The goblin standing at the door, calling out the names of the guests, suddenly dropped his card, his face a wide pantomime of shock. He glanced at Jareth, and so did Neeva, following the poor fellow’s eyes, but Jareth only nodded once, smiling.
He picked up the card. "Agatha, Lady of the Present."
A woman hobbled in, not old, yet not young, leaning slightly on a cane. She was the second sister, the seer of the present. She knew all that was happening as it happened, saw it all, and yet her memory was a water skin riddled with holes, everything leaking out even as it was poured in.
Agatha was the second of a trio, the wierd sisters. If Agatha was the faulty water skin, her elder sister, Agnes, was the one who caught all that fell from her, a bottomless pit of memories, her domain all that was past. Her younger sister, Agacia, was the pourer, the one who let the water fall in, the lady who stood at the gates of the future. Agatha wandered endlessly through the Labyrinth, while Agnes kept to her junk pile. Agacia moved too fast to be seen by slow human eyes at all, but the fey creatures could catch a glimpse of her every now and again, laughing and weeping wildly at the same time for all she saw coming. Neeva knew none of this, and watched with growing confusion and irritation.
Jareth was suddenly dragging her forward. Her shoes felt strange to her, and she was afraid she might trip in them and fall, and all the guests might laugh. But she was a graceful girl, and kept her feet easily. Jareth stopped then, facing the new guest.
Agatha smiled. "And you, young man, don’t I know you?"
"I am the Goblin King, this is my ball, and I have a request for you."
Her smile dropped into an unconcerned expression. "I know. This girl, you want to know who she is."
Neeva, shocked, glanced back and forth between Jareth and Agatha.
"I do," was Jareth’s swift reply.
"She fell from grace," Agatha said simply, and shrugged. "Now she is no one."
Jareth’s head tilted to the side, puzzled, but Neeva advanced a little on Agatha.
"What do you mean I am no one?!" she demanded, frightened and embarrassed. Everyone was staring, speaking of her in whispers. Her face felt hot.
Agatha turned cool, green eyes on her. "You heard me, didn’t you? I didn’t stutter did I? You’re no one." But she smiled humorlessly, leaning closer to Neeva. "You’re in a great deal of trouble though. Yes. Sarin still wants you. Masika stands in his way. Lucky for you, wouldn’t you...say..." She looked around at the party. "I don’t know any of you..." The moment was falling through her fragile memory, and Jareth motioned for his guards to escort her out before she could begin telling his party guests exactly what they were all thinking (this invariably happened whenever she attended any function; she was a disaster at all parties), his face full of disappointment. His expression matched that of the other guests, who had hoped to see a spectacle, the beautiful young girl Jareth had found either reduced to an insignificant joke or raised to heights beyond their imaginations by Agatha’s perception.
Neeva called after her. "Wait!" But Agatha followed the guards, pausing once to inform one young lady that she had ought to do something about the other girl her fiancee was thinking about. It would not have been so bad if they hadn’t been kissing. The girl slapped him, and Agatha left. So Neeva turned to Jareth.
The people in the room watched her hungrily, catty smiles lighting their faces behind fans and masks.
"You!" she shouted. "I don’t care who you are or what everyone else here thinks of you, but...how dare you do that to me!"
Jareth gave her a bored glance. "Come now. You would like to know your identity as well as anyone."
"Not...not here in front of..." Neeva’s eyes shifted to the crowd. Her voice dropped. "Not here and now."
He smiled at her, then nodded to the musicians, who immediately began to play again. "It would have been capital entertainment," he told her, his smile serene as she gaped at him in anger. "But so be it. I usually have a back-up plan."
"Entertainment?" she sputtered. "I..."
Jareth went on, chatting with his guests, ignoring her. Neeva spun around on the crystal heel and marched out of the party, her silver eyes blazing. As she went upstairs she tore the pins from her hair and let it fall around her, and finally, at the top of the flight, she took off the crystal shoes and threw them one at a time down to the foyer below. The crash echoed satisfyingly.
"Miss!" cried Claire as she entered her suite. "Oh, what happened? Your hair..."
Neeva rose up to her full height, summoning up her dignity, but even in the calm exterior of her face, her eyes were still nearly wild with anger. "Nevermind," she told Claire evenly. "Don’t mind it a bit, I took it down myself. But that king of yours..." Her eyes met the goblin maid’s, and she drew back a bit from the look. "I’ll tell you this, my little gobin girl. I’ll stay here in this wretched castle. I’ve nowhere else to go, and that’s the truth. My days here are numbered. But by Ahzira, I’ll see to it that your ‘king’ remembers me long after I’m gone." And she whirled around, heading into the dressing room, slamming the door behind her.
Claire frowned. Jareth up to his usual tricks no doubt--he’d run a good number of guests out of the castle in Claire’s time. But...who the devil was Ahzira?