There's a cheerful looking girl walking about reading intermittently from a book she's carrying. The book is a textbook for English speakers hoping to learn Russian. She doesn't have a power sharer but she does have something elaborate looking around her right forearm.

"Glad to see I'm not the only person hitting the stacks. Like what you found?"

"It's what I needed for a class, languages aren't my favorite subject. This seems to be a good textbook though I understand everything it's said so far."

"That's exciting news. What class? The Scholomance has offered me a wider range of topics than I thought."

"Russian Literature Before Pushkin. What other classes have you been surprised by?"

"I have a math class on 'abacus skills', that one was unexpected. Seems beneath my level, but I'll give it at least a week."

"Huh, does the class give you a fancy abacus or teach you how to make one?"

"Fancy abacus. It seems like a pretty normal abacus to me, but what do I know. It's a math class, so I'm expecting mind-numbing counting. Is 'Pushkin' an author or a literary movement?"

"That does seem odd then. I guess calculators aren't really a thing but I feel like teaching sliderule skills would be more useful. Pushkin was an author, he's been dead for over 180 years now."

"I'll let you know if we get to sliderules. Pushkin any good, or is this your first time running into him?"

"It's my first time. I tried to read a couple poems but I'm not there yet with Russian so I don't know."

"Sounds like you have work cut out for you. Do you know what kind of spells it teaches yet?"

"Not yet, there's a wide enough range of time that I expect it'll be a variety."

Two freshmen girls are looking at books. The taller is both pretty and well dressed. Her friend, short, stocky, with dark hair, neither pretty nor ugly,  is wearing a belted tunic in pale blue with patterns woven into it in dark blue, obviously enchanted, and a scarf, also enchanted, dark gold on light. They are talking in Magyar.

"Let’s see if we can find something on magical violence in our part of the world. That should work for my conflicts class and your calamities. What else?"

“Something on numerology. Or linear algebra — Apa says it gets used for artificing. How do we find things here?”

"And I need something on early German for the Minnesang. A textbook or at least a dictionary. They cluster by subject, but I don't think there is a pattern, at least Istvan, my coach, didn't know one. My affinity might help. Did your father tell you anything?"

"Apa didn't go to the Scholomance and Anya never said."

A tall, very thin African boy, wearing clothes which are of reasonable quality but not especially well-fitting - with a notable maleficer's aura, if anyone's looking - sidles past them as they're hunting for linear algebra books. He starts intently perusing a shelf, without actually pausing in his regular and clearly practiced every-ten-seconds scan of his surroundings. His eyes pause on them, but very briefly, since they're not mals. 

(The library is one of Masozi's favorite places! It's quiet and peaceful, and the void ceiling means nothing is going to drop on his head unexpectedly, and there are BOOKS. There are SO MANY BOOKS. Right now he is trying to find books about game theory, which Wei Wuxian mentioned offhand and then completely forgot to actually explain.)

Mari notices what he is doing, approves. Someone who can search for books without ignoring everything else, including things that might kill him. Unlike ...

Maleficer aura, but the one who didn't kill anyone — there can't be two African freshmen with auras.

So now she can pay more attention to looking for books, ideally the dictionary she needs but if she happens to spot one of the ones Ellen is looking for, they can grab that.

Ellen has never seen someone with black skin before she came to the Scholomance and the African kids in the dining hall were not this close. It occurs to her that he might find her staring at him rude — she didn't like being stared at when she visited Mari in the enclave. And besides, he might know more than they do about how the library is arranged. She starts to say something in Magyar, switches to English:

“Hullo. I’m Ürömi Heléna, but everyone calls me Ellen. Have you seen anything on math, or German?"

Masozi was aware they were there, obviously, but he wasn't expecting anyone to talk to him. People mostly don't. He jumps slightly. 

"...I've seen lots of math? There are different kinds of math, they're in different places. - I don't know if I've seen German because I can't read it." 

"Did you notice any language books? They might be all together — the library is huge. I'm Mari, from Buda."

"What are you looking for? We might have seen it."

"I'm looking for books on numerology, for a class, or on linear algebra because it's math and I don't know it and Apa says it gets used for artificing. There is a class but I couldn't fit it in."

"I'm looking for - game theory?" He says it like it's a phrase that he only learned very recently. "I think I saw numerology, I can show you where?" Masozi has honestly not at all been looking for books in languages other than English or Mandarin (the latter of which he totally can't read but he is going to FIX that.)