"I read the strangest book shortly after I arrived here. I was looking for novels to entertain me, and I read something about a Princess of Mars? I thought for ages that there might be people up there. Only after did I learn that there weren't, which is a relief, in a way, I suppose?" Sybil still isn't entirely sure how she feels about that entire experience or those thoughts. It seems wrong, almost, to think of people out on other worlds. But then again they are here. "Though if there a mountains like that, who knows what else there could be."

She realises that she's taken the conversation on a flight of fancy, laughing again, this time at herself. "My father used to tease me for reading all the novels I did. I don't think he knew of some of the ones I'd manage to sneak when we were in London. He'd have been horrified, I think."

"Oh, that's good," she says with real fervor. It would upset her to think of him floundering and unhappy. He seemed lovely, and he was a friend of Henri's, making her concern double nearly. "I'm glad. Though you're doing rather well for making friends yourself."