"The people from the Church of Evernight have arrived. I didn't conceal the traces here just now, so they'll definitely discover them and come looking. You don't need to hide anything, nor could you."
"As for the things I don't want anyone knowing, they've already become secrets."
As his words fell, Cyril's figure dissolved into bubbles reflecting brilliant colors and vanished before Hazel's eyes.
"Wait, you..."
Hazel instinctively raised her hand, but the words had barely left her mouth before she stopped short.
She realized that her impression of Cyril had vanished from her mind along with those bubbles. It was as though a layer of mist had settled over it, making it impossible to see clearly.
Their earlier conversation still remained perfectly clear in her mind, yet she couldn't recall his appearance. She could only vaguely remember that he was a very young man.
"So this is... a secret?"
As she murmured those words, a chilly gust suddenly poured in through the window.
Hazel shivered and snapped out of her daze, belatedly realizing that another person had appeared out of thin air in her bedroom.
He was a clean-shaven elderly man with deep-set eyes.
He wore black clerical robes trimmed with red, with five Dark Sacred Emblems on his chest. Yet he gave no impression of gloom; instead, he seemed kind and approachable. "Archbishop Anthony?" Hazel recognized him at once.
As a devout believer in the Evernight Goddess whose father was a House of Commons member, she had met this archbishop of the Church of Evernight, the head of the Backlund Diocese, more than once.
Anthony's gaze swept gently over Hazel before he spoke in a warm voice.
"Good evening, Miss Hazel. I'm sorry to disturb you at this hour, but I thought you might need some help, someone