Confession is good for the soul only in the sense that a tweed coat is good for dandruff - it is a palliative rather than a remedy. - Peter De Vries

        Zefilia and…Luna. Ugh. Lina rode between Gourry and Naga and rehearsed what she’d say to her sister and how she’d say it. Doubtless, Luna would wonder where Zelgadis was and why he wasn’t there to explain his problem. She’d definitely try to make Lina figure out what the Knight of Seified had to do with Zel’s cure, which probably wasn’t a bad thing since it would give them a leg up on solving the mystery of the clues. Still, Lina didn’t think she could figure it out without all of the clues. Maybe after Amelia and Jessica found the other three. Of course, it was entirely possible (however unlikely) that Luna would be in a generous mood and would try her hand at solving the mystery—if only her own part in it, or Seified’s. Lina figured the Dragon God had more to do with it than his Knight…but again, she could be wrong.
        "Lina, I’m hungry," Gourry complained. "Can we stop at the next village?"
        "I agree," Naga pouted. "Let’s stop, Lina. I’m parched!"
        Lina was too lost in her own thoughts to hear them and just carried on with her previous line of pondering. It was too bad Luna couldn’t communicate with that piece of Seified inside her beyond tapping into it to cast spells. It would’ve been pretty useful to be able to ask the Dragon God a few questions directly. Perhaps if Luna went into a state of deep mediation…
        "Lina!" Naga smacked her friend upside the head to get her attention. "Are you listening to me?! I said I’M HUNGRY AND THIRSTY!"
        Lina slugged Naga back but failed to unhorse her, which had been her plan. "Like I care! Can’t you see I’m thinking?"
        "You can’t be thinking," Naga growled, "there’s no smoke coming out of your ears!"
        Gourry snickered, then stifled it at a murderous glare from Lina. "You’ll think better on a full stomach…" he offered hopefully.
        "And over a pint of full-bodied lager!" Naga added with a grin, getting Gourry to ogle her "full bodied" figure again, something he’d been hard pressed to resist doing no matter how often Lina smacked him for it.
        Lina sighed and rolled her eyes. "If I drink that, I won’t be able to see straight, much less think straight." With another sigh, she admitted she, too, was hungry and ready to stop someplace for a bite and a brew. That got a rousing cheer from her companions, who spurred their horses into a hard gallop, leaving Lina coughing in their dust. "I never have this problem with Zel…" Lina muttered, then galloped after them.

        "Here’s what I was thinking," Lina began, gesturing with a chicken leg to make her point to her companions who sat to either side of her at their small table in the corner of the inn’s common room.
        "Pass the hot sauce, please" Gourry mumbled to Naga over a mouthful of wings.
        Naga passed it. "Salt and pepper, please."
        Gourry passed it.
        Lina fumed. "Guys…"
        "Sauce, please," Naga demanded, wiggling her fingers at Gourry until he put the container of hot sauce into her hand. She doused her wings with sauce, stuffed two into her mouth, made happy yum-yum noises, then washed it all down with an entire mug of ale. She slammed down the mug and shouted: "More ale over here!"
        Gourry finished his mug and seconded the motion.
        "EXCUSE ME, BUT I’M TALKING HERE!" Lina screamed, and the whole room was instantly as quiet as the grave. Lina looked around with an enraged snarl: "Not you people!" The conversation and other crowd noises started back up again, and Lina returned her attention to her feasting sidekicks. "As I was saying—"
        "Here ya go! Two more pints!" The well-endowed waitress in the low-cut blouse announced cheerfully and plunked down frothy mugs in front of Naga and Gourry. She winked at Gourry, who blushed and buried his face in his brew, then she wiggled off to serve somebody else.
        Lina licked her lips and tried it again. "I was saying…" she paused to make sure she wouldn’t be interrupted and that Naga and Gourry were actually listening to her this time. "I’ve been thinking about what I’ll say to my sister—"
        "How about," Gourry put on his best happy girl face: "’Hi, Sis! Long time no see!’"
        "Then you hug," Naga added with a jiggle and a giggle, "and it’s a happy reunion! I can’t wait to meet your sister! I’m dying to know if your chest is an Inverse family curse, or just your problem! OH-HOHOHOHOHO!"
        "Naga…" Lina growled. "That’s not impor—"
        "Yeah!" Gourry chimed in. "I was wondering that, too. So, Lina, is Luna as flat-chested as you are?"
        Lina looked left at Gourry, then right at Naga, decided she could hit both of them at the same time and planted a fist into each of their faces. "Listen to me, ok? Luna is the Knight of Seified but she can’t actually talk to the piece of Seified inside of her that makes her the Knight—"
        "Is that sort of like how Garv’s inside Lara?" Gourry asked, rubbing his swollen nose with a hurt look.
        Lina grit her teeth. At least he was listening this time. She nodded. "Exactly like that. What I was driving at was, it would’ve been great if she could do that, then we could ask Seified some direct questions—"
        "But if we can’t do that," Naga drawled, her own nose just a swollen as Gourry’s and red from too much ale, "why even bring it up? I think you’re just scared of your sister, so you’re making a big deal out of what to say. It’s no big deal: Just tell her what’s going on. How hard can that be?"
        "Yeah, Lina," Gourry agreed. "Once you tell her about Zelgadis and the clues and the Lord of Nightmares and stuff, I’ll bet she’ll help us out!"
        Lina jammed the chicken leg into her mouth and pulled the bone back out, using her teeth to peel off the meat all in one bite. Ok, they had a point. Maybe she was stressing out over what to say a little too much, but it was Luna! They just didn’t understand how it was (nor did she care to help them understand, since it would only give them more things to tease her about).
        Naga pushed Lina’s mug closer to her hand in an attempt at sympathy. "She can’t be that bad!"
        "She’s your sister!" Gourry added and nudged Lina’s plate of chicken wings closer to her. He was concerned that she was still on her first helping and wasn’t even halfway through that. That just wasn’t like Lina at all. "How bad can it be to just talk to her?"
        "Anyway," Naga crowed and stuck out her breasts with pride, "it’s not like you’re facing her alone. You’ll be in the company of the beautiful and powerful Naga the Serpent!"
        "And Gourry Gabriev, Swordsman of Li—er," he stroked Firedrake’s hilt as he thought up a cool-sounding new title for himself. "Hm. Can’t call myself Firedrake’s master, since I haven’t mastered it yet…Owner of Firedrake? No, not intimidating enough. Hmm…"
        Lina munched disgustedly on a chicken wing without tasting it and glared at Gourry. She was about to face her worst mortal fear, and all he could think about was coming up with an new title for himself. Well, ok, in Gourry’s defense, "Swordsman of Light" had been his identity since he was a kid. Now that he wasn’t the Swordsman of Light anymore, he needed a new name to strike fear into and impress prospective clients and/or opponents. "Beats hell out of thinking about Luna," she thought and turned her mind to Gourry’s problem. "Isn’t your name enough?" She suggested. "I mean, you’re pretty famous, right?"
        "As the Swordsman of Light," Gourry pointed out. "Firedrake’s an important sword, and I need to make sure my name is associated with it."
        "How about ‘Owner of Firedrake’?" Naga suggested, then backed off from it with a thoughtful scowl. "No, that sounds lame."
        Gourry nodded. "Sounds like I just found it lying around and doesn’t tell people I can actually use it."
        Lina scratched her chin. "What about ‘Chosen of Firedrake’?"
        "Makes it sound like we’re getting married," Gourry grimaced.
        They all made deep thought noises and nodded sagely.
        A gigantic yawn from the vicinity of Lina’s hip (and which only she could hear) announced the fact that Icedrake was awake, or that she was finding the conversation boring. Probably the latter, unless sword-haunting spirits took naps.
        ::Hey, Sorceress. Feed me::
        "Feed you?" Lina blinked down at her sword in confusion. "Feed you what?"
        ::Blood, stupid. What else do you think swords eat? I need to kill something. Your boyfriend’s being stupid, how about him?::
        "Tempting, but…no," Lina grumbled back. "Hey, maybe you have an idea. What should Gourry call himself now that he’s got Firedrake instead of the Sword of Light?"
        ::Lunch. Lemme at ‘em!::
        "I said ‘no’!" Lina smacked Icedrake’s hilt. "Knock it off!"
        "What’s she saying?" Gourry and Naga demanded worriedly.
        "She wants to kill you," Lina told Gourry, "because she’s hungry and needs blood."
        "She drinks blood?" Naga asked with a raised eyebrow.
        Lina sighed. "Duh, she’s a sword! Swords drink blood."
        ::Like you knew that before I told you::
        "Hey, it stands to reason, ok? It’s just that most swords can’t tell their owners they’re hungry," Lina shot back. "Tell ya what: We’ll go find some bandits to slaughter as soon as we leave here, how’s that?"
        ::Lots of bandits::
        "Sure. Lots," Lina agreed.
        "With lots of loot?" Naga grinned, her eyes a-sparkle at the thought of ill-gotten gold.
        Lina nodded. "Oh yeah. Gotta have loot, or they’re not worth the trouble, right?"
        Nod! Nod! Nod!
        Gourry didn’t look nearly as enthusiastic. "You’re just gonna kill people for the sake of killing them?"
        "For their loot!" Naga correct firmly. "And because they’re bad guys—"
        "Evil-doers," Lina chimed in.
        "Thieves," Naga finished. "And bad guys have no rights!"
        "But do they deserve to die?" Gourry pressed.
        Naga and Lina exchanged baffled looks. "Well," Lina began uncertainly, "a lot of these bandit gangs are murderers, too."
        Naga nodded. "That’s right! They murder innocent people—"
        "Children, even!"
        "Not to mention raping," a gravelly male voice added from over Lina’s shoulder. "And slashing and pillaging."
        Lina wrinkled her nose. "And they don’t bathe, either." She tensed for a fight and reached down to loosen Icedrake in her scabbard. To her left, Gourry was doing the same with Firedrake. A pair of muscular men in leather sidled up behind Naga, the belts crossing their chests filled with small throwing daggers. Naga stiffened, and a tiny, sinister smile crept onto her face as she met Lina’s eyes, then Gourry’s. Ready for action.
        ::Bandits! Delish! Get me a nice, fat, juicy one!::
        Lina grinned and muttered: "No problem." She began a fireball spell under her breath, then just as the ball formed in her hand she slammed it over her head and into the face of the guy leaning over her shoulder. He screamed in pain and stumbled backward, giving Lina enough room to jump out of her chair and onto the table—at least, that had been her plan. What actually happened went down at lightening speed and left all three bandits headless, stabbed in the heart, slashed across the jugular and lying in puddles of blood. When Lina came back to herself, she was drenched in blood and staring down at her suspiciously clean sword, watching as it sucked in each drizzle of blood that flowed onto its surface from her hands. She was only vaguely aware of people screaming and furniture overturning as those patrons who could ran from the establishment, crying for someone to get the constable and the healer. The innkeeper was bellowing obscenities and threats at her from behind the bar, which seemed to him to be the safest place for it. Then Lina turned slowly to look at him with cold, hard eyes, and he began to fear for his life. Icedrake came up to point at him, indicating he was next on the menu.
        "Stop it, please," Lina’s mind begged, but she couldn’t make the words come out of her mouth. She took a step toward the bar, then Gourry and Naga were on her, pinning her arms to her sides. Gourry wrestled Icedrake out of her hand and threw it away from him with a hateful, sickened curse.
        ::What are you doing, you big, blonde moron?!::
        In a flash of light, Icedrake disappeared. No one, not even Lina, noticed the jeweled headpiece that appeared on her forehead, hidden under her usual black headband her blood-stained hair.

        Lina awoke in a jail cell guarded by no fewer than a dozen big, well-armed guards. Her clothes were still damp and reeked of human blood. Lina wrinkled her nose and fought the urge to throw up. Her wrists were chained to the wall and her ankles to the floor with heavy iron chains that seemed to have some kind of enchantment on them to keep her from using magic to escape. After what had happened, Lina wasn’t especially inclined to try and free herself. How had Icedrake gotten control of her and forced her to kill and maim all those people? Why hadn’t Zhara told her Icedrake would do that?! Maybe Zhara didn’t know…Ridiculous! Of course she knew! She made that sword, how could she not know? Lina closed her eyes, and a tear trickled down her cheek. It was possible Zhara hadn’t made Icedrake that way, and that the sword had only gained that property when it became inhabited by a Mazoku spirit. But Mazoku didn’t drink blood, they fed on negative emotions! Lina sobbed. "Zhara…why didn’t you tell me?"
        She looked down to find, much to her relief, that Icedrake wasn’t in her scabbard. Then she remembered Gourry had thrown the sword into the wall at the inn and worried that someone might have taken it—some poor, unsuspecting person, who would become a psycho killer under Icedrake’s control! She suddenly remembered the flash of light, just before Icedrake disappeared. What was on her forehead? Something hard and…metal? Lina wrinkled her forehead. "Icedrake?" She whispered.
        ::Shhhh! They’ll hear you, moron!::
        "Who’s a moron?" Lina whispered back, keeping her head down, so the guards wouldn’t see her lips move. "Why didn’t you tell me you go berserker when you’re hungry? And why didn’t you tell me you get hungry?"
        Icedrake giggled darkly. ::I lied. I just felt the need for a little havoc. It’s been a long time since I’ve drawn blood::
        "You controlled me!"
        ::Get over it::
        "Don’t do it again!"
        Silence.
        "Icedrake, I mean it. Don’t control me again!"
        ::Not even if you ask me to?::
        "That won’t happen, believe me."
        Pause.
        ::We’ll see::
        "Just promise you won’t do it again!"
        ::Fine! I promise. Don’t get your panties in a bunch!::
        Lina took that promise for what it was worth, coming from one of Hellmaster’s former servants. "You could’ve told me about the shape shifting thing, you know."
        ::Neat trick, eh?::
        "What else can you do that you haven’t told me about?"
        Icedrake chuckled. ::That’s not how the game is played, mortal. You have to find out on your own::
        "Figures." Lina sighed and leaned her head back against the cold, damp stone wall. "At least you didn’t tell me it’s a secret."
        ::Don’t insult me::
        Lina smiled. On that, at least, they could agree. But there was still the problem of being stuck in a prison cell. She cleared her throat and called out to the guards: "Where are my friends?"
        The guard nearest her cell turned to nod at one of his cohorts, who jogged up a set of stone stairs behind him. There was the sound of a heavy, creaking door opening, then shutting with a boom. "They’re material witnesses to murder, but the other people on the scene cleared them of guilt. Said it was all your show…Lina Inverse!" He uttered her name with the drama most people used when letting her know they knew who she was even though she hadn’t told them. "You get ten minutes with ‘em and that’s it, and we’ll be here the whole time, just so you know."
        Lina nodded. How could she tell Gourry and Naga about Icedrake with all those guards hanging around? Or plot her escape, for that matter? She wiggled her fingers and thought how stupid these people were to leave Lina Inverse’s hands and mouth free to cast spells.
        "Oh yeah," the guard added with a sneer. "If you try to cast spells, those manacles will burn through your flesh and bones so fast you won’t even have time to feel it before your hands and feet are wiggling on the ground. Get it?"
        Ah, so that’s why they felt so confident. Pain alone, she could handle. Losing limbs…well, she’d pass on that, thank you. She sighed. So they planned to put her trial, did they? It would be no use trying to blame everything on her sword, as if anybody’d believe her. After all, she’d been holding Icedrake at the time, and swords didn’t usually control their owners like that. In fact, this was a new one on her. She wondered briefly if Gourry would have the same problem with Firedrake, then figured he wouldn’t, since Dolgen Feitt had been a Knight of Seified, one of the good guys. "Is it ok for me to contact somebody using a crystal ball?"
        "Only if you wanna lose your limbs," the guard told her with a wicked grin.
        Lina sighed again. Fine. She’d get Naga to do it. Somebody had to tell Zhara about this and find out what other little tricks Icedrake might have up her sleeve. Tricks…? Hmmm…
        "Hey, Icedrake!"
        ::Hey what?::
        "Can you cast spells?"
        ::Why? Thinking of making a jail break?::
        "Just answer the question!"
        The guard sidled up to the bars and banged on them with his fist. "Hey! Who’re you talkin’ to, Inverse?"
        "Myself. I’m psychotic. It’s a sorceress thing."
        He glared at her suspiciously. Lina smiled back at him and tried to look crazy. Eventually, he went back to his post a few paces from her cell, with a suspicious glance or two over his shoulder before settling into guarding her again.
        ::Well? When do we leave?::
        "As soon as you tell me if you can cast spells."
        ::Maybe::
        "You’re starting to sound like a certain evasive servant of Beast Master," Lina told her sourly.
        ::That was out of line::
        "Can you or can’t you?"
        Pause.
        ::Do you trust me?::
        "You’re gonna kill them all, aren’t you?"
        ::Why is this such a problem for you?::
        "Can you do it without killing them, or aren’t you talented enough for that?"
        ::Oh, very ouch. My heart’s breaking up here. If you want out, we do it my way, or no way::
        "Ok, then: No way. I’ll think of a plan that doesn’t rely on you. How’s that? Maybe we’ll use Firedrake, instead. How do you like that?"
        Silence.
        "Helloooo…"
        ::He probably hates me for that thing back at the inn, so he won’t help you::
        "Sure he will. You did it, I didn’t. Anyway, he’ll help me because of Gourry."
        ::Are you planning to get rid of me?::
        "Hell no," Lina told her in a sinister voice. "I want you where I can keep track of you. Maybe if we put you in the same scabbard as Firedrake, you’ll behave yourself."
        ::Mmm, that would be nice. Almost like…Forget it. He won’t let you::
        This was going nowhere. "Can you talk to Firedrake directly?"
        ::Of course::
        "Will you talk to him about helping me escape?"
        ::He won’t listen to me::
        "Will you talk to him, anyway?" Lina ground through clenched teeth.
        ::If you insist::
        "I insist."
        Icedrake sighed. ::Fine, but I’m not promising anything::
        "Thank you."

        Lita dozed in the booth at the pub with her head against the back of the seat and her arms folded over her chest. She was wrapped in her brand, new cloak that Urlich had loaned her the money to buy, much to Zelgadis’ disgust. He was apparently of a mind to let her freeze to death if she wasn’t going to drop dead from exhaustion. Zel had only evil glares for Xellos’ son, who refused to return them on the theory that that was exactly what Zelgadis wanted him to do. Instead, Urlich kept a neutral demeanor, sitting in the booth next to Lita and casting protective glances at her ever so often, as if he feared Zelgadis might try something if he didn’t keep at least one eye on the girl.
        Sylph sat next to Zelgadis, looking from one man to the other with an expression that was a mixture of worry and irritation. "We have a long journey ahead of us—" she began, only to be interrupted by Zelgadis.
        "A lot longer since we have to move at her pace," he pointed a finger at Lita, who was now snoring very softly.
        "Well, if you hadn’t been in such a great, big hurry," Urlich interjected angrily, "we could’ve taken the short cut through Zhara’s tunnels! But noooo! You had to run off in the middle of the night!"
        "If I could’ve opened the portal," Zel shot back, "I would’ve taken the damn tunnel!"
        "Oh, like you tried," Url snorted. "You don’t even know where the entrance is!"
        Zelgadis gave him a withering look. "Of course I do, asshole. It’s in the basement. Amelia told me. And don’t try to tell me that’s the only entrance, because I got into it through Sylph’s den last time—"
        "One of my dens," she corrected sweetly.
        Zel growled. "Whatever. My point is, there have to be other entrances."
        Urlich shrugged. "Sure…there’s one where we’re going. You know, the one we were going to use as an exit?"
        "You mean to tell me, there aren’t any ways to get into that tunnel between here and the battleground?" Zel glared at Urlich, then figured he’d get a better answer out of Sylph and turned his gaze upon her.
        The kitsune took a sip of her tea, then realized he was looking at her and shrugged. "There might be," she replied thoughtfully. "There used to be one at the temple of Seified in Dragoon, which would be about…" she counted on her fingers, "eight days journey from here, allowing for at least six hours rest at night and a total of three hours allotted for eating and relieving ourselves, whether we do it in a town or by the side of the road." She grinned at Zelgadis and added playfully: "And you can’t tell me you don’t have those kinds of needs, Zelgadis."
        He blushed, answering her question with perfect eloquence.
        "Here’s my plan," Sylph went on, "and you can reject it if you like—but you better have a damn good reason," she added with a dirty look for Zelgadis and Urlich. Zel muttered, and Urlich rolled his eyes, but both agreed to listen at least. Sylph favored them with a smug look, then said: "I think we should buy a horse for Lita, so we don’t have a problem with her keeping up. Though I for one can hunt my food, I prefer to eat in a nice establishment like this one—at a table, with proper plates—and I’m sure I’m not alone in this." She glared at Urlich, who shook his head with a weary sigh.
        "Syl, I’m not the one who’s being difficult about this," he pointed at Zelgadis with a meaningful look. "I’m one hundred percent with you. Talk to Stone Boy. Oh, what am I thinking?" He corrected himself mockingly. "Zelgadis can do no wrong, can he? He’s your perfect little darling, isn’t he?"
        "Url…" Sylph sighed. "Don’t be like this."
        "Like what?" He shot back innocently. "Look, Syl, I know you like younger men, but this is pushing it, even for you. He’s not even—how old are you, anyway, Greywers? Fifteen? Sixteen?"
        "Twenty-one, if you must know," Zel growled. "Old enough."
        "For what?" Url shrieked and threw down his napkin. "What are you planning to do, huh? You think she’d want a stone dic—"
        "URLICH!" Sylph barked, silencing Url and the rest of the patrons and awakening Lita with a startled yelp. After a few beats, the neighboring conversations started up again, but Urlich just glared hot death at his rival, who was more than happy to return his hatred.
        "Well, you know what they say about me," Zel sneered. "I’m always hard."
        Lita turned bright red and wished she was a sounder sleeper. Then she remembered that Zelgadis had slept with Xellos, who’d been disguised as Lara at the time—and Lara looked exactly like her. She shrank into her cloak and tried not to look at Zelgadis.
        Urlich’s hand wrapped itself around the steak knife by his plate, but that’s as far as it got before he realized such a feeble blade would snap to pieces against Zelgadis’ skin. "Don’t…touch her…ever."
        "That’s hardly your decision," Zel retorted smoothly. "It’s not like you own her, or anything."
        "I said knock it off," Sylph hissed with a dangerous growl in her chest, "and I meant it! I won’t put up with this stupid male posing thing! Urlich: Lose the jealousy. Zelgadis: Quit baiting him. He is capable of killing you, and right now I think I’m the only thing keeping him from doing it."
        Zelgadis looked skeptical. "I don’t think so." He held up a hand to keep Url or Sylph from interrupting him. "While I have all kinds of respect for Url’s skill as a swordsman, I know for a fact that he can’t use magic to harm people. I can, I have, and will continue to do so—especially now that I seem to be losing my human conscience. So in a fight to the death, I think I’d win. Not easily, but I’m pretty sure I can fry him and enjoy it."
        "Just try it, Stone Boy," Urlich snarled back with a feral gleam in his lavender eyes. "I’m ready for you anytime!"
        Zel’s grin broadened. "Bring it on…"
        In a tiny, quivering voice from the depths of her cloak, Lita pleaded: "Please don’t fight. We’ll never get to the battleground and find the clue if you kill each other!"
        "Not to mention curing Zelgadis becoming a moot point if Url kills him," Sylph interjected sourly, "which he will if I let him," she added with a meaningful glare at Zelgadis. "I’m not kidding, Zel. The only reason you survived a fight with him before is because Zhara convinced him not to kill you—and he didn’t have a reason to defy her at the time. He has a reason now, however flimsy and unfounded." Her glare turned on Urlich, who glared back. "There will be no more fighting between you two—"
        "Especially if he goes back home," Zel cut in bitterly, then snarled at Lita: "And takes her with him."
        "If he goes, I go," Sylph told him pertly. "Urlich and I go way back, Zelgadis, and while I’m awfully fond of you, he was my husband and the father of my child. You’re my friend. Different."
        "So you’d just abandon me?" Zel accused.
        "As I recall," Sylph told him smoothly, "you didn’t want any of us along to begin with, so if we leave, you’re not being abandoned, you’re getting what you want."
        Grumble-grumble-grumble. "So leave, then. See if I care."
        "You won’t be able to open the portal without me or Sylph," Urlich reminded him. "The tunnel’ll knock at least two weeks off your travel time on the way down, and more than three on the way back."
        Zelgadis stewed on that for a little while in silence until Sylph reached over and patted his hand, then he relaxed ever so slightly. She reached for Urlich’s hand, but he pulled it out of her reach and looked away with a hurt expression. "Url…don’t do this…"
        He turned to her with tears glistening in his eyes, then set his jaw and forced the tears to dry up. "You told him not to bait me," he said in a dangerously low tone that made Sylph jerk back her hand, and Lita shirk away from him. "Now I’m telling you not to bait me, either. If you want something going on with the kid, then do it where I can’t see you, ok? You know what that does to me—"
        "Why should she have to change anything because of you?" Zelgadis snarled and got his hand slapped by Sylph.
        "You know how I am," she reminded Urlich gently and tried to smile. "I’ve always been this way. I’m kitsune. It’s the nature of my people to be playful and flirty. We can’t help it."
        "I don’t see your sister acting like that," Url shot back in a pained voice. "As soon as she remembered who she was, she went right back to being totally loyal to Zhara. I was just…just because she forgot who and what she was. And you, Sylph? You’re just scared you’ll have another of my children, and Xellos’ll kill that one, too. Maybe I’m just stupid, but I’ll wait around for you forever, ‘cause I’m like Jessica, see? She belongs to Zhara, I belong to you. Whether you return the favor, or not. So, I can’t help how I act, either."
        No one spoke for a long time, nor could they meet each other’s eyes. Sylph started to cry, letting the tears drizzle down her cheek in silence. Zelgadis stared at the wall and quietly thumped it with his fist. Lita tried to be invisible.
        Finally, Urlich sighed and scrubbed his face with his hands. "I’m sorry, Syl. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m just tired and cranky and none too fond of the company. I promise not to give Zelgadis anymore grief if it’ll make you happy, ok? Promise."
        Sylph wiped her cheeks with her napkin and nodded. "Thank you," she told him in a broken voice.
        "I’m sorry about…I know that’s not why you left," Url fumbled.
        Sylph held up a hand to silence him. "It’s part of it. Just let it go."
        He nodded.
        "I won’t bait him, either," Zelgadis finally declared grudgingly. "But you have to stop flirting with me, ‘cause he’ll just blame me for it."
        Sylph sighed. "I’ll try. Lita? No flirting from you, either," she winked at the other girl, in a feeble attempt at humor.
        Lita smiled shakily and nodded. "I don’t think it’d be welcome, anyway."
        "Pish-posh," Urlich tried to joke.
        "If I can’t flirt, you can’t flirt," Sylph teased.
        Urlich smiled without looking at her. "Oh, right. Sorry."
        "Well, that was delicious!" Zelgadis crowed unenthusiastically and patted his stomach. "What’s for desert? Oh, right: Nothing now that I can’t piss off Urlich anymore. You’re such a spoil sport, Sylph."
        Urlich sighed and rubbed his temples. "His timing is worse than Dad’s."

Chapter 25