Czarynah needed to confirm it.

"Sorry, I missed it. What was that again?"

"L-lyllah Mehyrst!" She curtsied hastily. Suspicion confirmed. Lyllah Franceska Mehyrst, sister of capture target Elliot Mehyrst, was the best friend of the heroine, her shy but sparkly and welcoming personality a result of retaliation towards the bullying that she had suffered in her years at the school before the heroine joined.

"Oh, how rude of me, asking others' identities before offering my own! My name is Czarynah Nahmayhn, a new student." She stated, presenting a neat bow.

"By the way," Czarynah started, "do you by any chance know where the room of 'singing martyrs' is? I was meant to go there to collect a Guzheng that we requested." Yifei Zhao had loved music and her culture, so she'd picked up an instrument from the ancient Chinese era as a hobby.

"A Guzheng?" Lyllah asked as she opened the door leading out.

"Yes, that weird wooden thing with strings you play a bit like a piano." Czarynah promptly followed. As they continued to converse, Czarynah subconsciously memorizing the routes, they ended up in front of a set of heavy wooden doors. Lyllah had an excited look in her eyes as she grasped the handles. Then, she swung them open in one graceful pull.

"This, my new friend, in the room of singing martyrs!"

Czarynah gaped around, frozen. High stone ceiling, tall, tall stained glass windows showing angelic figures, rows and rows of shelves by the walls, filled with small musical instruments, the larger ones sitting around, arranged in a tidy formation. This was like a gateway to heaven.

"Sooooooo, about that Guzheng?" Lyllah reminded Czarynah, snapping her out of her thoughts. She sheepishly walked toward a pile of imported instruments still in their packaging.

"Sorry. It should be around the foreign section ... ah! Found it!" Czarynah proudly hugged a very tall and fat object wrapped in thick cloth. Unable to contain her excitement, she gingerly unbound the thing, bringing it over to one of the seats, stringing it and setting it up as you would. 

Running her hands along the polished surface, she paused. Initially, she had only meant to inspect it, but for a full inspection, you needed to check the strings too. Maybe just once ... and I'm pretty sure we're allowed to do this ...

"Lyllah?"

"Hmm?"

"Would you like to listen to a song on the Guzheng, since you're such a nice person and all?"

Pause.

"R-really? May I?"

Czarynah just laughed, patting the empty seat beside her, gesturing for Lyllah to sit.

She started on simple hand warmers, not so trusting of the new Guzheng, but soon started on the song that she had just finished in her life as Yifei Zhao, BuXian (No/Never Envy) of the popular DongHua Mo Dao Zu Shi.

The melody floated around the room echoing back quietly. Czarynah's own voice joined too, and a choir of echoes answered as if memorising her singing. So that's why it was named room of singing martyrs. A thousand angelic voices, died for their dreams, living in their songs, a bond even death cannot break.

But the song drew to an end, and Czarynah opened her eyes again. The angels retreated back into the window glass, and their voices faded into the marble walls. However, the stone seemed warmer, the martyrs livelier, as if the whole room had listened.

Sob.

Turning back to Lyllah, Czarynah realised the emerald-haired girl was crying. Ah, poop. 

"I'm so sorry! What's wrong? What happened?" Czarynah was just slightly freaking out. But Lyllah's reply stunned her.

"No, it's not that," she said, wiping away the tears trailing down her cheek. " the music is so sad and mourning, like two lovers, reuniting, and I haven't heard such a tune being played so well since a long time." She laughed weakly.

So that's it. "Oh ships, why did I have to choose such a sad song! Sorry for being so inconsiderate." But Lyllah just laughed and laughed and laughed.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lyllah was strolling down to the Academy's official music building with Czarynah, Guzheng and harp packaged on their backs when the bell rang. Not like those ear-killing machines, but a sound spell carrying gracefully and without pain inflict across the school grounds.

The pair looked at each other and started walking faster. What convenient timing. On arrival, Lyllah gestured for Czrynah to stay silent, joining one of the neat rows of students. Czarynah followed suit, waiting for the speech that was to be carried out by the silver-haired professor standing by the podium.

"Students," she began. "in a moment, you will be allowed to group into small parties of six. If you have not found a group by the given time of three minutes, you will be assigned by one of the staff members to an existing group."  She cleared her throat. "You will then be told to enter one of the rooms on the board," she motioned to a chalkboard behind her, " and there you will proceed with the given activities. Thank you. That is all." and she stepped off leaving the students to mingle.

Huh, no speech?

Lyllah's voice broke off her thoughts. "Soooo~" she hinted, much to the mirth of Czarynah, who promptly started laughing. "Let's find some other peeps then!" said Czarynah, once they had calmed down.

Looking around, Lyllah spotted a group of five already gathered. She asked Carynah, "What about you join them?" tilting her head towards the two girls and three boys. Czarynah refused. "Don't worry about me, join them yourself if you feel more comfortable, I can find another five!" 

Glancing back guiltily at the smiling Czarynah, Lyllah slowly joined her group of friends, leaving Carynah to search around for a new group.

There was another quintet hanging around the west pillar of the hall, quiet but seemingly warm. Two girls, blue-haired and blonde, and three boys, who were pale blonde, golden-haired and dark-haired. All five insanely attractive, as expected. Seeing them, she approached the five and greeted them accordingly.

"Greetings, I am Czarynah Nahmayhn. May I join your group for this activity?" The blonde girl switched a look with the light blonde boy and nodded, turning back to Carynah.

"We accept your request," she said with a voice of coral pink. "Please take a space between us." Czarynah gratefully joined them, waiting for their assigned rooms in relieved silence. The blue-haired girl broke the quiet.

"You're really lucky - when I joined it was halfway through the term and everyone was working on something already!" Her voice was clear, but had firm ground to it, like the pop singers of Yifei Zhao's time and Opal's.

"It does seem so. Luck is usually not on my side." She hoped that her own voice wasn't being mapped and inspected for her personality too. I'm such a hypocrite. The two fell into an easy and quiet chat, and far too soon, the group was assigned to the chamber of the faerie's choir, two down from their current room. 

From the girl's mint green words, Czarynah had deciphered that she herself was Namida Wasurerarenai, something like "unforgettable tears" in Japanese. When she had voiced that, Namida had seemed surprised that she knew this, but Czarynah had just brushed it off. Maybe there's something special about her tears? 

Anyway, the blonde girl was siblings with the golden boy, Jasmine and Arthur. The dark dude was warm, mischievous Kai, and the white-blonde brooding guy was called Ellis. Mistrusting, keeping their house identities a secret like that. Walking down to the chamber of the faerie's choir, Czarynah pointed out that the room of singing martyrs had a choir in the patterned windows, causing the group to fall silent and listen intently to her description of the voices.

Carynah proceeded to tell them of Lyllah's crying and how she never knew about those singing windows. There was suddenly a tense atmosphere when she finished, but after a few whispered words about some "wouldn't be" and "musical manipulation" and stuff from the serious Ellis, they reassured her it was nothing.

Entering their assigned room, Czarynah stood there for a while, taking it all in. An old stone chamber combines with a greenhouse, filled with vegetation and pollinators and stone sculptures of both fae and human - it was truly beautiful. But for some reason, the two girls were unhappy.

They walked over to a set of wooden benches where Jasmine and Namida sat down carefully, grumbling about how they had gotten the worst room. Frankly, Czarynah disagreed and thought that there was no better place to be at this moment - sunny weather, early spring.

The boys reminded them to focus, and everyone started to unpack their instrument that they were required to choose before attending.

Namida had a trilling flute and the golden twins possessed an elegant violin and viola. And while Kai had a cheery harmonica, Ellis kept hold of his piano song sheets, using a complete glamour spell to build a temporary grand piano at the centre of the chamber. 

Huh, illusionist. Gotta be careful.

Everyone had started to practice their own scales and arpeggios and warm-ups, so Czarynah unpacked her Guzheng and set it on her lap, but as soon as she started on prepping the strings, they promptly snapped, whipping red marks on the back of her hand. Sigh - sabotage of the Skagorskys.

She checked the frayed ends and sighed again. How did people get acid in a magic academy? Mumbling troublesome ways of death, she replaced the broken strings with a new batch, taking in the snapped ones for repair later. Thankfully, the wood wasn't damaged and none of the acid had strayed further than the small spot on the strings.

Suddenly noticing the pressurised stares on her hands, she swiftly wrapped them up with bandages. "Apologies, I forgot to check the strings last night and they'd broken from the transportation." Turning back to the previous topic, the group began to wonder about the song they were going to play since they had all finished their warm-ups.

There'd been a change of plans, and Jasmine was told what to do already, as she was their group's leader. 

"So, we'll be performing an ancient Zhong Guo song called Never Envy, -" 

Clank.

Czarynah had dropped the chair that she was lifting over to sit on since she had a Guzheng. She had just played that song yesterday in the room of singing martyrs. Holy shi- "You all right there, Czarynah?" A worried voice carried her out of the shock. She laughed awkwardly, trying to play it down.

 "I'm so sorry for interrupting, I was just surprised since I'd learned Never Envy before." It was partly true, but she wasn't going to admit that she's learnt the song of that yaoi Donghua Mo Dao Zu Shi online.

Thankfully, her sweet saviour Namida broke her obvious mistake cleanly in half.

 "Great! So one of us already knows the song! Should we let her play a demonstration?"

 With others agreeing that learning from a tutor was better than learning from a piece of paper, Czarynah couldn't help but think that Namida had a dark side to her as well.

"I guess so ... but don't blame me if I make any mistakes, I perform badly in front of people, okay?" It was difficult to set the Guzheng up again with five expectant stares drilling into her, but the moment reminded her of one of the times of Yifei Zhao's life, impatient onlookers watching her closely as she played her Guqin or piano or flute or any of her other side instruments.

"Here we go, I suppose."

The song started with an evenly paced melodic rhythm twice, flourishing far too quickly before she had to open her mouth and sing. Her voice was confident enough, but she could do better. The fae of the room quickly replied to her call, and the greenhouse lightened as a gap in the thin layer of clouds passed by. She was starting to lose herself in the song when she reached her favourite part. When she finally neared the end, Czarynah made sure to polish off the tune with a perfect trill.

Silence.

Stupidly, Czarynah commented on the faerie's singing. "The fae have really nice soprano ranges." 

Still silence.

Yeah, this is awkward.

Jasmine scoffed in disbelief. "Pfft, the fae? These music rooms only answer to the best of the best, don't play that down!" She turned to the other four with a gleam in her eyes. "Guys, we have a genius amongst us. Let's start training!"

From her peers' faces, Czarynah could tell that this was a bad thing. She half-turned to Ellis, keeping her eyes on Lyllah since he was the most reliable and straight-forward person around. Czarynah whispered, "Should I be worried?", to which Ellis replied with a grave nod. Oh sh-

"Everyone back to your positions! We're starting!" Jasmine wasted no time throwing the group into a team, more suited to be the conductor than another violinist in the orchestra. They were cruelly but effectively made to replay the song over and over again, each time focusing on removing the mistakes and creating new additions until it was a seamless piece of music that could be called a performance.

Unfortunately, the servant had to call them back for their next lesson just then, and understandably, Namida and Kai groaned and complained to each other as they were walking out. Czarynah felt sorry for both the two nobles and the poor hazel-eyed man-servant that probably had to put up with people even ruder.

So on her way out, she whispered a quick "Thank you!" and shooed him in front of her, closing the door behind herself. There was no such thing as a background character, only people who you don't know. The team quickly walked back, two minutes before the bell rang again.

Czarynah's next lesson was art, and since Lyllah was in the same class as her, they power-walked to art together.