Sarah squeezed her eyes shut tight, leaning against the wall. She hurt, her heart and soul were aching. The magical twist that brought her back to her home had made her dizzy and a little weak, but that wasn’t all of it.

She heard Aeris’ words again and again, I need your love as much as he does. Please…

"No," she said aloud.

She walked away, to her bedroom, and laid across the covers in the fading daylight. She retreated from her sentiment and love, embraced the coldness. She was partly shocked beyond belief that she’d hit Aeris. The other part of her was cheering and saying bitterly that Aeris had it coming, and how.

Sarah was expressing her anger. What a lovely psychoanalytic phrase that was, expressing her anger. Titania had coined it, sensitive ‘Tania. She could almost hear the red-headed Fae Queen saying it to her. "You’re just expressing your anger, Sarah. You will recover from your feelings of betrayal, and your life will be normal again."

Like hell.

Sarah knew in her rational mind that she had chosen this, that she was dedicated to this marriage, this place, and that this was what she wanted. But seeing Aeris again for the first time had rocked her, and she was angry. The wound was still sore.

That entire scene still infuriated her. As if Sarah was a priest come to absolve her. Seven Hail Marys and one quest to save your old boyfriend and all will be forgiven, my child. She’d never hit anyone in her life. It seemed a shame to start with Aeris. She sighed deeply, pressed her face against the cool pillow.

"Sarah?"

Jareth stood in the doorway, his voice patient and soft, his expression probably no different, but Sarah didn’t turn over yet. "Yes?"

"What did the Empress want?"

"You know," Sarah said through gritted teeth, "as well as I do that it was not the Empress."

He walked across the room, stood over the bed, looking down at her. "What did Aeris want, then?"

She looked up at him, eyes blazing. "What do you think?"

"To talk?" He just stood there, gazing back evenly. Any one else would have retreated; Jareth would not. It was comforting, familiar. Aggravating.

"To be forgiven."

"Ah. I take it you didn’t."

"Who said I have to?"

Jareth sat down slowly on the bed beside her. That first night she’d returned, they’d lain there, talking and talking. She’d wept. So had he. But at dawn she had curled up to him, let him wrap his arms around her, slept with her head on his shoulder. He was terrified, edgy, desperate, and yet he was calm. He had to be. To succumb to his fear was unthinkable. He knew himself. He would push her away. And so he was quiet. He waited.

He reached out after a moment, brushed a hand over her dark hair. "No one said you have to."

"You all want me to. You want to just forget all this happened."

"Don’t you?"

"That’s not the point."

"Then tell me what the point is."

"The point is that I don’t want to be rushed into mending fences because she’s got a deadline. I think I deserve the chance to do everything in my own time." Sarah rolled over and lay on her back. "She’s got herself into this quest…and it’s as if she’s trying to redeem herself, convince herself she’s not the bad guy in the story. Oberon had her pegged from the beginning."

"I know."

"Do you really think she’s going to die?"

Jareth took a breath. When he answered, he spoke slowly and deliberately, the cadence of his accent lengthened by the seriousness, the unwillingness. "She has never faced Necrodemos alone. The Hobgoblin saved her the first time. The Fae Gatekeeper rescued her the second time. She did better then, but he would have destroyed her if not for her intervention. The problem is not death. He won’t kill her. But there won’t be enough of Aeris left for that to matter. If she seems in a hurry to be pardoned, it’s because she does have a very literal deadline."

He stood up and walked out, leaving Sarah alone in the bedroom. He was upset, she could tell, and she knew he wanted to stay with her, but he didn’t want to upset her further. She watched him leave. She rolled back over on her stomach, rested her cheek on the pillow again. And she thought.

By the next sundown, Aeris was prepared, ready and waiting, and Falkor and Atreyu met them on the balcony. Aeris put her bag over her head so that it hung crosswise and took a breath, pausing before mounting the luck dragon.

"You alright?" Falkor asked.

"Fine, fine."

"Nervous?" Atreyu gave her his boyish grin and tossed his dark hair. "Or afraid?"

"What do you think?"

"I think you’re afraid, but you’ll be alright."

Aeris chuckled. "Oh?"

"Yes. My people have a saying. True bravery lies not in facing one’s enemies, but in facing one’s fears. Which is it you go against now, Herald?"

"Both in the same." She looked at him. "Well, wish me luck."

"I wish you courage. You will need more of that."

"Besides, I’ll be along for luck." Falkor winked at her.

"And me."

Aeris glanced up with a start to see the goddess Eris walking across the balcony to her.

"What? No, absolutely not, you can’t come."

"Whyever not?" Eris breezed past her and climbed aboard Falkor. "It’s already been arranged, Aeris."

"Get off that luck dragon!"

Eris just looked at her, infuriatingly patient. "You have a few choices here. You can stop being ridiculous and get on this dragon with me, or you can stand there and wait for me to get off of it. And you already know I won’t, and you don’t have that kind of time to waste."

Aeris sighed and got up, shaking her head. "As you wish."

Eris chuckled.

As they flew off, Atreyu waving as they left the safety of the Ivory Tower, she realized there was a shadow in her that had not been there before, a stillness she had never felt inside herself. It was as if she had finally slipped beneath the turbulent waves of a storm and down into the deep blue calm of the ocean far below. She felt strange, but it wasn’t unpleasant. Just…peaceful. Sure. Even beneath her fear, there was a serenity she had not known in her entire life.

"How will you find it?" Falkor asked, hours later, the deep and reverberating voice carrying on the wind.

Aeris answered through chattering teeth, "I don’t know." The ride had grown colder as the day faded, and now Aeris’ light spring dress offered little protection from the elements.

"Do you even know what you’re looking for?"

"Not a clue." She scanned the stretch of horizon beyond, the sea glittering under the setting sun.

"She’ll find it," Eris said reassuringly.

"I will?"

"Of course you will. He didn’t bring you this far to let you not find him."

She turned her eyes back to the horizon, silent and brooding. She didn’t know what she was looking for…all she knew was the her eyes would find it, and she would know it. She and Necrodemos, whatever they were, were carved from the same story of hatred and love. "Falkor," she said softly, "due East."

"Are you sure?"

"No," she said, with a head shake. "But I want to try it."

"Alright." Falkor swooped and curved, and she felt the wind whip around them as he turned to the darkness, the red sunglow on their backs now. "Aeris…"

"What is it?"

"Look."

At first she saw nothing…and then she realized that they weren’t looking west any more. The sky was a boiling sea of red in the distance, swirling crimson clouds filtering their own strange light. Below there was some dark shape, something she could not, or would not recognize.

"That’s it, isn’t it?" asked Eris.

She nodded, dumbstruck.

"Great Zeus."

"My thoughts exactly."

"Well, probably not exactly." The goddess of discord managed a grin. Aeris shuddered.

"I’m going into battle against Necrodemos armed with nothing but my wits and a goddess of confusion. I’m doomed."

"Oh, I wouldn’t say that. You might have more on your side than you think."

Aeris turned back to the red sky growing larger ahead of them. "Such as?"

Her godmother made no reply, and in a moment she wouldn’t have heard it anyway. She was too intent on what she saw beneath the red sky.

It was a shining black parody of the Castle Beyond the Goblin City. She knew that shape too well to mistake it for anything else. The fair stone that looked gold in the late sunlight glimmered there as ebony, dark as Necrodemos eyes.

"How dare he," she whispered, her hand clenching on Falkor’s soft white fur.

"Careful," he admonished gently. "What is it?"

"Something he took from me," she said bitterly.

"He has no life of his own beyond his use of the Heralds," Eris mused. "All he creates comes from your race."

"Hell? I’ve no clear concept of such a thing, you know that."

"Does Inigo Montoya?" Eris asked.

"I…He might…but…it doesn’t explain how Necrodemos created a construct without me. Just look at it, Eris! That thing is real."

"When he learned from Livia to drain living creatures of emotion he found his way. It’s obvious. He’s using Inigo as he uses you." Eris’s eyes danced with their usual crazed light. "Of course, it must not be quite as good as you, since he’s still drawing you here."

"Of all the goddesses that it could have been, why you?"

"Such ingratitude. I just solved the puzzle and this is my thanks."

Aeris sighed. "I don’t need any reminders that I’m basically lunch."

"He’ll have to fight you for it first."

"Take us closer, Falkor."

"Hang on." He swooped and dove and his long body curved in the air, moving faster, wind blasting Aeris’ face so hard she turned her head. And after a while she heard Falkor’s voice again.

"Aeris…isn’t that…"

"What?" She opened her eyes and looked, and gasped in a lungful of cold night air. "Sarah!"

They were a long way away but there was no denying who it was on the cliff where the gates were. Sarah and Jareth. Aeris’ stomach flipped over in one long sickening swoop. She buried her face in Falkor’s fur. "I don’t want to go down there."

Eris tsked. "Aeris, be reasonable, why do you think they’re there?"

"I neither know nor care, goddess. All I am sure of is that Sarah is hardly my biggest supporter at the moment and it’s a bad omen for her to be here."

"I’m the goddess, I will determine the meaning of all omens. Falkor, we are going down."

He laughed. "I never thought otherwise."

Closer and closer they swept to the cliff, to the gates of Hell, to Sarah an Jareth. Falkor circled and settled easily while Aeris kept her eyes focused on Falkor’s scales and fur, not daring to look up until she had to.

She lifted her head, took in the sight of the black castle, the swirling red sky that seemed to extend out from the tallest spire, the gates, with their inscription above, exactly as she’d painted them.

Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here

"Fuck you," she muttered, and swung down from Falkor’s back.

"How did you get here?" Eris asked them as Aeris ignored them, straightening out her bag and wind-tossed black hair.

They were looking directly at the Herald as Sarah spoke. "We asked the Empress. She introduced us to someone who said he could take us here. He wouldn’t give us his name."

"Tall fellow, red robes, staff, bad attitude?" asked Aeris.

"Ah…yes," said Jareth finally.

"Hmph." She didn’t know what else to say, and she busied herself with studying the very unpleasant sight of the gates.

"Aeris, I came to say something."

She raised an eyebrow and looked back at Sarah. Their eyes met. Aeris let out a long sigh.

"Don’t. You don’t have to. This isn’t about what happened between us, even though I made it that way. I’m a selfish pathetic little worm and I can beg forgiveness again later. Although…" She didn’t exactly smile, but it touched her mouth and eyes in a suggestion of it. "It is gratifying to see you here."

"We have a lot to talk about."

"It won’t happen right now. Wait for me?"

Sarah nodded. "Don’t be too long."

The moment had a surrealistic quality Aeris wasn’t exactly fond of. It seemed like there ought to be more to it. They just stood there, looking at each other. And finally, unable to resist, she bounded across the distance between them and hugged Sarah.

"Oh…"

"I’m sorry I’m sorry and it doesn’t matter if you hate me because I love you and I just couldn’t go without hugging you once."

"It’s…It’s alright." Sarah hugged her back gently, and let her go. "Aeris, be careful."

"I will."

Jareth touched her shoulder. "We’ll be here when you get out. Just hurry if you can." He looked over her, at the goddess.

Aeris followed his gaze. Eris was going through her robes as if she was missing something. "By Zeus…it was right here…"

"What’s the matter?"

"Oh! Of course!" Eris put out her palm and in it suddenly materialized the golden apple with the word Callisti inscribed on it.

"The Pandora?" Aeris stepped back.

"Take it." Eris opened the catch on the apple and took out the necklace, the two rubies and the pearl strung on the silver chain. "You’ll need it."

Jareth nodded. "You’d better do it."

"Are you crazy, do you really think I’d go in unarmed?" Aeris took the necklace without any argument. She did pause for a moment, looking at it, remembering.

Hephestus forged the chain. Aphrodite gave it’s wearer her beauty; Aries, the strength of armies; Athena, her wisdom. Poseidon pulled the pearls from the sea, Hades the ruby from beneath the earth. All the gods made a contribution to this never-given gift to the first woman, Pandora. Eris had spirited it from Olympus in the clash over the golden apple, hiding it inside and using Zeus’ own order to take it away against him. She’d intended it for the Heralds, but…too powerful for Aeris, she’d only worn it once.

Aeris slipped it around her neck.

A tiny red light sparked in her eyes, traced around her blue irises and stayed. Sarah gasped.

She tried not to say it but it was too late to stop the words from coming. "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law…" She swayed on her feet, reached for the necklace. "I don’t like this, I…"

"Think before you do that," cautioned Eris.

Defeated by a sure knowledge of what lay ahead, she put her hands down at her sides. "I’m going."

"The Spartan mothers and wives used to say something to the men going to war," Eris said, kissing Aeris’ cheek lightly. "If they died in battle, they would be carried home on their shield. If they became afraid and ran, they would throw it down. They women would tell them, ‘with your shield or on it.’ It meant for them to be brave, to win if they could and to die fighting if they could not—and never turn in cowardice."

Aeris turned and looked once more at the gates. She walked forward. She placed her hand on the iron. It swung open, as if it had been waiting for her.

Once she was inside, the gate shut tight behind her.

"I’ve come for you," she said, eyes narrowed, and she stormed the castle in a quiet, purposeful walk.