"Yeah, that makes sense. I've got Spanish too, I don't have German but some of our upperclassmen do and could maybe help you with that. But Latin's a really good start. French and Spanish and Italian are all pretty descended from it, right?" 

"I think so! Almost all the Latin I know is hymns though. I was going to take Spanish in high school and - well, I guess I'm taking Spanish in high school, but."

"Hymns are a good start! Even if God isn't real, you can get a bunch of inspiration for good spells out of sacred music, it's often really musically good." 

"I mostly learned them by going to church, the choir director let me join the grownup choir early and gave me recommendations for things to bring to voice lessons." Is that a sufficiently diplomatic way to not, like, hide being a Christian, you're probably not supposed to hide being a Christian and she can't really ask a priest right now. "Since I have to do German anyway I might get into more Bach!"

"That'd be neat! I love Bach but I had to sort of not listen to the words, before - and here we don't have recordings of anything so I'd need to look at the sheet music. I'd thought maybe I would learn German this semester, but...." 

He trails off. 

"- Anyway. Do you play any instruments?" 

Wow, Vanya really does get along with this freshman! 

Unfortunately she's one of the poor Chicago mundie kids, so she's probably doomed. Except - maybe a lot less doomed that you'd expect? She's already in with New York, she clearly knows how to play the politics here. '

And anyone who can make Vanya smile that many times is worth their weight in mana storage, to Sacramento. 

Larisa mulls on this while she steers the two of them towards Vanya's room. 

"I play piano, but, uh, will probably be out of practice soon, unless there is a secret piano somewhere? Or I can... build a keyboard in shop with magic?"

"A full-on keyboard would be a huge project! I'd actually recommend a virginal, if you want to apply your piano skills - it's a relative of the harpsichord but a lot smaller. And simpler, so easier to keep it from going bad on you, and more room to sneak in extra enchantments for stuff like resonance. ...I brought a piccolo in, but I only learned it for the weight allowance reason. I made a guitar first semester in shop and I'm going to learn violin next, string instruments are a lot more my thing than wind instruments."

Pause. 

"- Though if you'd be interested in learning brass instruments, I have a three-person spell I wrote in comp that needs a trumpet or French horn - brass instruments are good for channeling a lot of power -"

It's so good to see her little brother animatedly talking about music again! 

"It's called a virginal? I've never heard of that, what a funny name. I don't know if I'd be right for brass instruments, you can't sing at the same time - I wanted piano so I could sing at the same time..."

"Oh, that's fair. Singing plus playing an instrument at the same time is also really helpful for musical spells - though for sophistication and complexity more than for power..." 

Vanya can talk about for the rest of the time it takes them to reach his room. 

"You kids good for now?" Larisa asks. "Vanya, why don't you go to bed at ten-thirty today, that way Rebecca can help you fall asleep and I'll still have time to escort her back to her room before curfew." 

"...Mmm." Vanya ducks his head, looking self-conscious. 

"How do you tell time around here, I haven't spotted any clocks - do you have to guess by the bells? Do you make hourglasses or magic watches?"

"I have a music box clock that plays a different tune every hour and chimes on the quarter-hour. ...Cassie and I made it together in shop as a group project, so we could use both our affinities on it." 

"Oh cute! It doesn't keep you up?"

"The volume is adjustable, I just turn it way down at night. ...It helps, if I am asleep it doesn't bother me and if I can't sleep then it tells me the time without me having to look at a clock." 

"Okay. I hope the lullaby lets you stay asleep long enough. Babies don't usually sleep that long so I don't know if it would be different for a non-baby."

Shrug. “Still better than not having it, I think. Anyway do you want to see my guitar?”

"You have a guitar? Yeah I wanna see it!"

"Yeah! Her name is Gloria. I'll introduce you!" 

Gloria lives in a beautiful velvet-lined case that Vanya explains he also made in shop. "And I polish her every night with sandalwood oil - Larisa found some for me in the lab once. It's a good idea to be nice to your instruments, in here." He lifts the instrument out of the case and strokes it, or her, whatever, almost like he's petting a dog in his lap. "Gloria, this is my friend Rebecca. She's very good and you can trust her." 

To Rebecca, "- want to hold her?" 

"Hi Gloria," murmurs Rebecca, and "yeah, please!"

Vanya passes the guitar over, carefully and reverently. 

The body is wood, clearly several different kinds of wood; he must not have been able to find enough of any one variety. It's sanded to silky smoothness and polished to almost a mirror-bright finish. The strings are steel, except for one which is nylon. 

"It's gorgeous," says Rebecca. She strums experimentally.

The chord rings out as clear as a bell and considerably louder and more resonant than it seems like it should be from the size of the instrument. 

"Have you ever played before?" Vanya asks her. "I can walk you through how to tune her - she should be in tune already but it's good for getting comfortable. How's your ear?" He has perfect pitch, but he does have a tuning fork somewhere.