Mercifully, Zel blacked out halfway through the teleport, so the pain wasn't as intense--but when he came to, the dizziness and nausea returned with a vengeance.

He groaned. His head was spinning, at least the part of it that wasn't still floating across space, and he could feel the now-damp tunic clinging to his chest. Another bath, he thought giddily, if I'm not dead when I wake up.

Somebody was shaking him again. Had Sylfiel come with him?

"Zel? C'mon, Zel, wake up..."

No. Lina. He could feel her warmth now--and her fear for him, her concern. He smiled, weakly.

"Zel? Zel, please wake up. Or at least say something."

With an effort, he gathered enough strength to reach out and find her hand.

"That good enough?" he asked, in a near-whisper.

"Zel!" Her voice caught with relief, and then, abruptly, he sensed a spike of anger. "Where the hell were you all day?"

"I had... something to do. 'm sorry." He drew a deep breath and opened his eyes; Lina's face was a blur, but he could imagine the expression on her face.

"Yeah, well, you better be." She gave his hand a reassuring squeeze, then let go. "What happened to you?"

"A teleport happened, that's what." He sat up a little. "Does quite a number on a half-human body, I can tell you that."

"So I see." There was a pause, then she said, "It didn't seem to affect you too much this morning."

Oh, damn.

"You wanna explain that little incident in the girls' bath?" she asked, voice taut with sarcasm.

"If I get breakfast first."

"Fair enough."



Over breakfast, which turned out to be a pot of tea served by an extremely sleepy waitress, Lina told him what she'd found out about body-switches.

"The weird thing is, it's easy to slap together the first part of a switching spell, but they require major precision timing, which is why they're so rare," she explained. "If a person slips up during the spell, he could end up stuck on the astral plane forever."

Zel rubbed his temples and inhaled the sweet steam that rose from his teacup. "Start at the beginning. How do you 'slap together' a switch, exactly?"

"Well, you need an anchor--something linked to both this plane and the astral plane. It has to be something solid--"

"--and both people have to touch it, right?" he cut in.

"Right." She ran her finger around the rim of her cup. "Problem is, once the two souls are connected by the anchor, there's only a brief moment of weakness in both bodies. The person performing the switch has to wait for the exact moment to push the other person into his body."

He nodded and fell silent again. For a moment they were quiet--and then he felt Lina's small hand creep into his.

"I... I wanna help you do it, Zel."

He felt his heart begin to double-time. For a moment the spell, the damn mystery, didn't matter at all. All he could think of was Sylfiel's advice, of Lina's eyes, her warmth...

"Lina..."

"Xellos!"

He chilled and turned his head. Sure enough, his own body was standing in the doorway.

Zel got slowly to his feet. "Give it up. There's no need for this charade."

"So you say, monster." Xellos's now-blue eyes blazed at Zel for a moment before he turned to Lina. "Lina, are you okay?"

"Uh, I..."

A wave of something confusing rippled from Lina's mind towards the chimera. Zel stared for a moment before he realised what it was.

Attraction.

He couldn't believe it, but there it was, strong and simple, in her mind. She didn't just ignore his freakish condition; she was genuinely attracted to it. To him. Stone skin and all. And, suddenly, seeing it from the outside, he began to notice the smallest clues in her body language--the way she leaned towards him, the way her eyes slid towards the stone face every few seconds.

He cast a glance at Xellos. Their eyes met and something strong and bitter struck his mind like a shard of glass: jealousy.

So that was what Sylfiel had meant. Xellos would be disappointed if he told Lina how he felt--he didn't stand a chance with her, and he knew it.

Zel felt himself smiling slowly.

"Chronic stupidity, huh, Xellos?" he asked.

Xellos let out a wild yell and charged him.





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