What Buffy had, at first, taken for a framed poster, turned out to be an original painting. It showed a calm landscape with purple mountains and silver clouds in the background, and a green valley at the front with a mansion on the side of a lake. It was the kind of landscape she would have expected to see in a fairy tale storybook, next to the usual “and they lived happily ever after”. To see it now seemed fitting however; she was determined to fight for her happy end.

“I didn’t know that you knew where I live.”

Buffy turned to face Cordelia, her gaze embracing the rest of the bedroom along with her. The furniture looked expensive, and the colors of the bedspread, wall paint and curtains were too well matched to be anything but purposeful. It was the room of a teenage girl reaching toward adulthood and yet still clinging to her plush toys a little longer. Buffy had had a bedroom a little like this, long before, and if everything went as she planned, she would have one again very soon.

“I didn’t. I asked Giles for your address.”

Cordelia’s half-smile tightened. Buffy wondered if it was at the mention of Giles, or at another reminder that she and Buffy weren’t the friends she sometimes hinted they were. It didn’t matter, though. None of it mattered. Not the painting, or the room, or even Cordelia and what she thought of Buffy. All that mattered was the necklace. Buffy’s fingers itched at the idea of simply grabbing the chain she could see peeking out from under Cordelia’s shirt.

“So, what brought you to my not-so-humble home? It has to be important for you to lower yourself to talk to me.”

The jab, this time, was directed at how Buffy had refused to tell Cordelia that same morning why she had been grinning like a fool. Cordelia’s sarcasm pierced Buffy’s armor of ice with the fugitive reminder of how happy she had been just a few hours earlier, and how far from that she was now.

“Giles said I need your pendant.”

She could tell the exact second when Cordelia understood. Shock filled her face, followed by wide-eyed excitement, and finally determination. She watched as Cordelia crossed her arms, leaning back slightly and squaring her jaw.

“You’re not doing this without me. There is no force on this earth that will make me give you the pendant if you plan to leave me behind in this sucky dimension, and I don’t care that you’re the Slayer. You have no idea what kind of hell I can raise, so don’t even think about trying to mess with me.”

Of all things, Cordelia seemed ready to fight her, right then and there. But Buffy had no reason to get into a hair-pulling contest.

“OK.”

Cordelia blinked. Her mouth closed with a rather satisfying snap, then opened again when Buffy dropped the backpack off her shoulder and onto the desk. She started to pull packets of herbs and powders out of it.

“What’s…what’s all that for?” Cordelia asked, barely above a whisper, as she walked over to the door to lock it.

“That’s the way to summon Anyanka.”

Buffy pulled a folded piece of paper out of her pocket, flattening it on the desk and revealing Giles’ handwriting. She checked each line of directions, looking through the bags of herbs at the same time and making sure she had everything. It wouldn’t do to mess things up now.

“Anyanka? Is that… She said her name was Anya. We’re really doing it, then?”

Buffy refrained from saying it was a very stupid question, and instead gestured toward Cordelia’s neck.

“I need the pendant now.”

Cordelia lifted the chain off her neck with trembling hands and after a brief hesitation handed it to Buffy. Such a small thing, really, but it would make everything better. Rather than putting it around her neck, she instead wrapped the chain around her left palm, keeping the amulet itself in the center of her hand. Now she was ready to start the spell.

Two herbs first, sage and chamomile, and the lit match she dropped on top of them in the golden goblet Giles had given her produced a single flame – and a lot of smoke. Following the directions to the letter, she added the powders and herbs, barely conscious of Cordelia’s hovering presence at her back. It took only a few moments before she reached the incantation; she read it without faltering once, adding the last of the herbs to the smoldering goblet right on cue.

“Oh Anyanka, I beseech thee, in the name of all women scorned. Come before me.”

She would have expected bells, a flash of light, something, anything to warn her of the demon’s arrival. But there wasn’t a single sound until Cordelia cleared her throat.

“Are you sure you did that spell right?”

“Oh, she did. It worked just fine.”

Buffy whirled around to face the demon, just a few feet away from them on the other side of the room. Cordelia did the same, letting out a small shriek.

“The only problem,” Anyanka continued with a smile that bared her teeth, “is that no woman here was scorned.” The smile widened even more. “At least, not in this world.”

“About that. This,” Cordelia started, her gestures encompassing everything around her, “is not what I asked for.”

Anyanka snorted. “You most certainly did. You wished, and I quote, that Buffy Summers had never come to Sunnydale.” Her eyes flickered to Buffy. “I made no guarantees she wouldn’t show up afterwards.”

“But I never asked for half my friends to be dead or vampires! I never—”

“Cordelia,” Buffy interrupted, “it’s useless. She granted you your wish and that’s it.”

The outrage in Cordelia’s eyes when she turned to Buffy was only matched by the surprise in Anyanka’s.

“So why did you summon me, then?”

“To avenge a woman, of course.” At Anyanka’s raised eyebrow, Buffy continued. “Her name was Drusilla. She loved a man for a hundred years, and she died trying to kill the woman she had foreseen would take him away from her. This man…this man swore he would kill her killer in return, and instead…he fell in love with her. And he never avenged Drusilla.”

Buffy fought herself not to glance at Cordelia, unwilling to know what she thought, or even if she fully understood.

“I will flay him alive,” Anyanka declared, her hands rising in the air. “I will make his flesh turn to—”

“You can’t. He’s dead.”

The cold of Buffy’s voice only reflected the ice in her heart.

Hands stopping in midair before going back down to rest on her hips, Anyanka tilted her head to one side; she looked annoyed.

“Do you enjoy making me lose my time, you silly girl? I could flay you for that.”

“He’s dead,” Buffy repeated, “but he died after sleeping with Drusilla’s killer. He died…happy. But in the other dimension, where Cordelia came from, he’s still alive. And Drusilla can be avenged there.”

For long, long seconds, Buffy held her breath until the air in her lungs was fire. It didn’t warm her at all.

“I’m not buying it,” Anyanka finally said, crossing her arms. “I’ve been in this business for centuries and I can tell when I’m being led by the nose. And the way you talk about this man… You’re the killer. You’re the one he slept with rather than kill. And If you think I’m sending you to a world where he’s alive, you can keep dreaming.”

She started laughing, a nasty, throaty laugh that died in her throat when Buffy raised the fist she had been holding closed and opened it, revealing the pendant in the palm of her hand.

“That’s mine,” Anyanka hissed, taking a step forward.

Buffy closed her palm again.

“That’s yours. And from what I’ve heard, it’s the center of your power. So tell me, what happens if I crush it in my hand?”

Another laugh, this time uneasy.

“You can’t be serious.”

“I’m the Slayer. Just try me.”

It had been Giles’ idea. Buffy was beginning to think it had been a damn good one, at that.


The armchair creaked when Giles sat up, leaving both the book he had been copying from and the sheet of directions  he had copied on the coffee table. He pushed his glasses higher on his nose and looked up at Buffy, standing just a few feet from him. She had watched him write in silence, biting down her requests that he hurry up. Time did not matter anymore.

“Buffy…Have you thought about what you’ll do if Anyanka does not consent to your request?”

The words were quiet, but Buffy received them as though they were a blow, her resolve wavering. For the first time, the thought was surfacing that it might not work. It was a wild idea, born from too much grief and crushed hopes. She was tired of fighting, tired of playing by rules when everybody else was ignoring them. It was time to get any kind of help she could – even if that meant playing with alternate dimensions and shifting realities, something she had heard Giles decry ever since she had arrived in Sunnydale.

Before she knew what was happening, Giles had made her sit down on the sofa and placed a half filled glass of amber in her hand. She took a small sip, and it burned a trail of fire down her throat. Across from her, Giles sat again.

“I’ve researched this kind of demon extensively since Miss Chase first told me of what had happened to her. I had to cross-reference several sources, in addition to this book.” He pointed to the coffee table with a tilt of his head. “Most sources mention or describe Miss Chase’s pendant, and I have come to believe that shattering it might cancel Anyanka’s granted wishes, or at least the most recent ones.”

He didn’t add anything, but then he didn’t need to. Buffy had heard Cordelia talk about her world as often as he had, if not more. If even half of what she claimed was true, it meant a much brighter reality for them, although they wouldn’t remember escaping this one.

She wouldn’t remember what she had shared with Spike, if that was how it had to end, but she wouldn’t remember losing him either.


“So what wish are you making, exactly?” Anyanka said, after what had seemed like an eternity to Buffy. “Just so I know what we’re talking about.”

“The world where Cordelia came from? I want to go there.”

Cordelia coughed noisily, and threw Buffy an eloquent glare.

“We want to go there,” she amended herself .

“That’s your wish? For you and your little friend here to be inserted into a different world? How do you even know he’ll want you in that world too?”

Buffy shook her head. She had thought about that too, and she was ready to take the risk. From the bits and pieces Cordelia had given her over the weeks, many things would be different. There would be that souled vampire to deal with, and her mother, and so many other details. Yet she, at least, would remain the same. And if she knew Spike at all, the core of who he was would be the same too, and it was that core she loved. It was that core, she was ready to bet everything on it, who had recognized his love for her in a poem from Neruda.

“As long as he’s alive, I’ve got a chance. And if it doesn’t work, he owes me a last dance.”

A small, dangerous smile fleeting on her lips, Anyanka thrust her left hand forward for a handshake. She waited, perfectly immobile, until Buffy cautiously offered her hand, the pendant tied tight in its center. They clasped hands, and Anyanka’s smile turned into a near grimace.

“So that is your wish, then? For you and Cordelia to be thrust back into the world she came from?”

Buffy swallowed hard. “Yes. That’s my wish.”

“And do you plan to kill Drusilla again to get him back, in that perfect world of yours? What if this time he does avenge her?”

Buffy’s grip tightened, both because the demon’s words were touching her greatest fear, and because she was clutching at the pendant. Before Buffy could stop her, she had ripped it free from her hand. Her laughter filled the room, just as it filled Buffy with dread.

“Done.”