So, here she is, knee-deep in plan B. Take the wizard staff that sniffs out hellmouths from the nerds, attach the gem, and blow up every reality that stands between her and home.

Providing that the British man hasn’t lied to her. He’s a little weasel. Just because he works with Giles doesn’t make him trustworthy. It’s not her Giles he knows—it’s Demondale Giles. The real Giles wouldn’t be caught dead going by something as casual and tawdry as a nickname.

After she slips inside the public-access building, the door closes behind her with a heavy thunk. The office is small and poorly lit. She’s grateful for the light from the Creation gem; its internal glow is brighter than the yellowed fluorescents overhead.

No one sits behind the front desk. Brown dust crusts the buttons of the multiline phone and the keys of the computer keyboard. The Slayer isn’t super proficient in technology—in her normal life back in the real Sunnydale, she leaves computer stuff to her friend Willow—but even she can tell that the computer isn’t old. Just disused.

Moving deeper into the building, the Slayer tiptoes past more empty desks and unattended sound equipment. She squints to see through the beige blinds of the individual offices. The door to the break room stands open, revealing a refrigerator that’s warm, its power cord curled neatly behind a water cooler with a full jug covered in cobwebs. Everything looks as though it’s been abandoned for months.

But if it’s abandoned, why was the front door unlocked? Anyone could walk in off the street and steal any of the computers.

So why are they all untouched?

At the end of the hallway, a single red light glows above a sign that reads ON AIR. Below it is a door that says SMILE TIME STUDIO. The staff knocks itself against the doorknob.

Slipping inside, the Slayer recoils as she’s faced with burning-bright stage lights. As her eyes adjust, she can make out the shadows of TV cameras aimed at a set of eye-watering primary colors. It looks like a day-care toy chest blown up in size and scope. Giant alphabet blocks and massive teddy bears frame the set, but the TV cameras are all aimed at a fake tree house with puppets dancing in front of it, singing a song about the importance of building confidence.

“That’s right, kids.” A puppet with a shock of red hair sticking out through the snapback of a tiny baseball hat dances up to the TV camera, pressing his face close to the lens. “Get real close, that’s it. Put your hands on the screen. We’ll play patty-cake together.”

Shimmering purple light flows out of the camera and into the red-haired puppet’s hands. The puppet shudders and groans, a sound that is wholly disconcerting coming out of a children’s entertainer.

The purple light crawls across the set, filling each of the other puppets, who continue to sing and dance. Word by word their song shifts from being about confidence to a series of Latin phrases the Slayer doesn’t know.