the sense of the river beneath her, the ocean so near, the sense of the rain to come, all deepened as Thalia explored what it meant to be free in the swan half of her nature.
Thalia flew without a thought. Moving up or down, right or left, all was effortless as she climbed and dove and angled her way upriver. If she failed her ordeal, if she were to remain in this form for the rest of her life, what hardship would that be? Thalia reveled in her new nature.
Pigeons and sparrows were plentiful in the city, but on the water, seabirds were most dominant. Thalia saw how silly the ducks looked feeding, heads down and tails tipped up as they dabbled. Her human vanity warned her she would look exactly that silly when she fed as a swan. The swan side of her nature shrugged this off without concern. She didn’t care if she looked silly feeding. She was elegance itself the rest of the time. Sometimes inelegance was necessary.
Thalia flew steadily on, as gulls wheeled and turned around her. Any one of them could be Madame Gillyflower or one of the other ladies of the Board of Trade. The last corner of Thalia’s mind still fixed on words wondered if they ever kept a young Trader under observation by Trading themselves. It could certainly happen, Thalia decided, but not to her, not today. If they monitored any young Trader’s ordeal today, it would be Nell’s, not hers. They had as much as said that if Thalia attracted yet another manticore, she was on her own.
By the time Thalia had left the railway lines and the West Shore ferry station behind and below, her human side had gone silent. She’d given up trying to put her observations into words. Words were no use in midair.
All the other birds she encountered gave Thalia a wide berth, as if they sensed she was nothing like them. Any time she thought she saw a bird that could be a Trader, Thalia steered clear. Even in her angriest mood, she wasn’t eager to encounter a Canada goose, whether fellow Trader or true bird.
Thalia’s next clear thought was sharp awareness of how hungry she was. It had been a long time since her last meal. Every remotely edible morsel drew her attention: water weeds in the shallows at the river’s edge, tender roots among the grass, and even the grass itself.
Was there a downward limit to Trader size? If Thalia accidentally ate a bug, was there a chance it might be another Trader? As Thalia flew resolutely along, hunger edged her every thought, but she resisted the impulse to indulge it. She had put miles behind her before she recalled what she was supposed to be doing and where she was supposed to go. This was her ordeal. For once, she had Traded on cue. Now she would need to Trade back. But the cue would be given by the Board of Trade, and first she had to satisfy their requirement: go to the Ryker mansion.
Thalia reminded herself she only had to get there and Trade back. It had been Nell’s idea to have a race. The stakes were high enough, completing the most important Trade of her life. Thalia decided she really had no need of any additional excitement.
What were the odds an otter could swim upstream faster than Thalia could fly? She liked her chances. But as the rocks at the edge of the river gave way to the gentle slopes of Riverside Park, Thalia remembered she would still need to find her way inside the house. Nell might win her race yet.
Even with the human side of her nature taking back Thalia’s focus of attention, it was hard for her to turn away from the river and back to the city roofs and treetops. It was hard to fly low while the sky was still beckoning her to ride the wind. Thalia promised herself she would come back soon, whether she passed her ordeal or failed it. The prospect of failure held no terror for her now. There were good things about being a swan.
Ryker, Thalia remembered, Traded almost every day for his swim in the Hudson River. What would it be like to be able to do this daily? What would it be like to be able to depend on having the freedom of the air, the river, even the open sea?