Thoth was in a foul mood by the time he stepped he thumped his foot onto the lower step at the entrance of the castle. His mood had taken a downward turn while he’d been digging around in the mud in the gigantic pool beneath Prince Falls, and had only gotten worse since then. By the time he’d called it a day and begun the long trudge back to the castle, it was so bad that he hadn’t even bothered to wash the filth from his person… much to the horror of the housekeeper, who was the first person she encountered. At the sight of the trail of muddy footprints behind him, she seemed to swell and her eyes popped a little, but she bit her tongue and kept her screeching reprimands to herself. Not that long ago, she would have harried him down the corridor and demanded some kind of draconian punishment.

Thoth gritted his teeth and glared at her with the rudest expression he could muster, half-hoping she’d try anyway. A muscle twitched in her jaw and she bustled away down a side-corridor, presumably to go and shout at a poor unsuspecting maid. For years, Thoth had bitterly considered how unfair it was that he always got in so much more trouble than the other members of the young court. Everyone else had rich or powerful parents to look out for them, and the housekeeper didn’t dare mess with them. Thoth’s orphan status meant that in any scrape, he was always the one who got in hot water. Ever since he had been ‘outed’ as a demigod, the castle staff had left him well alone and even take his side on one or two occasions against other kids. That should please him, but instead it just frustrated him. It was one thing to want to be treated fairly; it was another to be catapulted from the bottom of the pile to the top overnight.

The winding corridors offered little comfort. He growled at a couple of young people who eagerly tried to engage him in conversation – the same young people who had ignored him for most of the last fifteen years of his life – and made a point of stomping extra loudly past Arthur’s office. The noise brought out a couple of curious faces which Thoth was even less pleased to see; these two had never bullied him directly, but they had laughed a lot in the background at Tarquin’s ‘jokes’.

“Hey, Thoth,” Jacob – the taller of the two – said easily, apparently oblivious to the waves of ire rolling off the younger demigod. “We were just heading down to the lake. You should join us.”

“Piss off,” Thoth muttered, without even pausing.

Nimueh’s quarters weren’t far away. He made it back in without further incident and slammed the door shut behind him, causing it to quiver in its frame. He’d left so early that morning that even Nimueh hadn’t been up; since he’d been gone, she’d been busy. A couple of banners bearing the words 16 today! hung off the walls over the stove, and a very impressive cake cut and decorated into the shape of Morveren formed the centrepiece of the table. The real Morveren peeped interestedly up at it from between Thoth’s legs, her green eyes sparkling with growing delight.

Thoth had just enough time to wonder what Tris’ expression would be if he showed up to offer him his familiar’s decapitated head on a platter, when there was a knock on the door. Usually he ignored these regular and unwanted attempts to intrude on his life, but today he fancied the fight. Whipping around, Thoth ripped the door back open, ready to shout down whatever moron courtier out to befriend Shaman’s newest celebrity, but faltered when he saw who it was instead. He silently surveyed the king of the realm, his facial expression clearly expressing his disappointment that it was someone he couldn’t hit.


MASTER OF THE ORBIS . MASTER OF THE WATER ELEMENT . SON OF AURA