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Author's Chapter Notes:
Special thanks to Wolfie (wolffan200) for her help with Fred in the previous chapter (I have not seen AtS yet, shame on me!).
Lunchtime came.

They went to the dining room again and just like at breakfast, one table was covered in an assortment of foods. It was considerably more crowded now, however. After filling their plates, Anya led them to the only two vacant seats that were next to each other.

As soon as Willow sat down, the girl to her right greeted her.

"Hi!" She put down the glass of blood she'd been drinking from and held out her hand. "You're new! I'm Harmony."

"Uh, hi. I'm Willow," she said. After a small hesitation that she hoped nobody noticed, she shook the vampire's hand. She'd expected it to be cold, but it wasn't. It was pleasantly warm.

"Oh, that's a lovely name! Where are you from?" Harmony sounded genuinely interested.

"California."

"Really? Wow, that's awesome, I've always wanted to go there! I'm so jealous."

As they made the typical small-talk of newly acquainted people, she discovered that Harmony was a walking, talking contradiction. She was the very essence of the ideal cheerleader, all blonde, busty, perky and happy. She wore makeup, her nails were painted pink and she accessorized with the best of them going by her outfit. She was even friendly, unlike the cheerleaders at Sunnydale High. Yet, there was no doubt she was a vampire. Her skin was paper white rather than the expected tan and she was sipping blood, not a Starbucks frappuccino.

Somehow, she couldn't picture this girl running around at night, killing people.

After a while, once she'd built up the courage, she asked about her temperature.

Harmony laughed. "Nah, it's a trick. Check for yourself," she offered, and held out her left hand. It was cool to the touch. Not freezing cold, but cool. Significantly cooler than a normal human hand. Then the girl swapped hands and held out her right. It was warm. Not as warm as it had been the first time they touched, however.

"How...?"

"It's the blood," Harmony grinned and held up her glass. "We prefer to drink it warm, so it's just like if I were holding a cup of hot coffee or tea. It heats up my skin."

Huh. She wondered if vampires preferred to be cold or if they missed being warm, like they had been as humans. That was one question she didn't have the guts to ask yet, however.

Exactly as Anya had foreseen, Dalton came to knock on her door soon after lunch. First he apologized profusely to the demon once again for Willow having been dumped into her lap the night before, then he turned towards Willow and said that the guest room was ready for her.

Together they followed him down the corridor. As they walked, she read the names on the doors to herself: Anyanka, Drusilla, Violet, Harmony, Faith, Winifred, Rona and Tara. Then there were a few unmarked doors. The very last door on the right was labeled "Guest Room". Home sweet home.

It was plain, but well-kept. A single bed rather than a double, only one bookshelf (and it was of course empty), and a small, double-door closet instead of a walk-in one. There was a window though, and two chairs with a table in a corner. A bit like a hotel room; no personality, but everything you needed for comfort.

On the bed sat two zipped bags, one small and one medium sized, a bathrobe like the one she'd worn the day before and a pair of slippers.

Dalton held out a key for her. She was surprised but accepted it readily.

"It is not strictly necessary; no one will enter your room without your permission", Anya clarified and gave her an encouraging smile, "but if it'll make you feel safer then why not."

"I must warn you," Dalton added, "that should you lock yourself in your room and refuse to come out, the Master does have a skeleton key."

"I think she's clever enough to know she'd only starve to death if she did that," Anya snorted.

"You will find towels and laundry bags in the bathroom. Drop the bag outside your door when you need something cleaned. They are picked up and returned once a day."

"In the morning," Anya supplied.

"Should you require anything, write it down and pass it to a minion." He pointed to a notepad and pen resting on the nightstand.

Willow nodded and thanked him. He left.

"It's not much," Anya offered with a look around the small room, "but it's better than sharing. Would you like me to show you around now?"

"Okay."

They went to the library first, to her glee. It was full of comfortable chairs and of course books upon books upon books. The walls were full of them, and there were ladders on rollers allowing you to reach every single one. She couldn't help herself and ended up standing in the middle, simply breathing in the atmosphere of library. The only thing that could make it better, she decided, was if it was bigger.

"Do you know how to use computers?" Anya had walked over to a small desk while she was having her rapturous moment. There was a shiny black laptop sitting there, waiting to be used.

"Sure." She didn't expand on it and it made her feel a little guilty, but if that thing was hooked up to the internet she could use it to escape. Or rather, she corrected herself, she could use it to be rescued.

"There's a database with all the books," Anya said and moved the mouse, making the screen hum to life. "You can look up the book you want and it'll say where it is."

Anya reached over and typed in 'Hamlet' to test it. There was an immediate response. Much to Willow's surprise, they were informed that there were three copies of Shakespeare's Hamlet in the mansion. One in the Women's Library, which must be the one they were in, one in the Main Library and finally one in what was called Personal Collection.

"If it's not here, then you can request it," Anya instructed. "Just write down the name and author and hand it to Dalton or a minion. They'll fetch it for you."

"What's the Personal Collection?"

"Oh, that's the Master's private library, in his room."

Life was full of surprises today, clearly. Who would have thought that a vampire would feel the need to keep a personal library in his room, let alone one with Shakespeare in it? Then again, she thought, he wrote mostly tragedies, didn't he? Maybe vampires liked reading that sort of thing.

"Can I?" she asked, and Anya stepped aside right away.

She pretended to look up various books and authors (and she had to admit, she was curious to see what else was on the Master's private shelves) while she waited for an opportune moment. It didn't take long, Anya soon wandered away to look at some nearby books. Quickly, she minimized the database program and delved into the directory of the computer. No internet. Dammit. But there was an intranet. That meant that there were computers elsewhere in the mansion, and that some of them were hooked up to this one. She could access them from here and snoop around to her heart's content if she was left alone.

The prospect of doing so was too good to waste now, when Anya was hovering nearby. She brought the database back up and smiled, she didn't have to fake it as she was genuinely happy for the first time in a long while.

"This is great," she said. "I'll have to come back here later and borrow some books."

Anya put away the book she'd been looking at and smiled back. "You won't get in trouble if you don't return them on time, either," she joked.

Willow laughed. She felt a little bad about lying, but she had no choice.

"You've already seen the dining room," her demonic tour guide went on as they left the library and leisurely walked along the corridor. "The food stays out for two hours at breakfast and lunch, so you don't have to be there on the dot for those, but everyone always has to be in the great hall before dinner starts at nine."

"Why?"

"Dalton comes with word from the Master then," Anya explained. "Anything we need to know, such as upcoming trips, other events and whatever. And, most importantly, his choice for the night."

She wanted to know more about that, but Anya continued before she had a chance to say something. "A couple of weeks ago, for example, we were informed that he was considering bringing a new girl here, and wanted us to be prepared. Yesterday, when I first saw you, I thought you were it. Now I understand that it was the Slayer he meant."

A couple of weeks. She supposed she shouldn't be surprised that the kidnapping had been planned in advance. The gnawing worry about Buffy and where she might be right now made her forget all about what she'd wanted to ask.

"If you're not feeling well or want some time to yourself, you can grab a tray and take your food to your room. You can also request food be made and brought up to you, if you crave something that isn't available or if you're hungry outside of meals," Anya informed her. "Like with the omelet last night. Same as with the books: write down what you want and give it to a minion. They're always outside the door in the great hall."

Guarding us, Willow thought. Keeping us here.

They'd reached the next door ("Music Room", it proclaimed) and were standing outside it. Piano music could be heard, faintly. As Anya opened the door, it grew considerably in strength. She figured the walls must be pretty thick.

To her astonishment, it was the dark-haired vampire that was sitting at the instrument. She was staring up at the ceiling as her delicate hands danced over the keys. She played flawlessly, despite not looking at what she was doing.

Well! Weren't vampires just full of surprises today.

"Hello Dru," Anya greeted.

"Anyanka," Drusilla replied, still entranced by the ceiling but stilling her fingers, making the music stop abruptly. "The moon whispers that you will lie between the fool and the fire soon."

"That's nice," Anya replied absently, looking at Willow instead.

"The little tree will too, although for her it will be butter, not fire." Drusilla giggled, sharp and girlish. "The butter will melt around the roots and the fool to become an ocean! Swallow it all up. Oh, it'll be so pretty!"

Her eyes nearly bugged out of her head. What?

Anya came to her rescue. "Dru is insane, and she's also a Seer. She gets visions all the time. It's awful hard to figure out what on earth it is she sees, as it gets filtered through her madness. I've stopped trying to understand them, it only gave me headaches."

"Wow," she said.

Despite Anya's experience, she couldn't help but commit what had been said to memory. The little tree was her, she guessed. She wondered if the butter ocean had anything to do with the copious amounts of grease and fat she'd consumed recently.

Drusilla began to play again, picking up the melody exactly where she'd stopped, as if nothing had happened. She'd dropped her eyes to actually look at the sheet music now, too.

"She has good days and bad days, you're unfortunately seeing a bad one," Anya said. "You'll like her. She's very entertaining when she tells stories from the old days."

"How old is she?"

"I don't know exactly, but she's older than the Master. Well over a hundred."

She glanced around the room. In addition to the piano, there were several other instruments, including a harp, and shelves holding books and folders full of sheet music. Some books even looked to be guides for teaching yourself how to play.

"Does the Master like music and art?" she asked.

"Yes, very much so," Anya confirmed. "He occasionally invites artists here and holds a big dinner in one of the ballrooms. We all get to go, then. Once, there was this violinist, a little girl, couldn't have been more than nine, and she played for us for hours. She was magnificent."

She thought about the paintings in the hall and in the women's bedrooms. Hamlet in his personal library. Now there was this entire room dedicated to music and the revelation that he invited artists to his home. Maybe he'd been a painter or a musician before he'd been turned, she mused.

They left Drusilla in peace.

There was one final door left. It wasn't marked and as soon as it was opened she understood why. It lead to a spiral staircase. Anya headed up.

Once they reached the top, there was a small landing and a doorway. Through it, of all things, a rooftop conservatory. The evening sun was shining down and bathed the entire half-circle room in bright, warm light. After the many rooms and corridors without windows, it was a bit of a shock.

"This is beautiful," she marveled. "But why would a vampire have a sun room?"

"Why not?" Anya countered. "There's no rule saying you can only come here during the day."

True. It would look pretty nice at night, too, she figured, with the moon above, the starry sky all around and the air nice and chilly instead of sweltering like it was now. She could imagine herself up here, snuggled up with a blanket and a book.

She stepped over to the glass wall and looked around. The mansion was shaped like a rectangular fortress. In the courtyard within, there was a garden. She'd seen it briefly through the windows in hers and Anya's room, but this was the first time she'd stopped to scrutinize it. It was large and lush; there were even a few proper trees in it. Near the center, there was a pond with a little fountain. She could see what looked like statues half-hidden among the bushes and flowers, too. She wondered if the women had access to it; she'd love to go check it out.

"One more place to show you," Anya said.

She'd hoped for the garden when they descended the stairs below the floor of the bedrooms and library, but they went down yet another level to the basement. Just like at the top, there was a small landing and an open doorway. What was on the other side was completely different, however: a cave-like passageway that felt slightly damp. Her thoughts drifted to mines and dungeons, wondering if this was perhaps the place Buffy was being kept. Then the passageway widened and she gasped.

"Oh, wow."

"I know," Anya agreed. "Takes your breath away first time you see it, doesn't it?"

It was a pool area. Not just any pool, though - it was the most luxurious place she had ever seen, like she'd stepped right into a fashionable spa for the rich. It really was a cave; the walls cut from solid rock that had been painted white, with little nooks at regular intervals that held lamps to keep the room in a soft glow. There were lights underwater, too. She'd never imagined a pool underground without any natural light, but it worked. Boy, did it work.

The pool itself wasn't simply a rectangular box in the ground, it snaked around the cavern like a river, occasionally widening and then narrowing again. It formed a full, if uneven circle. She could see a jacuzzi in a corner on an elevated platform and a fake waterfall along one wall.

Anya lead her across a small bridge and onto the 'island' in the center of the room so she could look around some more.

"Why don't you spend all day down here?" Willow wanted to know.

"Prune-y fingers, but I do come here a lot. There's a sauna through there," Anya pointed at a doorway further in. "As well as showers and such. There's something you need to be aware of, though."

"What's that?"

Anya lead her back to where they'd entered and picked up a red plastic circle from a shelf carved into the stone wall next to the doorway. She hadn't noticed it on the way in. It looked like a flattened frisbee.

"If the door is closed and this is hanging on it," Anya demonstrated by hanging the plastic circle on a nail in the door. "Then you can't enter."

"Why not?"

Anya gave her a look. "It'll be in use."

There was a moment as the dots connected in her mind. "Oh."

"Uh-huh."

She tried to control her furious blush on the way back. She'd somewhat succeeded by the time they reached the bedrooms. Anya informed her that she'd come back later to take her down to dinner, letting her have some time to herself to relax and get comfortable, and then disappeared into her room.

When she approached the guestroom she discovered that there was something waiting for her outside. On the floor right in front of the door was a note with a bottle on top. She picked it up and carried it inside to check it out in – she reveled a little – privacy.

It was a small plastic bottle of cinnamon body spray. The note said simply "Housewarming present! - Faith". She smiled. Although she hadn't been comfortable the day before while under Faith's ministrations, the girl had willingly shared her own clothes (and panties) with her. She hadn't even properly thanked her for it. And now this.

She went into the bathroom and placed the bottle on the counter by the sink. It was the only thing with any personality in the small, bright room; the bags she'd received had contained only generic, unscented toiletries. She looked at herself in the mirror. They were being so nice. Well, the women were, anyway. She had a bad feeling that this couldn't possibly last.





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