After Delay who goes first in next round? The delayer? Or initiative modifier comparison?

[SimonDorfman]

The scene:
Wizard rolls a 20 initiative and has an 18 dexterity (+4 initiative bonus) for a total initiative of 24
Fighter rolls a 4 initiative and has 10 dexterity (zero initiative bonus) for a total initiative of 4
Round 1, initiative 24: Wizard casts magic missile at fighter
Round 1, initiative 4: Fighter decides to delay until the wizard casts a another spell
Round 2, initiative 24: Wizard starts to cast another magic missile spell, but Fighter goes first and attacks with a throwing axe. Axe hits wizard and wizard fails his concentration check. The magic missile is wasted.

Question:
Round 3, initiative 24, who goes first, the wizard or the fighter?
The fighter delayed and then acted before the wizard in round 2, so maybe the fighter should go first. On the other hand, the rules say:

Quote:

If two or more combatants have the same initiative check result, the combatants who are tied act in order of total initiative modifier (highest first). If there is still a tie, the tied characters should roll to determine which one of them goes before the other.

Since they are tied at 24 and the wizard has a higher initiative modifier, maybe he should go first. What do you guys think?

[Boraxo]

You can't interrupt someone else's action when you delay. The fighter would either go before or after the wizard. However, the fighter could ready an attack to swing at the wizard if he begins to cast a spell...
Edit- I forgot to mention that the fighter's position in the initiative count would be right before the wizard's at the top of round 3

[Jayder22]

Readying an Action: You can ready a standard action, a move action, a swift action, or a free action. To do so, specify the action you will take and the conditions under which you will take it. Then, anytime before your next action, you may take the readied action in response to that condition. The action occurs just before the action that triggers it. If the triggered action is part of another character's activities, you interrupt the other character. Assuming he is still capable of doing so, he continues his actions once you complete your readied action. Your initiative result changes. For the rest of the encounter, your initiative result is the count on which you took the readied action, and you act immediately ahead of the character whose action triggered your readied action.

Distracting Spellcasters: You can ready an attack against a spellcaster with the trigger “if she starts casting a spell.” If you damage the spellcaster, she may lose the spell she was trying to cast (as determined by her Spellcraft check result).

These are copied and pasted from

http://paizo.com/prd/combat.html

I bolded the relevant information, seems pretty straightforward

[blahpers]

That's a readied action, not a delay. Readied actions interrupt the trigger and set the initiative to immediately before the initiative on which the triggering action happened. Delay does not interrupt and sets the initiative to wherever the delayer stops delaying and acts.

When the wizard starts casting a spell and the fighter says "I take my turn now", tough break--the wizard gets to finish his turn first, then the fighter acts. Ready an action instead.

[SimonDorfman]

Thank you all for your responses. I get it now.