I would adjudge this week to be a modest improvement for Mahoutsukai no Yome.  Nothing much happened but it was more interesting than a lot of episodes following that track have been.  More Elias is always a good thing for starters, and actually giving him a few moments (but only that) with Chise is practically revolutionary for this season.  Not that it wasn’t a little bittersweet listening to them wax rhapsodically about the harvest back home – I think I miss them being there more than they do.

Elias’ conversation with Simeon was both endearing and fascinating, as most of them have been.  Elias is quite a childlike creature in so many ways, something Mahoutsukai alludes to quite often.  Simeon notes that Elias is overprotective, and we certainly know that to be true.   We know he’s intellectually ravenous, and learning about the intricacies of human (and demi-human) relationships fascinates him in that sense.  What we don’t fully understand is to what extent he processes all this emotionally, at least in the same way we do.

After dutifully walking the now-discharged Simeon back to his room, Elias stops off to watch Chise and her classmates engaged in a sorcery game suggested by the St. George twins involving puzzle spheres.  There he’s engaged himself by Alcyone, likewise observing, and seemingly fascinated by Elias.  She’s not really able to converse in the conventional sense, but she’s puzzled by what Elias might be, initially mistaking him for a familiar like herself.  This tracks, as Elias seems to be a nearly unique being whose nature puzzles almost everyone.  Elias is in turn fascinated by his own reactions to Alcyone – engaging in small talk for no practical reason other than to be polite to an artificial being.

After the kids’ game ends with a(nother) Rian explosion at Philomela, Elias and Chise at long last have a conversation – though Violet soon interrupts, unfortunately.  It’s very heartwarming to see the two of them together wiling away a few moments, though it does highlight the fact that their presence at the college has never been fully justified by the plot.  Violet’s interruption is probably innocent (he suggests that he and Chise engage in a test of courage style events, as winter ghosts seem to be everywhere) but it struck me that he came off as just a bit suspicious here.

As was teased at the end of last week’s ep, his sister Jasmine is ill, one assumes due to the grimoire culprit.  And now a veritable parade of sick teens are showing up at the infirmary, suggesting that the uneasy status quo with the larger mystery may finally be able to end.  Given that the other major plot thread, Philomela’s relentlessly sad sack life, is not especially compelling that would certainly be my hope.  That, and that we get a couple of episodes back at the cottage at the end of the season.