The night air that lingered from when Kael said "If Mira wants to come, then let her come" still seemed to hang somewhere in the atmosphere. 　They set out from behind Ferin's city walls sometime after dawn. Magestones lamps—street lights fueled by magestones harvested from the Seam of Laments—bled orange across the cobblestones. As they extinguished one by one, the three began walking southeast. 　Kael had fallen to the rear. 　It was the opposite of usual. On every previous journey toward the Great Forest of Morine, he had always walked three steps ahead. Yet this morning, positioned behind Mira and Elara with some distance between them, he maintained a steady pace. If one looked back, his cyan eyes stared straight ahead—not at them, but at the road beyond. 　Mira walked forward without turning. Her chestnut-colored short bob, now that she'd traded her leather apron for traveling clothes, swayed slightly in the morning breeze. Elara could sense that the words Mira had wrung out in la