You must return to your human form when you are told to, and you must refrain from Trading no matter what.”
“I refrained when I met the manticore by the police van,” Thalia pointed out.
“Three parts, I said.” Ryker’s troubled expression cleared. “That’s the ordeal. Nell’s will be chosen specifically for her. Yours, when the time comes, will be chosen for you. It’s called an ordeal for a reason. It’s something like the coming-of-age ritual in a primitive society.”
Thalia regarded Ryker with narrowed eyes. “You mean it is a coming-of-age ritual, because Traders are a primitive society.”
“Nonsense.” Ryker tried again. “For Traders, the ordeal isn’t mere superstition; it is essential to life.”
“You’re making my point for me,” Thalia informed him.
“Traders are not primitive, and this is no mere ritual. The ordeal must be undertaken to become an adult in our society.”
Thalia decided to leave enlightening Ryker for another day. “Traders sometimes do fail the ordeal, though. Nell told me what happens to them.”
“Yes.” Ryker looked as if he’d eaten something bad. “They take their animal form permanently.”
“I suppose you passed your ordeal at an uncommonly early age,” Thalia ventured.
“In fact, I did.” A becoming blush suffused Ryker’s face. “I’d been well prepared for my ordeal.”
Thalia persisted. “Did all your friends succeed as well? Aren’t there stories about the Traders who didn’t succeed? Tales told late at night? In whispers?”
“In fact, there are.” Ryker’s voice went soft. “Although one risks the mockery of one’s peers, one can attempt the first two steps as many times as one wishes. The third step, the real ordeal, may be undertaken only once. Those who do not manage their ordeal do not try again. They are not able to. They take their alternate form and stay that way. This is why it is essential that Nell and you both wait until you are thoroughly prepared.” Ryker’s shuttered expression told Thalia that despite his own success, Ryker had firsthand knowledge of what such a failure meant.
Thalia did not permit herself to wonder whom he had lost. She suspected she was in one of those rare situations when ignorance was as close to bliss as one ever came. “If I fail, if I am doomed to be a swan for the rest of my life, will I know it?” Thalia suspected the swan inside her, that fleeting awareness she was slowly coming to know, might have a very different view of such a fate.
“For a while.” Ryker looked tired and sad. “In time, you are filled by the form you Trade to. There is no more room for the human half of your soul.”
“So I would know and I would not know.” Thalia considered the situation. “The worst of both worlds.”
“The greatest waste,” Ryker agreed. “There are never so many of us Traders in this world that we can afford to let anyone go needlessly.” To Thalia’s profound astonishment, Ryker kissed the back of her hand. “Take care with yourself, Miss Cutler.”
Ryker left her there, alone in the parlor. Thalia stood there thinking, gradually becoming aware of the physical residue of her encounter with the manticore days ago. Her muscles twinged. Her bones felt heavy. Her heart ached. She found herself rubbing the back of her hand, just at the spot where Ryker had kissed it.
Nutall was in trouble, but Thalia couldn’t help him.
Thalia was in trouble herself, but she couldn’t help it.
Meanwhile Professor Evans sailed blithely on, Thalia reflected bitterly, telling Traders they were really Solitaires. In all fairness, Thalia had to admit it wouldn’t have helped to learn she was a Trader back in Philadelphia. She’d been extremely fortunate to meet the Ryker siblings. Did the Ryker standard of ethics hold for other Traders? Had circumstances been different, would Thalia have found herself a permanent houseguest anywhere else? She doubted it.
Had circumstances not been precisely what they were, Thalia might well have been dead days ago, her belated magic consumed by the first manticore.
Until that night in Philadelphia, all Thalia had ever wanted out of life was to be a famous stage magician. Now that lost ambition seemed more remote to her than the possibility of finishing her life as a hissing, angry swan.
This time when Thalia returned to the Changing room, it felt like she was returning to a sanctuary. She locked all the doors and sat on the walkway beside the pool with a blanket from her bed in the nursery wrapped tightly around her shoulders. She was safe, Thalia told herself. It was