a speed reader, don't you remember, Jeremiah?"

"Well, yes, I suppose you... did the right thing," the old man stuttered while putting his glasses into his pouch. "Yes, it is best if only you know about the spell. You and Toby, of course."

"Of course," Jareth replied. "Now all that's left is to teach Toby a few tricks. Are you up for that, Toby?"

The boy nodded his head ecstatically.

"Isn't your Fellwit supposed to be dropping by sometime soon?" Jareth asked casually.

"Um, yes, Ingeborg should be here rather shortly with the witches," Jeremiah said as he looked out the window again. "They were to touch base with us before they left for Sarah's castle." His face was drawn. "Hmm, would you look at that."
Jareth stepped to his side to look, as well. "It's getting dark again already." He looked at the clock; it was only noon. Or was it?

He stepped away from the window to observe the clock more closely. His heart tightened in his chest.

It wasn't noon—It was thirteen o'clock.

Jeremiah passed him on the way into the kitchen and looked at him intently. "Go shave that ghastly goatee off your face. You look atrocious."

"I don't... have a razor," Jareth replied absentmindedly, still staring at the clock in horror.

Jeremiah grabbed his hand and slammed something down into it. Jareth looked down and found that the man had materialized an old fashioned razor into his hand. "You'll find shaving cream in the lavatory."

Jareth rubbed his stubble self-consciously and trundled on to the bathroom. Perhaps a shower was in order, too.

As he stared at his reflection and applied the shaving cream, he realized that he was beginning to feel a little too distracted by all of the chaos, and wasn't thinking clearly. Wasn't there something important he was supposed to do?

##

Toby sat on the rug in the living room and watched in horror as the gnomes hopped out of his bag, tussling and running across the room, knocking over knick-knacks in their wake. "Guys!" he squawked. "C'mon! Last time you did this, I got detention!"

Rattlebeak popped out of the bag too. "I had a cookie in here! The drunk one ate it!" He flew out after them.

"Oh no!" shouted Scotty. "It was mine right and fair."

Fred belched as he ran. "Mine, mine, mine! It's mine now, I et it!" He rubbed his stomach happily then tottered off the mantle.

Toby shot up. He remembered something. He plucked Fred off the ground by his shirt, and the little man kicked angrily. He stuffed him in his jacket pocket, then ran across the room and caught Scotty under his hands in a lunge on the carpet. "Look! Stop!" Scotty looked up at him, seeing the earnestness in the boy's face. "There's something more important!" With that, Scotty crawled into his other pocket, and the boy trundled down the hall.

It didn't take Jareth long to finish the rite, and he was face to face with a smooth-skinned self. He looked at the face, and thought that maybe he did look more like the clean-eyed man he had seen in his dream, at least more than he had originally thought. He realized that he hadn't completely shaved his facial hair in almost four years, and hadn't really seen his face in its entirety in all that time. He was a little more tanned than he had been while Goblin King, and he actually looked a little younger and healthier.

"Dammit all, if she wouldn't choose to change the clocks to thirteen hours," he said to his reflection with a heavy sigh. "Can't anyone just forget?"

He turned on his heel and saw Toby standing in the doorway. The boy seemed preoccupied by something. "You look better," the boy said.

"Thanks," Jareth replied.

"I think we forgot something," Toby said.

Jareth's stomach fell. "What?"

"Marlena and the others."

"What about them?"
"They went to sleep last night." Toby's eyes were big, as if he was vividly remembering the frightening dreams he had the night before.

"Oh heavens," Jareth breathed, his eyes getting large. He ran past the boy and grabbed his coat from the coat rack. As he put in one arm, he tossed the boy his jacket.

Jeremiah emerged from the kitchen. "What is it?"

"Call Ingeborg," Jareth said in a frenzy.

The glass in the living room window shattered all of a sudden, scaring Toby and Jareth out of their wits. Didymus crouched and growled.

Ingeborg's head sat in the opening, her expression sheepish. "Sorry 'bout that. I was trying to tap on the glass." She blinked at them.

Within moments the foursome had mounted the Fellwit and were borne on the wind.

##

"What do you mean you were unable to retrieve the feather?" Sarah said in a seething whisper as Claw sat down at the table next to her. A five course meal was spread out before her at her specially reserved table at the Four Seasons.

"When I got there, it was already gone," Claw answered. "I got a good look at the dwarf. He did not have it any longer. Not once I arrived, anyhow."

Sarah slammed her fist on the table. "You disappoint me, Claw."

"It's not my fault, I tell you," the bird said with slanting eyes.

Sarah sighed deeply and tapped at the corner of her mouth with her napkin. "You're right. We'll have to figure out who stole it later."

She touched her fingers to her temple as if in pain. "My Queen?" Claw looked at her curiously from his large, beady eyes.

She brushed his concern aside. "It's nothing. I'm just starting to feel the effects of working nonstop."

"You started out with such vigor," the bird commented.

"It's her," Sarah spat. "She's done something."

"Perhaps you should return to the control room to monitor her." The bird rose as if to let her out.

"Don't bother." Sarah pulled out a PDA and flipped it open. She saw her other self traveling again with the caravan in the desert Mists. "She's still there. We're safe for now."

"Perhaps you should begin to find a way to separate yourself," Claw observed casually.

Sarah looked up at him with a strong gaze. "Yes, I think you're right." Before she had a chance to push her seat back, a waiter appeared almost out of nowhere to pull the chair for her. Another waiter stood nearby with her coat and helped her to ease her arms into the sleeves.

"You can't just cast a spell of your own, can you?" Claw asked, following at her side.

"No," she answered with a bitter scowl. Her headache was only getting worse by the moment. "I've already tried."

"You know," Claw offered as they exited the building and hailed the limo, "Kaleb knew that Jareth was looking for a way to separate them permanently. I'm sure you can't kill your other half, for you would risk dying yourself."

"I know," Sarah replied as she climbed into the almost instantly-arriving limousine. The bird ducked and entered with her, looking a little awkward having to nest on the seat across from her. "It's the same for my shadow, Leah. I'd like to be rid of that danger from both ends. Should a dissenter find out, they'd be sure to try to kill my counterparts in an effort to kill me. I've managed to separate them from me just enough to make sure no minor injuries get through to myself, but I have not the power to prevent something as profound as death from affecting me, as well."

"It doesn't bother you at all, the thought of having part of you die in an instant?" Claw posed the question in a tone that implied only curiosity, and not judgment.

Sarah rested her hand on the arm rest and peered out the window, watching her handiwork. Creatures of every kind and color milled along the sidewalks. The humans seemed less frequent than they had the day before. She wasn't exactly sure why, but she wasn't too amazed that she would have a lot of variables to contend with in such an untried experiment.

She turned back to Claw. "Of course it concerns me, Claw. I don't want her dead, I just want her out of my hair. She's trying to hold me back." She looked back out the window. "They all are."

She waved her hand to the driver. "Take me back to the Times Building."

The driver nodded his affirmation. "Yes, Your Majesty."

"You know I could have just flown you there," Claw stated. "Or you could have transported instantaneously yourself."

"I have to make my appearances," Sarah replied as she rolled down the windows. A sinewy smile plastered across her lips as she waved to people on the sidewalk just outside of the Times Building. There were cameramen waiting just to snap pictures of her.

The limo drove right through the walls of the building and into a large garage. The moment Sarah stepped out of the parked vehicle, she was greeted by her secretary, a slender woman wearing a semi-casual black suit. "Hello, Your Majesty, would you like me to run you through your appointments?"

"Not now, Lenore, I'm going to retire to my chambers for awhile." She gave the woman a sensual, winning smile. "And what are appointments to me, anyway?"

"Very well, I'll get back with you later when you are ready. Shall I cancel your two o'clock?"

"Don't bother. They'll know I'm not coming when I don't show up. I seriously doubt they are going to complain."

Sarah climbed into the elevator with Claw as they rode up to the top floor.

"Do you think that anyone knows about your split condition?" the bird asked.

"Probably." Sarah stared at the numbers of the elevator impatiently. Just as it was reaching the fourteenth floor, she pressed the red stop button, causing the elevator to groan as it stopped in its tracks.

"What are you doing?"

"No one knows about the thirteenth floor except for you and I," she answered, cocking her head to the side slyly. She shot a spark of electricity from her fingers and the doors opened. The room was small and cozy, with a bed and reclining couches.

At the center was a marble pedestal where the Amethyst sat, all its pieces assembled. Inside its depths a blackness ebbed and flowed.

"The Amethyst," Claw said in awe as he circled the purple stone. His eyes lit up. "It's different."

"It is." Sarah circled the stone, its purple light reflected in her eyes. "Kaleb thought he got the whole thing before. But I had one small piece stashed away." She cocked her head to the side in contemplation. "That's why he could never do anything important with it except for work up a terrible little scare Underground." She chuckled, then thought better of it when her head began to throb anew.

"Ah, you're talking about the crows he sent all over the land to start the war between the kingdoms?"

"Whatever," she said, waving the memory aside as if it were nothing. "Some war it was." She reclined on the bed and stared into canopy that bunched up to a central point over the bed. Her body wasn't tired, but her mind was spent. She wondered how it would affect things if she didn't tend to the world for a little while.

"Claw, make sure that the Pook continues to arrange for my press coverage while I rest," she ordered the bird from a face deep in repose.

"What, are you going to sleep now? Can you do that?"
"I won't be asleep. I'm just going to rest awhile."

"What are you going to do about your other half?" he asked, feeling that it was a situation that should not be taken lightly.

"Let me think awhile. I'll come up with something."

As she closed her eyes, the stars floated and twinkled before her, becoming smaller and smaller as she sank into the sweet, comforting abyss of a world of nightmares. The darkness coaxed her into respite, and everything seemed to fit in place.

"And she named it darkness, and it was so," she mumbled with a heady grin, eyes still closed. "Leave me, Claw." Her voice was quiet, far away.

The bird shuffled back into the elevator and pressed the button for the top floor once again. "I hope you know what you're doing," he mumbled under his breath.

"I need a new game," Sarah said to herself under the heavy throbbing of her temples.

She eased a cell phone out of her pocket then flipped it open. She didn't press any buttons for speed dial, but the phone dialed a number nonetheless.

"Pook. Send out the messengers. I want to get some statistics by the end of the day." The phone snapped shut in her hand and she closed her eyes once more.

##

Leah opened her eyes. Justin opened his eyes. Their eyes were millimeters apart.

Leah jumped off the man in a tizzy, flushed with embarrassment. She touched her lips, and realized that, a moment ago, they had been touching Justin's lips. He jumped up, too, just as flustered.

"I don't remember getting drunk last night," she said, looking to make sure she had all her clothes on.

"Neither do I. Unless there was something in the Coke." Justin seemed to be surmising the situation just as Leah was. He was still fully dressed, sitting on the couch. His blanket had been fallen in a heap on the floor. "Do you sleep walk?" he asked, running his fingers through his hair, then rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. There was no light coming out of the windows, which didn't make sense. "How long have we been asleep? Not long, huh?"

Leah looked at her watch. "Um, it appears to be two o'clock in the afternoon, the next day. We slept about twelve hours."

Justin looked at the Felix clock that swished its tail from the wall across the room. It had an extra hour. "Um, make that about thirteen hours."

Leah followed his gaze to the clock. The cat seemed to be mocking them.

She looked at Justin, and thought that it really wasn't such a bad way to wake up. Then she started to remember the nightmares.

"Oh my God," she said, suddenly coming to a realization. "We were supposed to meet with the whole company an hour ago."

Justin ran to his phone, and there were one hundred and twenty two messages blinking on it. "Hmm, didn't think I had a tape quite that long," he mused with a smile. "I don't think you really want to listen to all of these?"

"C'mon, let's hightail it back to the company. We need to start making preparations."

As Justin grabbed a coat, he gave Leah a look of discomfort. "Ah, we didn't do anything last night, right? I don't want you to, you know, think I took advantage of you."

"Don't be silly," Leah said. "There's got to be some explanation."

"So you don't think I'm a cad, huh?" he asked with a wistful smile.

Leah rolled her eyes at him. "Of course not."

As he closed the door behind them, he said, "Good. So, will you go on a date with me when this all blows over?"

Leah smiled. "Depends on how good you are at saving the world, now doesn't it?"

"Oh, I see. You're the kind of woman who likes a hero."

"Nope. Just the kind of woman who likes to fix other people's problems."

"Oh, good, then you're going to love me," Justin said with a mischievous grin.

Leah shoved him playfully on the way down the steps, and started to wonder if she wasn't going soft. To think of all the times she chastised Sarah for falling for strange men, and now she was getting a crush on a kooky puppeteer. What would all the people at her job think if they found out? That is, if things went back to normal. She had always been so practical, so wrapped up in her work. They wouldn't know what to make of her if she ran off to L.A. to date an artist.

She gave him a brief look, and realized there was something different about him.

Aww, look, he shaved just for me.

She wanted to kick herself. She was going soft. Damn.