Yeah I would truly LOVE to know more about Milk and Mole Star and the telepathy!! (I think it's Mole Star who ends up being mildly telepathic with Potter Ott also, when they're trapped in the cave -- meanwhile Milk is less interested in telepathy and more interested in Trueline after the whole post-earthquake near-death experience. There's so much there in all of that, and it's just a sideplot to the main show of Life and Skarra and the missing places they don't fill.

Someone above commented on the worldbuilding and I can't believe I forgot to mention it in the main post because it's SO good, with a deep and visual intensity to it. The other thing that gets me, actually, is the fact that when they get out the others who got out long ago are waiting for them -- that there's been centuries of tradition of waiting for those who may never come, ready to welcome them. That feels weirdly Jewish too.