I followed the instructions Ethel gave me and found myself standing in front of a white door. There was no sign on it and no peep-through window, so it was pretty intimidating to just knock at some random door that I came across, but I did.

After a moment, I heard someone say, “Come in,” so I opened the door and walked inside.

Inside was a vast library. The walls were lined with shelves stacked from floor to ceiling with books and instruments. The instruments were hung up and displayed behind glass doors, and they glowed under the warm spotlights installed inside the shelves. Within the room were waist-high bookcases that held books; however, on the top of each bookcase was a glass display box with an exotic musical instrument that looked well-cleaned and polished, gleaming inside its little glass home. 

The wooden floor of the library was covered in soft red ornate carpets, and in every corner was a cozy reading area consisting of two plush chairs, a coffee table, and an end table with a lamp glowing a warm light over the comfortable area. I counted eight such little cozy spots around the room as I looked around for any sign of life in this vast library.

“Come along, I don’t have all day,” repeated the voice, and I realized the voice was coming from above me. I saw a bespeckled man leaning down over a banister, looking at me expectantly.

“Oh, sorry! I didn’t realize there was a second level; I apologized and looked to my left and right, trying to figure out how to get up to where he was. 

“Oh, that’s alright, the staircase is quite hidden. Go to the right shelves over there, and you’ll see it. I’ll be at my desk when you find your way,” the bespeckled gentleman said, disappearing from view. 

I quickly walked further into the room, and midway through the library, I finally saw a spiral staircase hidden from view in a recessed alcove flanked by two bookshelves. I quickly made my way into the space, really chuffed at how cleverly designed the space was, and hurried up the staircase and up to the second level. The second level was also not readily discernible at first, as the walkway to it started midway through the lower room, and the balcony was the tops of the floor-to-ceiling shelves from down below, creating a hidden corridor to the open space, which started right above the entrance to the library. I tried to wrap my head around how the plain blank corridor I came in hid the entire space being just this sectioned-off library. However, I supposed it made sense because that door was the only door down that long corridor, which must have been because of the weird configuration of this space. 

This second level was very much like the first level, with shelves of books and instruments lining the walls from floor to ceiling; however, here it was a long messier. There were books strewn across the plush carpeted floor here and there and crates of instruments that looked damaged, spoilt, or even rusty. A table stood in the middle of the room, baring various types of cleaning liquids, rags, tools, and sprays, as well as a few guitars and harps without strings, as if someone was in the middle of tuning and polishing them.

“Well, don’t just stand there, we have a lot to cover and little time if you intend to have lunch before the canteen closes,” The bespectacled man said.

I jumped, having been so mesmerized by the room I had forgotten why I was even there.

“Sorry I…I just haven’t seen this many instruments before,” I said and wandered through the maze of shelves, in the direction of the voice. After a few moments, I finally found the bespectacled gentleman polishing a French horn on a shelf with a book propped open using a music stand, which had the words “How to Polish a French Horn” in bold font at the top of the page. 

“Well, to be honest, I haven’t seen many candidates before if any at all, so do forgive me if I’m a bit skittish; you’re my first one,” The bespeckled man said, his eyes squinting as he tried to read the small words in the book. 

“Ah, this is no use; most of these things they speak of don’t exist. What is a MacBlaster? Surely they can’t mean to use a gun as a cleaning tool? I’ll have to find another book.” The man sighed and put down the French horn on a side table he had set up near the shelf. He walked down the rows of books, peeling off his black latex gloves as he did so.

I picked up the book and turned it over. The book seemed to have “MacBlaster” labeling all over it, suggesting that the name “MacBlaster” was probably a company that had manufactured products long ago. 

“Umm, sir, I don’t think the product is a gun…I think it’s just the company's name,” I said, but when I looked up, I had lost the man again!

I left the book where it was and hurried down the aisle after him. As I turned the corner a few shelves down, I entered what seemed to be his den. There were heaps of books everywhere, and in the center of it all was the same oak desk that I had seen hall after hall, and a chute in the ceiling, only instead of paper coming out of the chute, books and instruments were dropping down, almost one every minute!

“Oh my God,” I gasped as a large accordion bounced. Thankfully, it was bubble-wrapped, but his pile was already as huge as it was.

“Yes, you see what I’m dealing with? And they won’t assign another person here because, apparently, they are all needed elsewhere to handle other archival projects. I’m swamped! And as if it’s not enough, I’m not supposed to be a Reporting Officer; I have no field work! I’ve been in this hell hole of musician instruments and care guides for ten years!” The bespeckled gentleman exclaimed, however not missing a beat in the middle of his rant as he caught two flutes and a base guitar before they came crashing into the floor.

“Couldn’t you transfer to another department?” I asked politely, feeling sorry for the poor guy.

“Oh no, never; I love my job. As a musician, I must care for these poor, abandoned instruments and ensure they have a new home. It is from this collection that great future musicians can choose their first instruments and embark on their great journey into the world of music and magic,” The bespeckled man said with pride, beaming as he grabbed a tuning fork and several books mid-air.

“However, for now, can you be a dear and grab a few pillows and one of that crate? Then I can start your great journey before something bigger than an accordion comes through,” he said sheepishly, tossing the new arrivals into the growing pile of things he needed to attend to.

I shrugged off my backpack and looked around for the things he required. I could see an empty crate and some cushions a few shelves down, so I made my way there picked up the crate, and dragged it back over to the chute. The crate was pretty huge, about 2 meters by 2.5 meters by 1 meter, but at the rate at which he was receiving things, I went back and dragged over another one and ran around the room, picking up cushions and throwing them into the crates until they lined the bottom of the crates.

“Wow, that was fast; if you ever want a position as an assistant archivist, tell the council. Archivist Janus said he would love to have you on board,” the bespeckled man smiled cheerfully and sat down at his desk, opening up a red leather book that seemed to have my information slotted into plastic sleeves.

“Alright, take a seat. Let’s run down some house rules, and then the fun part begins when you can pick out your instrument of choice,” the bespeckled man said, waving me over to the seat across from him at his desk. 

“I’m sorry, what should I address you as?” I asked as I sat down on the chair.

“Oh! How silly of me. I’m Janus, Janus Scribe, but please just call me Janus. I will be your Reporting Officer. Throughout your journey, you will log into your Apprentice App and be required to provide weekly reports. Can you take out your Tablet so I can show you what to do?” Janus asked, pushing up his spectacles.

I nodded, got up, dragged my bag over, and rummaged through it to pull out my tablet. I placed it on the table, and Janus immediately picked it up and turned it on.

“Oh. How awfully. The Council expects me to do everything, apparently,” Janus said as he looked through the tablet. “ No, no, this won’t do. They haven’t installed any music training apps in this one. They just gave the old biddies and old singer’s tablet and washed their hands of it. Give me one moment,” Janus said and picked up the phone. “ Why don’t you look around at the instruments? I need to give a good talk to the assignment department,” he said, waving me over to the massive pile of things still piling up under the chute.

I got up just as Janus began to dial, and as I walked over to the chute, something familiar caught my eye. I made a mad dash for it and saw it mid-air. My harp! 

I hugged it close to my chest, tears filling my eyes. I had been clinging to that glimmer of hope that Nany Cam had given me just before we parted ways, and now a huge weight lifted from my shoulders as my fingers ran along the familiar strings. 

“And that is why I sent in the application form three weeks ago, for this very purpose. You said, ‘There are no Music Candidates Anyway,’ and now look what has happened. Yes, right now. Yes, already registered. Oh, a misunderstanding, you say? Well, I’ll have you know - Oh! How rude! Alaina, dear, they hung up on me! Can you imagine the audacity?” Janus exclaimed, furiously slamming the phone down and grumbling to himself. 

I turned to say something, but the feeling of the harp in my hands was too dear to me, and I could only sigh and shrug as I clung to what little I had left of my heritage.

“Never mind, let’s look at what piece of junk you found in the restoration pile,” Janus said and stood up, walking over to me with his hand stretched out.

For a second, I turned my body on guard, not wanting to part with the precious instrument after recently being reunited with it, but then I sighed and handed it over. It’s not like he knew it was mine, to begin with. It would look strange to be so hung up over council property. 

Janus took the harp and looked it over. After staring at it for a while, something strange happened. Sparkles started to fly in the air all around him.

“Oh my. My my my my my my my” Janus started to mutter as he turned the instrument over and over in his hands. Suddenly, a black haze started to come from him.

“J-Janus, are you ok?” I asked and backed away from him, feeling the air grow colder and colder around him.

“What a gem, what a relic! Oh my goodness!” Janus said, and suddenly, out of his back and ribs came long blackish-purple tentacles! They burst through what I thought were black patches in his tweed vest as if he had patched up tears in his clothes with square cuts of cloth, and each tentacle had little suckers on them, which started to stretch out and grab books off the shelves, stretching far down the aisle and reaching all around to snatch up instruments as well. 

I counted eight tentacles, each rapidly picking up and bringing a new book or instrument and then dashing off to fetch something else.

“Impossible, this has been lost for ages! How magnificent!” Janus kept saying to himself as he scanned through book after book and instrument after instrument that his tentacles brought him while analyzing the harp. 

Finally, after what seemed to be an eternity but was probably only about 20 minutes, Janus looked up at me with a big grin.

“Well, You’ve found a real treasure here, haven’t you? What made you pick it up? I wonder? Do you have an affinity for butterfly magical relics?” Janus asked, a few of his tentacles retreating as his excitement started to calm down.

“I well. I brought that in with me. I had to turn over everything when I arrived, so I wasn’t sure if I would ever see it again. It belongs to my mother, my birth mother, I mean,” I explained, rubbing my arm sheepishly. 

“Oh! You must be a butterfly yourself, then! Sorry, I’m not familiar with other beings, as inanimate objects constantly surround me. But I thought butterflies were supposed to have..wings?” He asked curiously.

I turned and pulled down the collar of my shirt. If you looked closely, you could see the bruises where my wings were pressed close to my back and the top scales of my folded wings. 

“I have them, but my foster mother had them clipped when I was a kid, so they aren’t functional,” I explained, not wanting to go into details about the state of my wings. Even I didn’t know if I could ever fly again.

“Oh. That’s horrible. That also sounds like what happened to me when I was younger. My foster parents cut off all my tentacles. Can you imagine? An Octohume with only four limbs? Does that make sense? Well, I spend a lot of time reading these books. If I find a way to fix your wings, I will be sure to let you know. A being must not be handicapped just because another being says so,” Janus sniffed, looking disdainfully into space. 

“Anyway, now you are here, away from those vile creatures, let’s see what we can do about getting you a musician education, hmm?” Janus smiled, looking over the harp again with delight.