Thoth was halfway through his assertion that cypress should leave her job when he noticed that she’d walked off. He spun around, eyebrows lifting in surprise, and found her standing at the entrance to one of the kennels with her hands clasped under her chin and her eyes shining. Judging by the sloshing and yipping noises from within, she was watching his water construct do its work. Maybe he should have expected that, given that it was dog-shaped. Cypress had never explicitly said so, but Thoth could tell she liked dogs. She had a lot of them, and books about them, in her bedroom.
“Uh, thanks.” He answered in a slightly questioning tone, not sure if this was the right response to being told his magic was ‘so great’. That sounded like a compliment and thanks was usually a safe reply to a compliment, although not always. Thoth had learned that girls, more than other guys, were sometimes looking for a different answer when they complimented him – he just wasn’t sure what.
She didn’t come out of her trance until Danny started talking, backing Thoth up, who just nodded along. He didn’t know Cypress had attended schooling specifically on canine care in her last world, but it made sense. She was knowledgeable on the subject and the books she possessed went far beyond the basics. Even with the boys as a united front, she seemed unsure; she batted off their comments with a mutter of responsibilities and leaned in to drop her voice. As he listened to her concerns, a very small frown started to create Thoth’s forehead. Money was something he’d never even had to think about, being a ward of the king. It was also a difficult problem to fix, since stealing was wrong – except perhaps from Mordred, but somehow he didn’t think Cypress would be up for a mission to break into the royal treasury.
His frown deepened when she thanked him in that very final way, as if she knew there was nothing he could realistically do to help. Not even listening to the exchange between her and Danny, he flicked through various options in his mind. There had to be something. Maybe he and Tris could break into the royal treasury, and just not tell her where they’d got the money from? There was a chance that Mordred could be suspicious if he had a break-in and Cypress’s family had a mysterious windfall at the same time, though. He was evil but not stupid. Thoth could try and steal off the pirates, but he was likely to run into a similar problem. Perhaps if he could create or find something valuable without resorting to theft, which could then be sold…
A lightbulb flicked on in his brain.
“We’d have to go and get it, but you could have my inheritance.” He offered casually, as though he was proposing to give her his half-eaten sandwich instead of his mother’s multi-billion pound estate. “It’s on Earth. My mum must have had enough valuable stuff to sell for you to start up a business.” He scratched the back of his head thoughtfully. “Mallos would probably help if I asked him.”
MASTER OF THE ORBIS . MASTER OF THE WATER ELEMENT . SON OF AURA