“Look, I’m sorry,” Jonathan said to Ripper. “All we’ve got is fake money. I don’t have a job, and Andrew blew his last paycheck on these hyper-realistic fang dentures—”

“Dude!” Andrew whispered, tugging on the neck of his own turtleneck like it was suddenly too tight. “Shut up! Those are a secret!”

A faint scream made Jonathan turn around. Anya clutched at her heart, the blood draining from her face. Terrified that she was about to go into cardiac arrest, Jonathan started to reach for her. She staggered away from him and shrieked, “Fake money?!” before digging through her pockets and pulling out the money they’d paid her for their Wish. Tears of betrayal glazed her eyes. “What did I ever do to deserve fake money?”

“I mean, we were paying you to get a Wish you couldn’t grant,” Jonathan said, knowing this was a weak rejoinder. The sight of the vengeance demon’s tears made him want to shrivel up and disappear. He hadn’t realized that Anya had any feelings to hurt.

“I helped you! Protected you! Defended you!” Anya spluttered at Jonathan and Andrew as she dumped all the counterfeit cash onto the floor. It fluttered down to cover a line of open books. “I thought we were a team! I thought we were—well, not friends precisely—but something more than neighbors you have to wave at and less than people who share an intimate knowledge of one another’s personal histories.”

“No, what you’re describing is friends,” Spike told Anya, crunching his way across the store, the broadsword slung over his shoulder. “Not particularly close friends.”

“That!” Anya said, jabbing a finger at Spike but continuing to glare daggers at Jonathan and Andrew. “I thought we were not particularly close friends! But you were just conning me! Cheating me like filthy, stinking warlocks!”

“Excuse me,” Ripper said stiffly. “I’m a warlock.”

“You have a crystal that smells lies and ruins friendships,” Anya retorted.

“Anya, enough,” Angelus said, his voice firm but not unkind. The mace in his hand swung jauntily by his side as he came up beside her and set a hand on her shoulder. “There will be time to fight about money after the slayer is dead. Hell, if we live another day, I’ll kill the boys for you myself.”

Anya scowled at the larger vampire, looking like a petulant child. “You’ll just eat them,” she said, shaking off his hand. She fixed Jonathan with another withering stare. “When I have my magic back, I can make them truly suffer.”

“Great, so we all have things to look forward to,” Andrew said weakly.