"That is Xellos, isn't it?" Zelgadis asked uncertainly.
"We're pretty sure he is," Lina sighed. "He keeps being nervous around Amelia and looking at me like he knows a really great joke I'd like to hear--only now he looks like he wishes he could tell me."
"That's not Xellos," Gourry contradicted her suddenly. "I remember him. He was a mazoku, and he had a black cape and a great big stick."
Everyone winced, and then Sylphiel gave a little gasp. "Lina-san! Do you think Xellos-san thinks he can...?"
Lina and Amelia considered this for a moment while the men looked on blankly. Amelia's eyes began to swim. "Poor, deluded, Xellos-san," she mourned.
"No, wait, Amelia," Lina said slowly. "It's not a bad idea. Remember how you used to think all bad guys, and only bad guys, wore black?"
Blue eyes went round. "You think he's trying to trick us into thinking he's good?"
"It would be like Xellos, but... well, on second thought, maybe not."
"It'd be a change," Gourry said brightly, "from the way he usually tries to trick us into thinking he's a jerk."
"He is a jerk. I don't know, Amelia," she said, fingering her sorceress's cloak in a way that made Zelgadis (and Sylphiel, too, by the looks of it) intensely curious. "I'm just saying that it's amazing what the right new outfit at the right time can do for a person. Anyway, it's not just the clothes. He bleeds. He's human. And, yes, Zel, I'm almost sure he's really Xellos. All the mazoku wet their pants when he shows up--I don't think they'd risk pissing him off by impersonating him."
"Point," Zelgadis acknowledged, smirking at remembered faces.
"Besides," she said as though she had expected better, "if it is an imitation, it's a really bad one. Even Martina would do better. I mean, what was that with the tea? He didn't even put sugar in. Even Gourry knows about Xellos's sweet tooth."
"I do?"
"He also didn't drink it."
"Come on, Zel..."
"No, listen. He may not look or act exactly like Xellos," Zelgadis pointed out, "but he's convinced you that he is. That's what makes an impersonation good, if you ask me."
"Hey!" Lina protested "I'm not that easy to convince. I only think it's possible."
"How is it possible, though? Have any of you ever heard of a mazoku becoming human before? I mean, really becoming one, not just pretending."
Amelia, Gourry, and Sylphiel racked their brains and shook their heads, but Lina surfaced from her moment of thought with a triumphant grin. "Gaav."
"You have an answer to everything," he grumbled.
"Best way! Besides, Zelgadis, don't you want him to be human?" She looked at him shrewdly. "Or are you jealous because he's had a cure?"
He blinked. So that was what Xellos had meant, telling him not to think about it. "Our situations are completely different. No one ever ran away just from seeing his face."
"Except you."
"I didn't run away, Lina, I just didn't trust him. And I was right not to, and I still don't. And yes, I do want this to be him and him to be human. That's why I won't believe it without knowing why and how. I know about things that sound good before you look at the details."
"I guess you do," she agreed cheerfully, fingering her cloak again. Zelgadis couldn't help noticing that her happy smile was the same one Xellos seemed to have a patent out on.
Sylphiel stood up authoritatively. "Zelgadis-san, Lina-san was thoughtful enough to put everything we picked last night in water. You'll come and help us plant it all, won't you, you and Gourry-sama? If you help us, it'll go twice as fast!"
Zelgadis was about inform her that Gourry-sama could if he wanted to but Zelgadis-san was declining when Lina caught his eye. He suddenly became aware that, whatever Sylphiel thought, it had not been a request. Sighing, he drained his mug, cursed Xellos's name automatically, and stood.
When they were approaching Sylphiel's house again, filthy and exhausted from hours of unaccustomed agriculture, Lina stopped complaining about how hungry she was. Instead, she began to slaver and squeal about how good something smelled. Zelgadis, among whose demon-enhanced senses scent did not number, decided that something had died near the cottage, possibly by fireball, and Lina was in for a serious disappointment when they arrived. He started to wonder, though, when Gourry, too, went glassy eyed and started to walk faster, and even Amelia seemed to dredge up some spare energy from somewhere.
"You don't think he actually found food?" Zelgadis asked Sylphiel.
She clasped her hands together. "Oh, I'm sure he did!" With a worried look at Lina and Gourry, she added, "I hope he did."
"If he didn't," he warned her grimly, "don't be surprised if Lina tries to eat you."
"Oh, Lina-san would never do that," she cried hotly--well, hotly for Sylphiel, anyway--turning a faint pink with the force of her convictions.
"She usually turns on Gourry, since he's usually closest," he continued, "but she even tried to bite my leg once. She's not rational when she's hungry. If she tries anything, just give her a good, hard smack on the head and push her away."
"Oh, I couldn't," she exclaimed, turning even pinker.
"I think you'll find it very easy when she has her teeth fastened in your calf," he advised, resolving to stay close in case a set of marble knuckles were called for.
