"You've done wonders here." Xander examined the sound oaken panels on the walls, the well constructed bookshelves, and spun the brown and golden surface of the huge globe. "This must have set you back a bundle."

"A bunch of bundles," muttered Willow sitting behind her desk, which was a smaller mahogany version of Warrens oaken expanse. "Warren is determined to play the Great Detective mostly at my expense. Keeps saying that everything will be paid for once we get going"

Speaking of the great detective, where is he?"

"At a soccer game. A visiting team from Bolivia has set up an impromptu game with some locals, and they're playing at Sunnydale Middle School."

"Case connected or fun?"

"Case connected." Willow swiveled in her chair and pulled a file from a cabinet, passing it across to Xander, where he had drawn up the red leather chair. "The Moche, um, pre-incans, used to fight among themselves and the losers were sacrificed, their blood was drunk, and the skeletons defleshed and made to dance."

"And why did they do all this?"

"Appease the gods, stave off disaster, head guy wanted to drink blood."

"So, Warren believes they substituted soccer for tribal warfare to get their sacrifices. Do you think its a good idea for him to go alone?"

"Buffy's there. 's not like I can do anything, non magickal that is, and I don't use magick anymore."

Xander frowned. "This isn't about you not using magick Will. It's about how you use it. What you do with it."

"Yeah, we all saw that."

"We did that and now you must examine how it came to be that you did that."

Willow's eye's flashed. "It started when he killed Tara."

"No, it started a lot sooner than that." Xander cocked his head. "Always a sidekick never the Slayer. I think you said something like that when you and Buffy faced each other in the Magic Box. I think it has more to do with your not being the centre of attention."

Willow's eyebrows raised, but she didn't say anything.

"Look," Xander argued. "Remember how you were in school. Cordy and the cordettes always putting you down because you were with the audiovisual club, you wore clothes that they wouldn't be caught dead in. Never the popular one. Along come Buffy, we join up with her in her world saving ways, but she's the star and were like Tonto to The Lone Ranger. We help but she gets the glory."

"You think that...," Willow sputtered. "If it wasn't for me Buffy would still be in Hell, or wherever she was."

"But when she died, you took her spot, coming up with the plans, directing us in the fighting. When you brought her back what happened? Suddenly she's the star again and your back to number one sidekick again. With one big difference."

"Which is?"

"You brought somebody back from the dead. You realized how powerful you could be and it went to your head. You thought you could use magick for everything. Things that you used to do very well without magick. And you used it to manipulate others. Tara's memory, ours."

"I wanted to make things okay," Willow protested.

"Okay," Xander conceded. "I'll grant you that. You wanted to make things okay but your kind of okay, which is a big no-no. Not just because you're messing with people's minds, but also because eventually you're gonna run up against someone who's gonna think that you're just as evil as what we fight."

"But I'm not a bad guy."

"Which is what you told Giles. Was that just before or just after you told him that maybe he better not piss you off?"

Willow flushed. "That was just talk. Giles knows that, and how do you know all this anyway?"

"Insider knowledge," Xander said. "Which is so not the point. Which is that the old Willow would have seen all sorts of red flags and alarms with that statement. Maybe not right away, but later. Which you didn't. You went merrily ahead with the idea that you could magick away any problems you had."

"Which is why I no longer use magick," Willow snapped. "Problem solved. Willow's magick won't be a problem again."

"The problem was never the magick, and not using magick is not going to solve the problem. It may make it worse."

"Oh?" Willow rolled her eyes. "Just how can my not using magick make it worse?"

"It can if you believe that the non use of magick somehow eases or atones for what you did."

"I know that. That's what this is all about. To atone for what I did."

"No, this is about the PTB using your guilt to goad you into taking a bigger part in helping to balance the scales. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, cause that's what you've been doing anyway and it goes some distance in working off the bad karma debt you have owing. But none of this will atone for what you did. Atonement begins when you realize where you went wrong and why you went wrong. Which is not going to happen if you think that doing this or not using magic is all that is needed."

"Aren't they worried about how I'd use magick?"

"Yeah they worry." Xander smiled. "Ever shake a pop can before opening it?"

"No but you have. Many a time. Soaking me I might add."

"So you know what happens. Pressure builds up, finds a release and sprays all over the place. Magick is kind of like that, all calm and quiescent until it gets shaken up, with one difference. If you don't open the pop can so that the pressure can be released, it's gonna find it's own way out. They'd much rather you be in control when it does."

"So what do they want me to do?"

Xander gave her a card. "That's got the name and address of a coven leader in LA. She can maybe help you with the rough parts."

"Okay fine." Willow examined the card. "I'll call soon as I can." She perked up. "Does this mean that I can give all this up?"

"Well not yet, and they're kind of hoping you'll want to continue."