“You may relinquish the Marnoxon to Harmony,” D’Hoffryn told Anya. Face twitching, he blew out of the corner of his mouth to stop Harmony from arranging his beard hair over the edge of the bar top. “She has been authorized to transport the gem back to its rightful place.”

Unzipping a large quilted purse emblazoned with huge interlocked Cs, Harmony beamed. “I know how important the gem is to the mission statement. Especially since it was taken and no one could, like, defend themselves or go poof or anything. I’ll take extra-super-good care of it. I swear on Chanel.” She tittered and held the open purse out to Anya. “Don’t you just love that show? I’m such a Carrie.”

“I never have any idea what you’re saying, Harmony,” Anya said, reluctantly placing the gem at the bottom of the purse.

“Ha-ha, that’s exactly what Miranda would say,” Harmony said. With a flourish, she zipped the bag closed and slid the purse straps onto her shoulder.

Anya turned back to D’Hoffryn, wondering how his pointed ears didn’t bleed all day listening to Harmony’s inanities.

“Sir,” she said stiffly. “I was able to grant the slayer’s Wish to return her to her own timeline. Will the other dimensions she destroyed be able to be salvaged?”

“Unfortunately not,” D’Hoffryn said. “Direct contact between Creation and Corruption creates nullity. We cannot invert that nothingness with more Creation. The majority of the worlds that existed beneath Hell’s Own Herald this morning have now never been. We can only be grateful that ours was not among those erased.”

“Right, of course, I’m delighted to get to keep existing,” Anya said. “But does that mean all the damage done to Demondale today can’t be undone? Are the Powers That Be going to time-lock us?”

“What’s time-locking?” Jonathan asked in a whisper.

“I don’t know,” Andrew answered. “It sounds timey-wimey.”

“Oh my gosh! The Trio of Losers!” Harmony squealed. She peered around Anya’s shoulder. “Am I right? No. There’s only two of you. I could have sworn I went to school with three nerds who looked just like you.”

“You did,” Jonathan said, shaking like a Chihuahua.

Andrew nodded. “I asked you to prom. You said no.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Harmony said. Her lower lip jutted out in an exaggerated pout. “That must have been really hard for you.”

“Um, not really. I’m gay, so. . .”

“No way!” She slapped the air between them. “If I’d known that, I totally would have gone with you! I just didn’t want to get pawed by some random creep.”

D’Hoffryn coughed, silencing the human children. “It appears, from my inability to create a new body for myself, that we have been time-locked. I believe that the Powers That Be intend for us to remember what has come to pass here today.”