Willow Rosenberg stepped softly into the library. "Hello?" she called out. "Giles?" The overhead lights were off, and he was nowhere to be seen. She let out a breath and took the backpack from her shoulders. It was heavy; she'd spent the better part of the weekend -- not to mention six months of her allowance -- filling it up.
She set the pack carefully on the largest of the library tables and began pulling items out of it: antique silver- backed hand mirror, crystal decanter of mineral water (ordered via the Internet from a small occult shop in Gary, Indiana), powdered saltpeter, beeswax candles, raven's leg bones (at least she hoped that truth-in-advertising held for this kind of thing), and a prosthetic glass eye.
The glass eye was an experiment. She didn't know what a Runsik radial orb was exactly, and she wasn't about to ask Giles. So she'd taken her best guess from the object's supposed function in the casting she wanted to perform.
"Okay," Willow said to herself and reconsulted the printout in her hand. The set-up looked right, but who could say for sure? She took a final item out of the bag: a brush with tangled strands of Buffy's hair that she'd found in her friend's locker, and set it across the handle of the mirror. She poured the mineral water across the face of the mirror and sprinkled a few grains of the saltpeter on the surface.
"Force of wind earth fire water," Willow recited as she lit the four candles and set them to either side of the mirror. "Eye to ear, ear to hand, hand to heart, as she walks under this sky, open the window of my mind to her passage."
Something was happening, Willow noted with a thrill. The candle flames were flickering like mad, and the surface of the mirror had taken on an odd silvery pink luminosity. She set her mind to bend the mirror's reflections back upon themselves, to open the mirror's eye to her will. "Open the Lens. Enter the Eye!" she commanded.
The surface of the mirror went utterly black. Caught by surprise, Willow gaped at it, losing track of her chant . . .
The room lost about twenty degrees of summer heat inside of a heartbeat, and reality seemed to take a half turn around her.
"Oh, boy," Willow said, and frantically tried to find her place in the chant again. But the letters on the page she was holding were swarming like incinerating insects. She dropped the paper and it burst into flames.
Something inside the mirror stirred, awakened, then blinked. Willow tried to back off, but it locked eyes with her. The total blackness of its gaze drew her towards it, swallowing up her world with a gulp --
-- light flooded into her subconscious, excruciating and unforgivable. The Eye shuttered, then withered in the radiance.
"STOP IT!" Willow screamed.
It slapped her. Hard. "Willow, look at me," It demanded in a vaguely familiar voice.
She would have pushed it away, but it hit her again and made Demands. "Willow, take this book. Now. Read me page 117."
She looked blankly at the book that had been thrust into her hands. The pages seemed to glide by under their own power. "Uh --" she said, trying to get around a tongue that filled her mouth to capacity. "Th' main p'ram'ters of th' Unix thystem's coding is the bilat'ral processing unique to the -- uh --" She blinked and looked hard at the book. "That's not right."
She looked up at a hazy but reassuringly familiar face. "Uh-oh," she said. "I made a mistake, didn't I, Giles?"
The Watcher peered intently at her a moment longer. "That would be putting it mildly," he said finally. He snapped off the flashlight he'd been waving in her face and stood up.
"I'm sorry," Willow said despondently. Her eyes were watering furiously. She swept the tears away with one hand, trying to pretend that they were only due to the bright light. "I was so sure that it was a simple spell."
"There's never anything simple about any spell," he said.
"I thought . . ." Willow swallowed, but went on, "if we could just see her, know that she's okay . . ."
Giles sat heavily down in the chair next to hers and surveyed her set-up.
". . . maybe we could even get some clue as to where she went . . ." Willow persisted.
He'd refused to even discuss the restoration spell after that last encounter with Angelus. If it hadn't been for Xander and his inability to keep a secret from her for long, Willow would have challenged his refusal.
But she had pushed Xander first, insisting that he tell her what he knew about what had taken place at the vampires' mansion that night. Xander had finally confessed to what he and Giles had discovered when they'd returned the next morning: a dormant Acathla impaled with a sword that apparently had been removed and then replaced. At least the sword had moved from where, to the best of Giles' memory, it had been earlier during his one brief glimpse of the demon. And Giles had known of only one way that Buffy could have replaced the sword, if it had been removed.
Willow trusted Giles' memory for details, even when he was under extreme stress. She'd known then that the brunt of the blame for Angel's probable damnation, and for Buffy's pain, lay on her head. And she'd been afraid to approach Giles about her explorations of the scrying magics, afraid that he'd bring up her guilt in the matter.
"Any time you open a gateway -- any gateway -- there's always a danger, Willow," Giles said. His quiet matter-of- factness was more punishing than a fit of temper would have been. He picked up the glass eye and rolled it around in the palm of his right hand, then looked at her.
"I couldn't find out what a Runsik radial orb was," she admitted, "so I improvised."
Giles sighed and set the spheroid down again. "Willow, you can't go around improvising at will with these old magics."
"I did so with the scapulars I made," Willow tried to defend herself.
"Th-that was a ward, a quiescent magic." Giles waved a hand at her set-up. "Surely you can see that this is something entirely different?"
She hung her head. "I'm sorry. I needed to do something, and I thought -- I really messed up again, didn't I?"
"Yes, you did," he said. He sounded distant, however, almost distracted. Willow looked up at him. He was staring at the hand mirror. Its surface had turned a corroded milky white in the aftermath of the spell. Fearful that he'd fallen into a trance, she almost waved a hand in front of him; but he suddenly looked at her again. "As have I, unfortunately."
She shook her head emphatically. "Giles, this was all my --"
"I am -- I am supposed to be -- the Watcher here. I've been neglecting my responsibilities. If I'd been paying proper attention, you wouldn't have been in a position to try this sort of thing on your own."
"You couldn't have stopped me," Willow began, feeling more than a little rebellious again.
"Perhaps not." He looked and sounded so tired, that Willow instantly regretted even that little bit of harshness. "I should have been aware, however, of what you were up to. Willow, you are not responsible for sending Angel to Hell."
"I am," she insisted. "And don't you dare say I'm not. If I hadn't done the ritual that second time, Buffy would've only had to defeat the demon. Angel wouldn't have been dragged down to Hell with him."
"Then we're both responsible," Giles said. "If I hadn't told Angelus the correct ritual, he wouldn't have removed the sword in the first place."
"Giles, you were being tortured at the time. Nobody expected you to --"
"I expected it of myself. Buffy needed that strength on my part. I failed her," Giles said simply.
Willow looked at him, wanting to ask but not really wanting to know all the same. All she knew about Giles' ordeal at the hands of Angelus was what Xander had told her about his condition when he'd pulled the Watcher out of the mansion -- that and the more obvious physical manifestations that she could see for herself on a day-by-day basis. She reached out now on impulse and laid a hand over his bandaged hand where it rested on the table.
Giles picked up the glass eye again in his good hand. "I can obtain a Runsik radial orb, but it may take a week. And we'll need another silver-backed mirror; this one is useless now."
Willow threw her arms around him. "Thank you, Giles!"
"I'm only going to agree to this if you accept my supervision. You can't continue to explore the magic arts on your own. I want your express promise that from now on you will tell me everything."
"I promise!" she said happily.
"Willow." Giles pushed her away and looked her solidly in the eye. "I want a considered promise. It's important that you understand."
"I --" She blinked. "Okay. I promise that I will tell you everything."
"Giles, are you out of your head?" Xander said angrily. He was standing by the reading table, his arms crossed over his chest. "Willow's still getting headaches and you're going to let her mess around with this stuff. Oh, wait, you're not letting her do anything -- you're going to give her all she needs to really screw around with it."
Giles sighed and closed the book he'd been skimming. "You've known Willow far longer than I have. Are you seriously suggesting that I can discourage her from her explorations once she's set on pursuing them?"
"Yes," Xander insisted. Cordelia jostled him in the ribs with her elbow. Xander glared at her.
She quirked an eyebrow at him. "Think, Xander. You can do it. Just rub two brain cells together before you blurt out stupid stuff."
"Well, you don't have to help her do it," Xander said hotly. "Hell, you got Amy to stop her little experiments."
"Amy," Giles said, "was vulnerable to emotional blackmail."
"Yeah, she fell in love with you," Cordelia said to Xander. "Which should be enough to put anybody off their lunch for a while."
Giles got up to reshelve the book. "If Willow is exploring the magic arts, she needs someone halfway knowledgeable to play safety for her. I may not be an experienced practitioner, but I at least know enough to keep her out of the more dangerous waters."
Xander turned to Oz, who was sitting at the table leafing through a copy of The Hidden Life of Dogs. "Oz, you're her boyfriend, why aren't you arguing against this craziness?"
"'Cause I know Willow," Oz said. "And because she needs to do something to help right now."
"It sure beats sitting around on our butts all summer waiting to see if Buffy is going to stop giving us all the brush-off before some Big Nasty shows up." Cordelia sat by Oz and pulled a book off the top of a pile. "Parasitic Vespules," she read off the cover and opened the book. "Euwwww! Pictures and everything!" She fished through the paper bag at Oz's elbow for a cracker, and continued to leaf through the book.
"The scrying spell itself is fairly fool-proof once properly set-up," Giles continued. "If we're successful, we'll at least be able to see Buffy, and perhaps get some clue as to her whereabouts."
"Maybe she doesn't want to be scryed out," Xander retorted. "Gee, you think maybe she just wants to be left alone?"
Giles said nothing.
"Weren't you the guy who was so hot to go running after her without the slightest hint of where she went?" Cordelia said. She peered at a picture in the book. "EUWWWW! Oz, look at that!"
Oz peeked over. "Grossage," he said. "What do those proboscis thingies do?"
Cordelia turned the page over "-- for inserting its inseminated eggs into the cranial cavities of its paralyzed -- EUWWWW!" She turned the page back to study the picture some more.
"My going after Buffy wasn't going to endanger Willow -- Is anybody here paying any attention to me at all?"
"Nope," Cordelia said, crunching on a cracker.
"Xander," Giles said. "I understand your concern --"
"No. You don't. Or you wouldn't even be considering this. But you Watcher guys have to put your job above everything else, don't you? Including the lives of anybody stupid enough to get mixed up with you."
"Xander Harris." Cordelia slammed the book shut and stood up.
"It's true stuff, Cordelia," Xander said bitterly. "You know it. Somebody's got to say it." But he couldn't look Giles in the eye. Pulling his indignation about him, he stormed out of the library.
"Damn him," Cordelia muttered. "He knows better than that."
"He's concerned about Willow," Giles said. "And he's right. Don't damn him for that, Cordelia."
Oz looked up from the book. "But you're still going to back Willow on this scrying thing."
Giles took his glasses off to clean them. "It's been a quiet summer again, fortunately for us," he said. "But the Hellmouth hasn't gone away. We can, perhaps, successfully cope with the more mundane situations that the Hellmouth might throw in our way --"
Cordelia gave a short laugh.
"Hey," Oz said, "we did manage to take down that demon last week."
"It was more of an imp, actually," Giles corrected him. "And it was a stroke of luck that it happened to be violently allergic to dog hair."
"And that it chose a night of the full moon to come out," Cordelia continued.
"Buffy's the Slayer," Giles said. "We need her to take point against the dangers here. Failing that --"
"Failing that, we're gonna bite it. Sooner or later." Cordelia sat down.
"Yes," Giles admitted. "With absolute certainty. And probably sooner than later."
Oz frowned. "But even if you find Buffy, that doesn't mean she's going to agree to come back."
"She will come back, eventually. The question is: can we hold against the forces of darkness here while she resolves her issues?" Giles took a chair next to Cordelia and started leafing idly through Oz's dog book. "Buffy has enough on her shoulders now without having to deal with the additional burden of any of our deaths."
"Not to mention our problems with dying," Cordelia said acidly.
Giles had the grace to look abashed at that. "Well, yes. Xander is correct. The black arts are nothing to be trifled with. I-I had some exposure to them some years back --"
"Demon Summoning For Fun and Profit!" Cordelia said.
He sighed. "Yes, yes. I learned enough then to know that I didn't have the inclination nor the wisdom to continue the practice. I still rather wish that Willow would give up the notion. But a few magics might give us the edge we need to survive, at least until Buffy returns. And Willow does seem to have a small natural gift for it. I'll be with her to watch and intervene if necessary. As long as we're careful, she should be in no danger."
Xander peeked around the doorway into the classroom. Willow sat at the desk up front, reading a book with an intense concentration. He wondered if she were studying Unix codes or Latin incantations and got a queasy feeling in his stomach. When did all this stop being fun? he wondered. Well, it had never been all jollies, from Day One when his second best bud Jesse had died. Before then everything had been simple: Xander, Willow, and Jesse. Cordelia, the Arch-Nemesis. And he'd spent his summers reading comic books instead of musty old tomes.
Willow looked up from her book and smiled at him. Xander saw now that it was a paperback on programming Java, and he relaxed somewhat. He smiled back.
She rose and moved to the doorway. "Class is almost over," she whispered to Xander, nodding at the small group of summer-school students she'd been tutoring. "We could go for ice cream then."
"Yeah," he said. "I'd really like that."
"Why don't you go ask Cordelia and Oz while I finish up?"
Xander looked away. "Let's just the two of us go -- like old times."
Willow took his hand in hers. "We can't go back to those times, Xander."
"Not even for one hour?"
"We'd just be kidding ourselves," she said patiently.
Xander was struck suddenly by how serious, how grown-up she looked. He felt very young next to her. "Cordy's mad at me," he admitted. "Again."
"Cordelia always forgives you," Willow said. "Bet she'd do it again for ice cream."
Xander tried to keep from smiling, but couldn't help it.
"There, you see? You know it too. Wait here and we'll go ask them together." She hesitated, frowning. "You think Giles would go?"
He couldn't hide the scowl either. "Nah, he's stuck-in- a-boring-book guy again tonight. He can stay there."
"Xander, leave him alone. He's only doing what I want."
"Yeah, but he's supposed to be the responsible one --" Xander cut himself off. He and Willow had already been around this one several times. Unlike Cordelia, Willow didn't often lose her temper, but he could never shake her out of her 'resolve face' either. "Willow, I don't like it. You and Giles are set on doing this and don't give a damn what the rest of us think. Okay. But don't expect to see me in the cheering section."
"That's all right then. It's nice that you're worried. But don't be mad at Giles. If you're gonna yell at someone, yell at me."
"You know I can't stay mad at you," Xander said plaintively.
Willow grinned at him. "Wait. I'll be done here in ten minutes."
Giles sat on the edge of the library table, a large leather-bound book propped open in front of him, and absently checked out the scrying spell set-up for the fiftieth time. And for the forty-ninth time he found everything in order. He sighed and shut the book again. He was actually quite impressed with Willow's first effort. If she hadn't tried that insane substitution with the scrying orb first time out, she might have gotten some productive results.
It only took one small but pivotal mistake in the practice of the black arts, however, to make it your last mistake. And regardless of the success of the casting, there was always a price.
Giles wondered again (for the fiftieth time) if he were making a mistake in encouraging her in this. He rose from the table and paced back to his office.
He'd been second-guessing himself far too much lately. Psychologically perhaps it was a healthy reassessment of his fallibility as a human being, certainly it was healthy in anyone thinking about delving in the magic arts, but for a Watcher it could be disastrous.
Hell only knew when it would all level out. If there were some way for a Watcher to resign, he'd have to consider it at this point. But even if there had been precedent, he couldn't leave as long as there was some chance that Buffy would return. That decision, at least, was one he really had no need to second-guess. Which didn't stop him from doing so.
Giles stopped by his desk, pulled the change and keys from his pocket and dropped them on the top. After a brief hesitation, he loosened his tie and reached around his neck to pull up the slender silk cord and rose quartz amulet attached to it. He caressed the stone with his thumb for a moment, before dropping it beside the other items. After a quick pat-down, he added his silver cross-shaped tie tack to the collection.
The scrying spell was simple; nothing was likely to go wrong if they didn't deviate from the prescribed set-up. But small semi-magical things, even base metal, could cause unpredictable effects. He wanted things to be as unproblematic as possible for Willow's casting.
"Giles?" she called from the next room.
"Here," he called back and emerged from his inner sanctum.
The other Slayerettes had accompanied her. Xander and Cordelia had seated themselves at the table, Xander keeping a low profile. Oz stood next to Willow, talking to her. The young man had a guitar case in one hand.
"I'll be fine," Willow was insisting. "Go on, you have a gig! Besides, Giles says that we'll get better results if it's just the two of us. Fewer brain waves scrambling the reception."
"I didn't actually put it that way," Giles amended. He took out a lighter and started to light the candles that he had set up around the small hand-mirror.
"Same difference," Willow said. She looked in puzzlement at his set-up. "This isn't the same."
"No, this is the simpler spell." Giles continued with his arrangements. "I don't understand why you started with the more elaborate casting."
Willow looked embarrassed. "I figured it was more powerful, so I'd get better results. Besides, this set-up required a cat's eye." She looked dubiously at the small orb set at center of the mirror.
"Euww, where'd you get it?" Cordelia said, craning to see.
"Ernie's Rock Shop," Giles replied. "Chrysoberyl is not all that hard to come by."
"Oh." Willow picked up the gemstone.
"You thought it meant the squishy kind, huh Will?" Xander said.
"Well, lots of those spells do use the grosser stuff."
Giles glanced at her and mentally sighed. Willow Rosenberg -- Novice of the Black Arts and Defender of All Things Warm and Fuzzy. He couldn't wait to see what she'd do with the more amphibian spell components. It would all be quite amusing if her natural compassion and quirky squeamishness weren't apt to steer her into dangerous detours.
"That's it then," he said as he lit the last candle. "Willow, take off any jewelry or metal you have about you and give it to me."
"You can get a good price for that stuff at the pawn shop next to Ernie's." Xander, incapable of resisting a quip, had forgotten his low profile.
"We're simplifying the environment." Willow took off her necklace and watch and handed them to Giles. "Getting rid of all the distractions."
Giles walked to deposit her jewelry on his office desk, then went to dim the library lights.
"You know, my cousin Vinny had this tooth filling that did that kind of thing -- it got this Moscow Idaho radio station," Xander continued. "And sometimes the radio station got Vinny."
"Ready," said Giles, and looked at the other three Slayerettes. "And speaking of distractions. . ."
"We're out of here," Oz said. "Xander and Cordelia are going to help me with my set-up."
"What?!" Cordelia yelped "When did I say I'd do that? I can't be a roadie. I just had a manicure!"
"There'll be munchies for everybody helping out," Oz said over his shoulder.
Xander perked up. "We're there!" He looped Cordelia's arm through his. "Com'on, honey. We'll put you to work at the door as a bouncer. All you have to do is wave your manicure at them." As they pushed past the library doors, he glanced at Willow, then glared briefly at Giles.
Willow huffed and sat on the table. "I'm sorry Xander's being such a jerk."
"Don't worry yourself, Willow," Giles said softly. "He's taken the role of conscience in this. It's a thankless task." He opened the old book to the proper page and laid it out on the table in front of her.
Willow looked up at him. "I can handle this. Really. I wish you and Xander would stop worrying so much."
"Humor me then." Giles studied the set-up for the fifty- first time. "I think we're ready. I suggest you take several minutes to clear your thoughts first." He stepped back.
"Aren't you going to help?"
"It's your casting, Willow. I'm here for you if something goes wrong or if you require assistance, but otherwise I'm merely an observer."
She looked apprehensive and yet pleased at the same time. Good, he thought. A mixture of confidence and caution. Just what she needs.
"Okay," Willow said, and shut her eyes.
Giles stepped quietly to one side and waited, trying to be still, to avoid distracting her.
It was hot in the library. (Snyder was obviously trying to cut costs again by cutting back on the air conditioning -- he'd have to have a word with the principal yet again.) The silence and the dark seemed to concentrate the heat. Willow's skin was damp with the heat. Strands of auburn hair stuck to her cheeks. Her face, relaxed in the shimmering candle-light, took on an almost unworldly beauty. He felt his heart skip a painful beat. For a moment in the flickering light, he'd seen aspects of Jenny in her features.
Get a grip, old man, he thought to himself. He had to stop seeing Jenny everywhere he looked; his inability to let her go had already proved to be a fearsome vulnerability. One he couldn't afford if he was going to guard the lives of those still left to him.
The young woman frowned, and abruptly was Willow again. She glanced at Giles, then reached up to scratch her nose and push a damp strand of hair from her eye.
Chastening himself, Giles attempted to clear his mind as he'd told her to clear hers. This may prove to be easier said than done for both of us, he thought wryly. He flexed his left hand, working at the pain there. He'd foregone his usual evening dose of painkillers in anticipation of this casting. He had to start cutting back anyway, but he'd hoped that they'd become less of a physical need by now. The ache in his ribs and lower back, the sharper pain in his hand, belied that hope. He focused on them anyway: nothing like physical pain to keep one in the here and now.
Willow drew a steadying breath, opened her eyes, and leaned over the book before her.
"Four quarters to where I Am. Open the Eye of the Mirror. Open the Eye of the Water. Open the Eye of the Flame. Open the Eye of the Wind." She waved her hand over the candles, which flickered madly and continued to flicker even after she drew her hand away. Giles felt an icy chill run down his spine.
Willow pulled a golden strand of Buffy's hair from the brush and fed it to a flame. "-- Open the Eye of the Mind; Seek her out, wherever she stands --" Another hair across the water on the surface of the mirror. Her voice was gathering in confidence and power as she moved into the cadences of the spell casting. Giles knew what she was feeling: the sense of natural and supernatural forces focusing upon oneself. It was, he knew, an incredible rush. And incredibly easy to get lost in.
There was a definite wind flowing through the library now, warm and dusty and scented with thunder and sage. Something moved somewhere just below the threshold of hearing. The mirror on the table was emitting a pale blue light. Willow leaned over it, entranced, as if she were trying to move into it.
Giles took a step backwards, forcing himself to disengage from the seductive pull of the gathering magic. He was here for Willow, to provide a safety for her. At the moment her well-being was all that could matter, was more important even than the images that had started to shift across the face of the mirror.
He caught the barest glimmer of an image of Buffy's face, impossible to clearly discern at this angle, and it was all he could do to keep himself from rushing forward to see for himself what the mirror was revealing --
-- and abruptly the glass went dark. The wind blew a final hard gust, guttering then extinguishing the candles.
Willow slumped face first into the book.
Giles hurried forward to catch her by the shoulders before she could collapse any further into her faint. She was breathing hard, but clutched at his arms with a rapidly recovering strength.
"Ugh --" Willow gasped, "Wow. Dizzy. Wanna lie down a minute."
Giles helped her ease off the chair onto the floor and took off his jacket to cover her with. She was shaking violently. "It's all right," he reassured her, squeezing her hand. "This is the usual sort of post-casting reaction, particularly if you haven't done the spell before. Just relax. You'll start feeling better in a minute or two."
He got up to retrieve a small flask from a nearby table and offered it to her. Willow took a sip and started coughing. "Whoa! What is that?"
"Brandy." Giles recapped the flask. "And no, you can't have any more than that."
As predicted, her shakes had gone away almost as soon as they'd started. Willow struggled to a sitting position, pulling his jacket closer around her. "That was it?" she said finally. "A couple of fuzzy images and 'poof'?"
"Poof?" Giles said.
"I was hoping for --" Willow scowled.
"Full matinee double feature?" He squeezed her shoulder reassuringly.
"Well, I was hoping for a good trailer at least." Post- casting let-down. Willow sat in a dejected huddle on the floor. She finally looked up at him and smiled shakily. "But she's alive, isn't she? I mean, somehow I know that was the desert. And there was neon. I think maybe she's in Nevada, Giles. Can we try again? I think maybe I could focus better."
"We can try again, but not tonight." He wanted to -- Lord did he want to. Giles briefly considered taking over the casting from her. Responsibility to Willow edged out the impulse, but just barely. She was in no condition now to be playing backup to him, and he was trying to set a decent example to her, to keep her from trying the same sorts of dangerously impulsive things he'd just been contemplating.
He set a hand beneath her elbow and helped Willow to her feet.
"I'm feeling fine," she protested.
"I have no doubt you are. Are you hungry?" Giles regarded her intently.
"No --" She blinked once as she reassessed her physical state. "Well, kind of. I mean, I could probably eat a bucket of Häagen-Daz right now, but it's not like I have to eat right now."
Giles went into his office to get her things. "I'll drop you by the Bronze," he said as he reemerged. "Relax for the rest of the night." He handed her the jewelry and then a pen and notebook. "And keep a record. Write down what you're feeling -- hunger, anxiety, sleepiness, depression."
"I'm feeling like trying again," Willow said stubbornly.
"Yes, yes, I'm sure you do." Giles steered her to the door. "Willow, I'm serious. Spell casting affects different people in different ways. I need to know how it's going to affect you. So write." He tapped the notebook. "Everything. I'm going to want to read this before we attempt another casting."
"Oh, all right." Willow tried to pout, but broke out in a shy smile instead. "You're Watching me."
"Well," he said, embarrassed, "somebody must."
"It's nice. That you're looking out for me, I mean. She hurriedly jotted a note, then tucked the notebook into the pocket of her jumper. "We're Bronzing it, then."
"You are 'Bronzing it'," Giles said. "I have some books to go through. I may be able to come up with something that will improve our results next time we try this."
"Boy, you're looking perky, Will!" Xander greeted her with an expectant smile. "Tell me you've got good news."
"Buffy's alive!" Willow bubbled and latched onto Xander to give him a tight hug.
"Well duh," Cordelia grumbled, studying her fingernails petulantly. "When's she coming home?"
"I don't know!" Willow said cheerfully. She climbed onto a chair, seized a croissant from Cordelia's plate and proceeded to devour it, licking the crumbs off her fingers. "Reception was kind of fuzzy. But it was Buffy all right! She was sitting on some steps, or maybe it was a bench. And there was a big dog sitting next to her, or maybe it was this really small guy. And she was talking to him, or maybe she was yawning." She turned to Xander. "Get me a cheeseburger? Pretty pretty please?"
"And another croissant," Cordelia said.
"Good idea! And get Cordelia a croissant too. Oh and are they still serving those jalepeño popper things? Oh and a strawberry milk shake."
Cordelia drew back to regard her distastefully. "Pregnant much?"
Xander's mouth dropped open.
"Ooh." Willow pulled out a notebook. "Giles said that the spell casting might have some weird side effects."
"Spell casting made you pregnant!?" Xander yelped.
"No, silly." Willow shoved him off the stool and scooted over to take his seat. "It made me hungry." She grabbed a handful of his shirt. "Did I ever tell you, Xander, how much I've always wanted to see you in a silk suit? And tie?
Cordelia reached over to disentangle Willow's fingers. "Xander, dear, go get the food. Willow's having a Kodak moment now, as in 'If we could get a picture of this we could blackmail her for big bucks later on'."
Xander was backing rapidly off. "Right. Going. Now."
Willow melted onto Cordelia's shoulder and hooked an arm around her neck. With her other hand she fished out the notebook again and started to write.
"'Kodack', with a 'ck' on the end," Cordelia prompted her.
"I'm not drunk," Willow said indignantly. "I know how to spell." She tightened her hold around Cordelia's neck. "I feel really great though."
"I know," Cordelia reluctantly admitted. "You're kind of glowing. And you should have seen some of the guy looks you got when you walked in."
"Really?" The once terminally shy Willow grinned. "Which guys? Where's Oz? When's Xander going to get back with the food?"
"You know, this magic stuff could really do wonders for your Cosmopolitan guy magnetism-tude, but if you keep eating like this you'll blimp up and it's not going to work." Cordelia snatched Xander's french fries away from Willow, then took the pen and notebook.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm writing that you've become a dippy, food-snogging guy magnet," Cordelia retorted.
"No way José!" Willow scribbled out the last part. "I'm just supposed to say what I'm feeling. 'Dippy' I can do. 'Guy magnet' is just . . . extra stuff. Food!"
Xander set the tray on the table and leapt back as Willow attacked it. He inched over to Cordelia's side. "Is she okay?"
"Besides on the way to gaining 10 pounds in one night? All right, I guess, but maybe we'd better get her home before she embarrasses somebody. Mainly, us."
"I'm okay," Willow reported between mouthfuls of cheeseburger. "Really! When is Oz's band on? Did you guys help him set up? Did Cordelia break a nail?"
Cordelia held up a single mangled fingernail.
Willow's lower lip quivered. "Oh no!" she said in apparently genuine dismay. "And that's such a cool shade too. What color is it?"
"Um, Coral Blush," Cordelia said, somewhat taken aback.
Willow seized her hand to peer at the fingernail. "Did you have it specially mixed? The color, it's very glow-y."
Cordelia snatched her hand back. "Enough's enough, without you wigging me out admiring my nail polish."
The house lights dimmed. Xander grabbed Willow's shoulders and turned her to face the stage. "Oz's band is on now. Be a good girl, Will, and later we'll get you a lollypop."
Willow grabbed her milk shake and leaned forward. She waved joyously at Oz when he came out. "What do you think he'd do," she asked Cordelia, "if I threw my underwear onto the stage?"
Giles reshelved the last book and stood back to look about the library again. As was frequently the case these nights, he was reluctant to go home. Too many memories there. Several nights he'd given up and simply slept on the floor in his office, but that wasn't something he wanted to get in the habit of doing. He had enough of a reputation as an eccentric without adding fuel to the fire.
Besides, he realized with mild surprise, he was hungry. Ravenous even. He'd apparently been more enmeshed in Willow's casting than he'd realized at the time. Not something he'd planned on or even wanted, but at least it spoke for a close monitoring. He hadn't had any kind of an appetite for months now.
If nothing else, his mentoring Willow in her practice of magic might have the side effect of allowing him to gain back some of the weight he'd lost over the last few months. Giles collected his things and locked up, wondering what dining establishments might still be open at this hour.
"That was a really great last song you did!" Willow said to Oz as she snuggled against his shoulder.
"Well, there were a couple of guys playing with me on it," Oz said, looking pleased. "I'm glad you liked it though, because I wrote it for you."
"It's my song? Really? Even that part about 'she radiates grace'?"
"Of course." Oz attempted -- reluctantly -- to ease her away a bit so he could steer the van.
"Don't you think she's radiating a bit more than grace tonight?" Xander said from the back. He hung over the seat, looking like a disapproving father.
"She seems a little bouncier than usual," Oz admitted. He pulled into the high school parking lot. "Do you and Cordelia want out here, or should I drive you home?"
"I thought we'd hang out with Willow for a while. . ." Xander began.
"We're getting out," Cordelia said firmly. "You promised you'd take me up to Pinson's Point to do some star-gazing."
"Gotta gaze those stars," Willow said with a grin and a wink at the other girl.
"You see?" said Xander. "That is not our Willow talking there."
"You haven't noticed this side of her before?" Oz replied.
Xander scowled. "The notebook, Will. Write."
"Okay," Willow said, and pulled out the notebook to make another entry. Xander waited while she wrote, then pulled it from her hands to scan it.
Cordelia read over his shoulder. "Satisfied?" she said. "Nothing in there that I wouldn't do on a really slow night. Now let's go. Oz will make sure she gets home."
Xander opened his mouth to protest, but Cordelia shoved him out of the van.
Willow snuggled back up to Oz as she watched them walk to Cordy's car. "You know, I really hated it when they got together? But now it's not looking like such a bad thing?"
Oz smiled. "They have these weird harmonics between them, that's for sure. Do you want to go home now?"
Willow shook her head. "I'm feeling way too energized. Pinson's Point sounds fun. And don't look at me like that. We've been up there before."
"Yeah, but you weren't high on black magic then." Oz started the van again. "This time we're just going to listen to some music and look at the lights. Okay?"
Willow sighed. "If that's what you want." She grinned a little, then leaned over to nibble on his ear lobe. "Let me know though, if you change your mind."
She bounced into the library the next afternoon. Giles was there, surrounded as usual by piles of books.
"Hi, Giles!" Willow said cheerfully. "Did you find anything useful?"
He looked up and studied her intently for a moment. "Not yet," he admitted. "But I only just arrived."
She sat down and pulled a pile of books around to read the titles. "Can I help? When can we try again?"
Giles held out his hand. Willow dug into her bag and pulled out the notebook. He opened it and looked over her notes. "No ill effects at all? What's this that you scratched out?"
"Oh, that was Cordelia." She continued to examine the books. "She was afraid I'm going to get fat I was eating so much last night."
"Not likely." He shut the notebook and handed it back to her. "The energy expended in spell casting is something like that used in running a marathon. You needed those calories. You wrote everything down?"
"I was just feeling really good, confident, and energized," Willow said. "No depression or anything like that, except for right after the casting."
"We'll have to work on that." Giles handed her a stack of paperback books. "You should be fairly emotionally centered after a casting."
She looked crestfallen as she shuffled through the books. "You mean I shouldn't have been feeling that good?"
"It was the result of residual energy from the casting," Giles said. "It's indicative of inefficient casting. Ideally all of the magical energy should focus in on the spell. You yourself should be outside of it. Those books on meditative techniques should help."
"Okay." Willow opened the top book. "I'm sorry. And here I thought I was doing pretty good."
He looked up at her in surprise. "You are. Willow, you must remember that you're a novice. The rush you felt last night undoubtedly gave you a great deal of confidence in your ability. That's why it's dangerous. You need to keep an objective mind." He tapped the stack. "Meditation will help somewhat. The rest is going to be simply a matter of experience."
"I get it," she said, trying to be objective about his criticisms, as he said. She began to read. After the first chapter, she looked up at him. "Giles?"
"Mmm?" he said, still caught up in whatever he was reading.
"How did it affect you? When you first started?"
He looked at her, surprise shifting into a chilling intensity. Willow held her ground, but just barely. "It was an incredible high," he finally admitted.
And he gave it all up, Willow thought uneasily. "Did you have anybody?" she said. "To play safety for you?"
Giles smiled, but there was no humor there at all. "I had Ethan Rayne," he said.
"Giles?"
He looked up at Willow, pulling himself reluctantly out of the intense focus he'd fallen into.
"Oz and I are going out for something to eat. You want to come?"
He realized that the light levels coming through the library windows meant that late afternoon had arrived and for the most part passed on. "You two go ahead," he said. "I want to finish this section."
"We'll wait," Willow insisted. "Giles, you need to eat something."
"I-I will." He glanced out the window again, then over at Oz where he stood by the library doors. "Isn't tonight --?"
"That's why we need to eat now, so we can get Oz home and locked up before the moon comes up."
Giles set a thumb against his lips, considering. "How are you feeling now?"
She perked up. "As in, for another spell casting?"
"The full moon might help amplify the spell."
"Great!" Willow said. Then apparently thought that sounded too enthusiastic. She set her face into scholarly mode. "I mean, if you think it's worth a try, I'm game!"
"Go eat then, and get Oz settled for the night. I'll handle setup on this end."
"All right, but I'm bringing back food for you," Willow persisted. "If we're going to be spell casting, you need to eat something first."
"Yes, Mother," Giles said.
Willow grinned at him and hurried to get her bag.
Giles watched them go with a bemused fondness. He had to remember, he thought, that Willow was different from Buffy and would work best with a different mentoring style. While he sometimes had to lean rather harshly on Buffy to curb her natural boundless self-confidence (at least before Angel had turned), the same discouragement could cause needless anxieties in Willow.
"Damn," he whispered to the pile of books in front of him. Another thing he had to keep in mind: He was Buffy's Watcher. She had to be his primary focus, should be his only concern. Dividing his priorities like this was an invitation to disaster.
But his primary focus was gone now. Willow, he realized, was giving him something to hold on to, a reason for being. She was allowing him to feel useful again. It was a dangerous situation, and not only for Willow. If he were being conscientious, he'd stop this before it could take them any further down this road.
Instinctively however he needed his Slayer, and Willow was offering him the only thing he could actively do to bring Buffy back. Other of course, than to wait and wait, ineffectually hoping and trusting that she'd return any time soon.
Time to stop the second guessing, Giles thought. He shut the book in front of him and started to lay out the scrying setup. They might be making a terrible choice in taking this road, but he knew that he wasn't about to choose to backtrack now.
"We were thinking," Willow said as she sat on the library table watching Giles eat the roast beef sandwich she'd brought back for him, "that maybe Oz could try those meditation exercises too. Do you think that if he got 'centered' enough that he could be more in control on full moon nights?"
"Perhaps." He tasted the drink she'd brought and grimaced -- it was some highly sugared carbonated beverage -- but he forced himself to finish it. The sugar was a high energy, if otherwise useless, source of calories. "It's not likely. I suspect there are basic brain structure alterations that go with the lycanthropy. But it certainly couldn't hurt. And I may be mistaken. I don't think anybody's ever done a neurological study of the werewolf."
Willow's face darkened at the thought. "No. They just hunt them. Do you think that Cain guy is still --?"
Probably, thought Giles. "Hopefully Buffy convinced him that he was in the wrong trade. Perhaps he's taken up unicorn hunting instead."
"Cute little unicorns?" Willow scowled some more.
He shook his head in exasperation. He still had a scar across the lower ribs courtesy of the only unicorn he'd ever seen, and the only reason he'd survived that encounter was that he'd been a virgin at the time. "They're vanishingly rare," he reassured the girl. "Far rarer than werewolves. A hunter could go a lifetime without glimpsing one. Although one horn would set him up for life. Cain could decide that the potential pay-off was worth the odds." And with luck, he thought with a perverse humor, Cain might actually have the ill fortune to succeed in the hunt. Exit one pillock.
"Let's get to it then." He cleared away the wrappings from his meal and nodded to Willow to start lighting the candles. She set about her task with an endearing seriousness. He sat back to watch her, assessing her state of mind. It might be a mistake doing another scrying only twenty-four hours after the first; but then maybe he'd been overly cautious in not letting her try again the night before.
Willow lit the last candle and looked to him. "Giles? Is everything okay?"
He shook himself. "As well as can be expected, I suppose."
"You look tired. Maybe we should wait."
"No, I'm fine." Giles got up to help her complete the preparations. He'd left off the painkillers for a second night in a row, and apparently it showed. "Here, let's try it tonight with you facing the east window. As long as we've got a full moon, we might as well put it to good use."
She helped him arrange the paraphernalia, then sat down on her table. The moon shined in through the library window, dazzling in its brightness.
"Did you have a chance to read over the meditation books I gave you?"
"A little," Willow said.
"I'm going out for a few minutes. Try one of the simpler exercises while I'm gone." He touched her on the shoulder. "Don't start the spell without me," he said with a smile.
Willow tried to focus on her breathing, like the book said. Clear her mind of extraneous thought. The moon was way too bright however; she kept having to rub the tears from her eyes. She bent to hook her purse from the chair and fished around inside for her sunglasses. Hair fell into her face, and she impatiently shoved it back.
No sunglasses. She remembered now leaving them at Xander's house. Have to go back for them later, she thought. Then she thought about Xander and Cordelia. They'd been talking about going to the movies tonight. Willow wondered what they'd decided to see. She knew exactly what Xander would want to see. They'd eat popcorn, she guessed. Or maybe only Xander would. Cordelia would be so worried about blimping up that she wouldn't have any.
Her stomach growled. She'd had a big dinner, but she was hungry again.
Her shoulder scratched where her sweaty blouse stuck to it. Willow peeled it up and itched at the skin. Her hair fell in her face again, and she dug through her purse for a ribbon to tie it back out of the way.
The library door squeaked softly, and Giles walked back in.
"I can't seem to center," she told him worriedly. "I'm all hyper-sensitive tonight."
"Nerves?" he asked, seating himself on top of the next table over.
"No, just that I'm hot, scratchy, hungry, the moonlight's too bright, and I keep wondering what Xander and Cordelia are doing, and whether Oz is asleep or not." She sighed.
Giles didn't seem terribly concerned, much to her relief. "Yes well, meditation's a practice. Keep working with it."
"But should we --?"
"It's an uncomplicated spell, and we have the moon working in our favor. As long as you feel comfortable with it."
"Oh, yes!" Willow settled back into her cross-legged sit. "Same as last night?"
"Yes." He sat down in a chair. "Relax and go into it when you feel ready.
Willow nodded and shut her eyes, doing her best to center despite her state of 'scratchiness'. Finally she opened her eyes and began to chant. "Four quarters to where I Am --"
The air was thick with moonlight. Willow felt sluggish with it. The spell seemed reluctant; where the night before she'd sensed the power coming alive, tonight it seemed to fight her efforts to bring it out of dormancy. She struggled with it as she moved to the sacrifice of the hairs, but the mirror remained largely dark, shifting with only a few vague shadows. Biting at her lip, she leaned forward willing the images to coalesce.
The glass grudgingly cleared, and she saw a slender blond-headed figure walking along a dark roadside. Willow held onto the image, trying to sharpen it in her mind. If she could just hold on. . . Buffy had halted by what might be a mileage sign, seeming to study it for information.
And the image began to slip away.
"No!" Willow gritted her teeth and fought for it. "Focus, damn it!" But leaded down with moonlight, the vision continued to dissipate.
Moonlight. She had a sudden inspiration. "Open the Eye of the Moon!" she cried out. "Seek her where she stands!"
The surge of answering power was incredible. Willow felt it rip through her body like a bolt of lightning, and the entire world seemed to open up to her. For a single instant it was if she stood next to Buffy, could feel the warm night wind on her face, could hear the cricket hum in the background, could smell the sagebrush. Buffy turned towards her, blinking, and reached out. She felt her friend's warm hand light in hers. . .
The sound of the moonlight became a frenzied wail. It exploded up through her mind, filling every synapse with its terrifying beauty. Willow screamed.
And abruptly the light was torn away from her. In spite of the acute pain, she held desperately onto the light, sensing some imperative that kept her from throwing it away from herself and running.
The chant, do it now, it will help us get it back under control. Dimly she realized that the voice in her head was Giles, that he had stepped in and started the litany again, that she was to mirror him.
She struggled with the words for what seemed like an eternity, then gradually sensed the world of darkness filling in around her again. She was drifting back to the shore of sanity. Willow let the tide take her there, finally stepped to shore gasping for breath. She collapsed.
The light continued to flicker vaguely across her face. Willow forced her eyes open to confront it.
"Giles!" she screamed fearfully.
He'd stepped in to channel the powers she'd unleashed through himself, but for all his knowledge he was having no better luck controlling that wild magic than she had. The light surrounded him, seemed to be devouring him.
"No!" Willow whimpered, and moved towards him.
"STAY!" he managed to pant out. "The mirror. Break it."
Willow snatched the glass from the table. Seven years bad luck, she thought idiotically. Hope some of that's retroactive. She dashed it against the edge of the table.
Giles dropped to the floor like a string-cut puppet. Unable to find her balance, Willow fell hard against the floor immediately after him.
"Owww," she said. She'd given her head a good thump, same spot where she'd been injured several weeks back. "That's not good care and feeding of one's brain." Rubbing the aching spot, she crawled to her knees. "Oh no, Giles!"
He lay in an awkward heap. Shaking, Willow tried to locate a pulse and couldn't find it. Stupid, she thought. He was hyperventilating, of course he was alive. But for how long?
"What do I do? Giles?" Willow shook him, then got up and stumbled for the telephone in his office. "911 -- 911." She fumbled the receiver off the hook. What do I say is wrong? Is there an emergency procedure for magical shock?
The line, however, was dead. She slammed the receiver down and ran back into the library. "Giles?" she said, shaking him. "Stay there. I'm going to get help."
Willow ran weeping out into the dark hallway, and bumped straight into Xander. "Xander! Xander! I've killed Giles!" "You what?" Cordelia said, staring at her as if she'd gone mad.
Maybe I have gone mad, Willow though miserably. "I've
got to get some water!" She broke away and ran into the
Girls' Restroom.
"Come on," Xander said grimly, pulling Cordelia into the library.
Their Watcher lay on the floor, but as far as Xander could tell he had a fair ways to go before he was dead yet. On the other hand, he was obviously several degrees short of okay.
"Simple spell, huh?" Xander muttered. He pulled Giles to his side so he could breath easier. "Cordelia, get the blanket from his office."
"You gonna give him mouth-to-mouth?" Cordelia said, bending over them worriedly.
"Oh god, maybe I should." Xander hesitated. Not like this was a decision he particularly wanted to make.
Willow burst into the library with a glass of water in her hands.
"Put his legs up on some books," Cordelia suggested. "That'll get the blood flowing back to his brain."
"Good idea." Xander grabbed some books from the table and started shoving them under Giles' feet.
Willow dithered about, brushing the hair from the librarian's forehead, patting his cheeks. "How do I get him to drink the water?"
"Here," Cordelia took the glass from her hands. "The important thing is to get his body temperature down."
"No, no!" Xander said urgently. "Body temperature up! Get the blanket from his office, Willow!" She ran to obey.
"Giles?" Cordelia tried to pry an eyelid open. "Are you okay?"
"We've got to wake him up before he goes into a coma," Willow said as she threw the blanket over him.
"That's just for head injuries, I think," Cordelia said dubiously. But she poured the glass of water into his face.
Giles started coughing violently.
"You did it!" Willow cried. "Giles, are you all right?"
"I will be, if you'll please stop trying to revive me," Giles whispered hoarsely.
"Grateful for saving your life much?" Cordelia said, sitting back on her heels.
Willow started to weep again.
"Way to go, G-Man," Xander said disgustedly. He wrapped his arms around Willow and led her to a chair.
"You just stop it," Willow snarled between hiccuping sobs. She shoved Xander away. "This is all my fault."
"Yeah, well, the Watcher here was obviously doing more than he was supposed to." Xander bent down to glare at Giles. "Are we going to have to get a Watcher for our Watcher, G- Man?"
"I appreciate your concern, Xander," Giles muttered, "but bugger off. Willow, will you please stop crying?"
"Okay," she said meekly. She huddled in her chair looking miserable, shaking violently.
"Get my jacket from the chair over there and wrap her in it." Giles tried to push himself into a sitting position and promptly fell flat on the floor again.
"Are you going to be okay?" Cordelia said worriedly. "I mean, we don't need to call an ambulance or something, do we?"
"Table," Giles muttered indistinctly.
"What?! Xander, he's going delusional --"
"Oh," said Willow, still trying to stifle her sniffles. "Brandy. There's a thingy of brandy on the table over there." She dropped to her knees to wrap the blanket more closely around Giles, who was beginning to shake as hard as she was. She grasped his good hand in hers. "I'm so sorry, Giles."
"Let's get some light in here," Cordelia declared. "All this gloom is seriously wiggy." She went to the light switch, but the lights didn't respond.
Willow looked up. "The phone was out too."
Cordelia glanced out in the hallway. "The emergency lights are on. You think vampires cut the main power?"
Giles managed to sit up and accept the flask that Xander held out to him. "I suspect we may have short-circuited some things in the building during that spell," he admitted. His shaking had subsided, but he still seemed weak.
"Wow," Cordelia said, impressed. "You guys were doing some serious magicking then."
"Must've been an electromagnetic pulse --" Something occurred to Willow. "Oh, no!" She ran to the library computer.
"No power, Willow," Xander reminded her.
"Right." She pulled her own laptop from under the table and tried to boot it up from the batteries. "I think I might have just fried most of the computers in the building," she said sadly.
"Okay," Cordelia declared, "It's time to get out of here, before the night janitor reports to somebody with enough of a brain to put you guys and the outage together."
"Yes," Giles agreed. "Perhaps you're right." He seemed to be rapidly recovering from whatever shock he'd sustained and managed to pull himself to his feet with some help from Xander.
Willow started to stuff the spell casting things into a backpack. "What about the broken glass?"
Giles peered about vaguely. "Uhm, there's a dust pan and broom in my office." Xander nudged Cordelia, who made a face but went to get the items.
"And then can we go out for pizza or something?" Willow said as she zipped the bag up. "I'm starving to death."
"Look, you guys are treading seriously deep waters," Xander was ranting over their table at Denny's. "How many times am I going to have to say it? Would it do any good if you heard from somebody whose credibility you trust more: say from Snyder or the Lunch Lady?"
"You are right, Xander," Giles said in all apparent sincerity, between bites of his hamburger. "You've been right all along."
"Yep," Willow said. "It's scary how right you've been. Are you going to finish your sandwich, Cordelia?"
"Yes," Cordelia said, shoving her hands away from the plate. "You know it wouldn't hurt either of you to listen to Xander for a change and maybe -- concept -- take his advice?"
"And you admit that this spell casting thing was a bad idea?" Xander persisted.
"On the contrary, it was a good idea," Giles said, as he pushed his plate aside. He eyed Cordelia's sandwich. "What I didn't take into account was Willow's talent for innovation."
"Waitress!" Cordelia waved down the server. "Will you please get these guys something else?"
"Sure!" the young woman said, pulling her order pad from her pocket. "What'll it be?"
"Food," said Willow.
"Same here," said Giles. "Oh, and another tea."
"With milk," the waitress said with a wink. "Gotcha." She bustled off.
"So I'll stick strictly with the formula from now on," Willow continued. "No more innovations, no more trouble!"
"Oh, right, that simple," Xander said sarcastically. "If it was that simple, why didn't our wise and wonderful Watcher here think of it before?"
"It is simple," Giles reaffirmed. "For most spell casting any attempt to deviate from the prescribed ritual usually results in a nonviable spell. The goal for the average caster is a letter-perfect recreation of a given casting."
"Rote memorization -- about as boring and safe as you get," Willow said as she polished off her french fries.
"Willow has more than a modicum of feeling, however, for how magic works. She's a natural innovator." The waitress stopped by the table to set a cup of tea and a small pot of milk in front of him. "Thanks, love," he said with a smile at her.
"You're welcome," she said, grinning back.
They waited while Giles stirred the milk into his tea.
"So," said the waitress. "That's how you drink tea in England."
"Generally speaking. Yes." Giles glanced up at her and smiled again.
"Um," Xander said. "We didn't need anything else."
"I drink mine with lemon. I'll try milk next time." She hooked one ankle behind the other. "Maybe I'll have a cup when I get off. In about an hour."
"Excuse me," Xander said. "We're having a private conversation here?"
The waitress scowled at Xander, then looked at Giles again. "If you need anything," she suggested, "just whistle." She started to saunter off, but managed to collide with the next table over instead.
"-- now that we know this, we can, as Willow says, be extra careful to adhere to the original text and forgo any temptations to experiment," Giles continued.
"Uh huh!" Willow nodded in emphatic agreement.
"All right," Xander said in exasperation. He sorted through his book bag and pulled out a spiral notebook, which he shoved at Giles. "As of this moment, you've got yourself a Watcher."
"What?!" Giles blinked at him. "Don't be ridiculous."
"Come on, Giles. You were channeling major mojo back there. Can't take what you're dishing out to Willow?" Xander shoved a purple felt tip pen at him. "You write down everything you're feeling tonight. Tomorrow we'll all sit down and have a reading. If you can read out loud what you're saying tonight with a straight face tomorrow, then I'll hold the magic hat for the next trick for you guys."
With a distasteful look at the felt tip pen, Giles pulled a fountain pen from his pocket and began to makes notes in an awkward right-handed script. "I do not," he growled as he wrote, "need a Watcher. But if it will keep you from bothering Willow --"
"Write," Xander said sternly. He turned to Willow, who'd been watching the interchange with an amused expression, and thrust the felt tip pen at her. She grimaced, but took the pen and pulled out her own notebook.
"Cordy?" the young man said. "Meet you by the payphones?"
"Okay," Cordelia said when they reached their rendezvous. "I'm with the concept that this spell casting thing is getting seriously wiggy. But is it wiggy in a bad way?"
"Giles is supposed to be providing some objective guidance on this," Xander hissed. "How the hell is he going to stay objective when he's doing the magic stuff himself?"
"Right," Cordelia said. She glanced back at the table, where Giles and Willow were still writing. "Uh, Xander. It may be just my imagination and all that, but don't you think -- I mean in a totally upper-age-bracket sort of way that I really wouldn't normally notice except that we're in a Denny's -- but haven't you noticed that Giles is looking seriously dishy tonight?"
Xander stared at his girlfriend. "What?"
She flushed. "Well, like I probably wouldn't have noticed -- much -- except that Willow is kind of giving off the same kind of glow. Not that I'd notice that either -- oh okay girls sometimes do notice that sort of thing in other girls, but usually it's when they're glowing off of the guy you like. But you haven't really seemed to notice her glowing."
"I haven't noticed," Xander said indignantly. "Well, Willow's being uber-cute, but that's Willow. Why would you think I'd notice Giles? For that matter, what's this with you noticing Giles?"
Cordelia rolled her eyes. "Just forget it then, okay? What's with you and all this flaky paranoia lately? I think I liked it better when you were just obsessing over Buffy."
"Is it paranoia to show concern when my best friend is playing around with seriously dangerous magic?"
"Oh, like you did Valentine's Day?"
"Right," Xander snapped back. "So if anybody's the expert on really dumb dabbling in the black arts, it's me!"
"It's like, 'do what I tell you not what I stupidly did'," Cordelia retorted. "But I forgot. Your stupidity was for a really noble purpose, so that makes a difference."
"Yeah, the noble purpose of trying to make you fall in love with me. Tell me again: Why did I bother?"
"Because you were a romantic loser forever panting after girls who had no interest in him?"
"Cordelia and Xander are fighting again," Willow remarked.
"I wasn't aware that they had ever stopped," Giles replied between sips of his tea. He moved the notebook to one side, and placed the plate the waitress had just brought on top of it. He carefully wiped his hands on a napkin, then pulled an old pocket sized hard-bound book from his jacket.
"You're right. " Willow turned back to her second sandwich. "They have demilitarized zones in between the insults. But I thought that the zones were getting longer."
"I recently rediscovered this text at the back of one of my bookshelves," Giles said he thumbed through the book. "I purchased it several years ago at a small bookshop in Regensburg. It seemed of only historical interest then -- the writer had done extensive research into standard alchemical lore -- but time has given me some additional perspective."
Willow hauled herself up over the table so she could read the book upside down. "It's in German," she said indignantly. "I've only had a year of that."
"It's the 1953 journal of an obscure East German ophthalmologist who apparently was dabbling in black magic."
"Oooh!" Willow said with interest. "What kinds of magic?"
"He seemed to have stumbled into the occult as part of a notion that extrasensory perception could be put to use as an aid for the blind. There was an obsession at the time by the Eastern bloc scientific establishment over the possibilities of ESP, but Doktor Müller's ideas were eccentric even for their tastes. In any case, he continued his private studies with very little interference for almost a decade." Giles leafed further into the book. "At some point he suddenly developed an interest in the scrying arts."
Willow took a pickle from Giles' plate and ate it. "Does it say what got his interest?"
"Not precisely, no. What's interesting, however, is that he apparently found some reliable source of information: he goes from the standard ESP card visualization exercises to crystal gazing to some very obscure scrying spells in the course of a few months. And he felt confident enough in his new knowledge of the magic to attempt some variations."
"Like I was doing." Willow sucked thoughtfully at her Coke. "But that can be dangerous, you've been saying. With a talented caster."
"This appears to be his last journal," Giles said carefully. "And from the final entries, it's apparent that he was beginning to go insane. He'd attempted a variation on the spell for communicating with the dead that he admitted was risky: He was attempting to scry out the souls of murder victims."
"Boy," Willow said, impressed.
"But look, half a year earlier he was working with a more mundane spell. He describes a successful casting in which he exchanged communications with a colleague over a distance."
Willow stared at Giles wide-eyed. "Tonight, at the top of the spell. Just before it got out of control. I think Buffy and I were looking at each other. I thought I touched her hand."
He nodded as if he'd expected that. "You called upon the power of the Moon. That's why the spell spiraled out of control. Müller knew the pitfalls of that variation. The spell he describes here utilizes the Moon's magical powers indirectly, by incorporating the tides into the spell."
"Of course!" Willow said excitedly. She hung over the book, her forehead almost bumping his. "When can we try it?"
"Well, tomorrow night. Unless you're within a week of your -- uh -- menses."
"Oh." She sat back and ran through a calculation in her head. "That's a problem?"
"A complication. With any kind of moon magic."
She considered. "But you could do it. I could be your backup."
Giles took off his glasses and ran a hand through his hair, frowning. Willow kept quiet, letting him work through his conflict. She didn't want to drag him back into something he'd decided to walk away from years before. But if they could actually contact Buffy --!
"Damn," he said finally. "It would be simpler if she'd pick up the telephone and call."
"Maybe she got my message earlier tonight," Willow suggested. "I ought to go home and find out if anybody has called."
"Perhaps." Giles put his glasses on again. "It would save us a good deal of potential trouble." He didn't voice what they were both thinking: If it would simplify matters for them, then it probably wasn't going to happen.
They sat without speaking for several minutes. Willow appropriated the old journal and skimmed through it, looking at the hand-drawn diagrams. Giles pulled out Xander's notebook to make some additional observations.
"Where have Xander and Cordelia gone?" he finally noticed.
Willow didn't even bother to look up. "They were fighting like cats and dogs a few minutes ago. Which means they're probably out in the car now, smooching like remoras."
"Maybe you should see if they're ready to go?"
"No thank you. Unless you want to go. They'll be back in about fifteen minutes anyway."
Giles started to check his watch, and discovered with mild surprise that Willow's right hand had moved to gently interlace with the undamaged fingers of his left where it lay on the table. The pain in the hand was gone, as were the rest of his bodily aches. He eased his hand out from hers and experimentally flexed it. It felt stiff -- the bones were obviously still only partially mended -- but pain-free.
Willow looked up at him.
"Endorphins," Giles said. "The backlash of the casting must have stepped up my body's production levels."
"That's good! You look a lot better than you did earlier." She smiled at him.
He smiled back. Then frowned, unable to pinpoint exactly the uneasiness he suddenly felt.
"Giles?"
"It's nothing." He took a sip of tea, pondering that. "I hope. Pain is the body's monitoring system. It keeps us from attempting to exceed our natural limits. If it's masked --"
"But we take aspirin and stuff, don't we?" Willow persisted. "Once you know to be careful, you don't really need the pain, so why keep it?"
Giles shook his hand experimentally. "No reason," he said. "Provided that the physical pain is the only thing that's being masked."