Silei looked at Hesta and laughed.
They walked on a few more steps before she finally spoke. "You don't intend to trust me?"
Hesta glanced over at Silei, her gaze carrying something close to anticipation. "I didn't want to put you in a difficult position... It's not exactly something honorable. Do you really want to know?"
A faint smile still lingered on Silei's face, then slowly faded.
"Now this is difficult," Silei said quietly. "I had some very important news I was planning to share with you..."
"What?"
"A strange, uncanny question—one that would make almost everyone who heard it instinctively cry, 'Impossible,' yet leave them unable to stop asking themselves, again and again, 'Is it really impossible?'"
At that, Silei paused.
"...But to you, it might look different—perhaps absurd, but full of hope. The kind of thing that would make you desperate to find even the smallest trace that it had truly happened."
"Officer," Hesta looked as if she were about to laugh, "you're getting better at keeping people in suspense."
"You call this keeping someone in suspense?" Silei looked at the young woman before her. "Jane, when we were on the ship, weren't you ever curious what Chiba was doing every day?"
A flicker of astonishment crossed Hesta's face.
"I remember that during that time, Chiba was always appearing and disappearing on the ship. She was often nowhere to be found, yet she always seemed incredibly busy," Silei said unhurriedly. "There was even one time—I remember it very clearly—when I called her, and she sounded utterly exhausted.
"I rarely heard her speak to me in such a weak voice. It was almost as though she had just awakened from some extraordinary slumber—"
Silei's voice abruptly cut off. Her gaze at Hesta was almost icy, while Hesta held her