"How did you say a thing while you were singing!"

"Dunno."

"It was in my head!"

"Was not, that doesn't make sense."

"But you were singing and you said a thing!"

"I must have stopped singing."

She furrows her eyebrows.

Shrug. He goes back to singing.

Apparently concluding she must've imagined it, she slides off the chair and shuffles away.

He goes up to his room too.

No one bothers him.

Artifact!!

Artifact! It is soon night.

He doesn't sleep. He does artifact-lying-down-with-eyes-closed so it won't look too fishy.

It does not look too fishy! People presumably assume he is asleep.

This is good because he is not sure how he'd otherwise get much work done, what with all the school they want him to do.

Their equivalent of the Protectorate is nice and accommodating and the bits that are because they're a military dictatorship manage to be plausibly deniable enough that it's pretty believable most people there don't know or don't think too much about the fact that this is a military dictatorship. Doctor Ximenes is rather therapist-y and even a surface inspection of her thoughts won't reveal any ulterior motives beyond "understanding how to best help her charges and make sure the environment runs smoothly for them."

They should still stop being a military dictatorship but plenty of the Ardas were during the war and it's not as important as scarcity. He works on his artifact and sings and plays along.

And eventually it is a Sunday early evening and there is a knock.

"Come in!"

Doctor Ximenes!

"Hello, again, Epic. Ready for school tomorrow?"

"Did you find someone who will let me listen to music?"

"Unfortunately not. You can still do it in recess or during lunch although I'd recommend against that."

"Yeah I thought that was the part for which there's nominally a justification."

"Hmm? What do you mean?"