[She almost cringes a little at the notion of complaining for complaining’s sake. Lucy would probably be annoyed about that, when she thinks about it. She’d get mad at her for her habit of always trying to shrink herself down and take up as little space as possible, of being hesitant to express displeasure when she had it. This man seems to be doing something similar, but with a softness about it. Probably it’s because she is in fact homesick, but it reminds her a little bit of Simon — smiling indulgently as he led her and Alice to admitting they did see each other as friends, laughing gently at their mutual flustered embarrassment. He’s got that gentle, simple air about him.]

Homesickness training...isn’t that just practicing living on your own for a while, like this?

[She’d been on a camping trip with the College recently, for that explicit reason, and yet — Elias and Ruth had made their way to her side anyway. It’s unsettling to be cut off, in a way that far outstrips something as simple as homesickness. But she’s not as brave as Romani thinks, because she doesn’t elaborate on any of it.

She simply reaches up to touch the borrowed pendant on her neck, and looks off to the side before she answers.]

....Yes. More than I’d ever imagined, really. My — teacher, and my friends, and my familiar, Ruth. We lived in England, not far from London.