Two minutes later, the first woman returns. This time he recognizes her. Her eyes are lighter, the pattern on the green scarf is distinct, golden hoops climb up her right ear and not her left.
The woman thanks him for his service when he hands her the thin brown book. She reaches into her bag and pulls out a wrapped piece of candy and puts a finger to her lips. He tucks it into his pocket, understanding such things are not permitted in the library.
The woman thanks him again and departs with the book.
The boy will not be approached directly for another seven years.
Many of the initial tests are similar, watching for care and respect and attention to detail. Observing how they react to everyday stress or extraordinary emergencies. Weighing how they respond to a disappointment or a lost cat. Some are asked to burn or otherwise destroy a book. (To destroy the book, no matter how distasteful or offensive or badly written, is to fail the test.)
A single failure results in dismissal.
After the twelfth test, the potential guardians will be made aware that they are being considered. Those who were not born below are brought to the Harbor and housed in rooms no resident ever sees. They study and are tested again in different ways. Tests of psychological strength and willpower. Tests of improvisation and imagination.
This process occurs over the course of three years. Many are dismissed. Others quit somewhere along the way. Some, but not all, will figure out that perseverance is more important now than performance.
If they make it to the three-year mark, they are given an egg.
They are released from their training and studying.
Now they need only return with the same egg, unbroken, six months later.
The egg stage is the undoing of many a potential guardian.
Of those who depart with their eggs, perhaps half return.
The potential guardian and their unbroken egg are brought to an elder guardian. The elder guardian gestures for the egg and the potential guardian holds it aloft on their palm.
The elder guardian reaches out but instead of taking the offering closes the potential guardian’s fingers around the egg.
The elder guardian then presses down, forcing the potential guardian to shatter the egg.
All that remains in the potential guardian’s hands is cracked eggshell and dust. A fine golden powder that will never completely fade from their palm, it will shimmer even decades later.
The elder guardian says nothing of fragility or responsibility. The words do not need to be spoken. All is understood.
The elder guardian nods their approval, and the potential guardian has reached the end of their training and the beginning of their initiation.
A potential guardian, once they have passed the egg test, is given a tour.
It commences in familiar rooms of the Harbor, starting at the clock in the Heart with its swooping pendulum and moving outward through the main halls, the residents wings and reading rooms and down into the wine cellar and the ballroom with its imposing fireplace, taller than even the tallest of the guardians.
Then they are shown rooms never seen by anyone but the guardians themselves. Hidden rooms and locked rooms and forgotten rooms. They go deeper than any resident, any acolyte. They light their own candles. They see what no one else sees. They see what has come before.
They may not ask questions. They may simply observe.
They walk the shores of the Starless Sea.
When the tour reaches its end the potential guardian is brought to a small room with a burning fire and a single chair. The guardian is seated and asked a single question.
Would you give your life for this?
And they answer, yes or no.
Those who answer yes remain in the chair.
They are blindfolded, their hands are bound behind their back. Their robes or shirts are adjusted to expose their chests.
An unseen artist with a needle and a pot of ink pierces their skin, over and over again.