Labyrinth: A Darker Season

Chapter 16

Sarah got up and tied the two horses to a tree. Sarah sat down and said, “I 'wish' for all the belongings of the two fae bounty hunters wished away to the centaurs just now, to make a pile next to me.” She got a lot next to her and off the horses and all their clothes and things across from her.

Sarah ate and enjoyed her tea. Afterward, she put the duck in her survival bag's zipper gallon size plastic bag with a bit of barley mixture. She put it in her backpack. The kittens mewed. She gave them each a bit of duck. They licked their lips.

Sarah put another log on the fire that she found after going through everything. There was a very heavy winter cloak in charcoal gray with a cowl hood. She took 2146 gold, 842 silver, 67 coppers, two more bags of jewelry, six jeweled daggers, two pocket watches, six blankets, and two tents. Sarah wished for the clothes, six blankets, and two tents for people who need and deserve them. Sarah dumped the coins into her ring. She had another bag to hang from her saddle of jewelry. Sarah thought it was ridiculous because there were six bags of jewelry now to liquidate? Sarah took everything into the tent and put it inside.

She went to the horses and put the empty saddlebags on each of them. She led them over to the bucket of water and fed them all an apple each in quarters. Sarah rinsed her hands in the bucket and went into the tent. She wished that no animals or beings could enter the perimeter around her campsite and horses.

Sarah zipped up the tent door and took off her boots, spreading her cloak over her blankets with her waistcoat over all of it. Sarah had four thicknesses of blankets under her. It made it softer. She dispersed the jewelry in each bag, so it would make it easier for Shadow. Sarah took off the pouch and laid down, covering up. The kittens crawled out of the pouch, curling up to her neck. They all went to sleep.

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Jareth decided to enter Sarah's dream tonight to speak with her and see if she can be warned about his father. He got in bed and relaxed and entered:

Sarah was standing in the labyrinth hedge maze; there was a wall of red roses next to her. Jareth came around the corner and looked Sarah in the eyes.

He cocked his head to the side and said, “You changed your appearance?”

Sarah snapped venomously, “Yeah, and tomorrow I'll change it again because you got your daddy to sic bounty hunters out all over the Underground to find and capture a fae woman with green eyes and dark hair. Do you know what that has caused??? Do you? It's not about me. It is giving those goddamn bounty hunters a free catch, sanctioned by the government to sell humans as they go. He's handing human citizens from all kingdoms to those sons of a bitches. Now tell me I'm wrong. I have taken down two of the bastards tonight, three more before that and four more before that!”

Jareth asked curiously, “What did you do to them?”

Sarah said factually. “I had wished they would be stripped of their magic, turned into human women being sold to centaurs. Fuck them! They have ruined countless lives! It fits the crime they are committing repeatedly because I would not let them continue.

Jareth said seriously, “First, Sarah, I did not have him chasing you down. I told him I would not help him. But he refuses to listen to my warning. Second, the only reason I went to him was to ask him why he shut your mirror down thirteen years ago. He did it to force me to marry a fae titled woman and stay away from you. I told him you were titled smarter and more responsible than all those fae women. My father found out I gave you magic and went after you because of it. I told him that the labyrinth will not stand for you to be harmed or stripped of magic. I told him you are under its protection, but he thinks he is above the oldest entity in the Underground, pure magic that's sentient. The labyrinth will exact justice for you, and it will not tell me anything you don't want it to tell me.”