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Captain Holly Short looked down at Fowl Manor through the swirling, milky mist. She swooped into a steep dive, enjoying the feel of the Hummingbird wings vibrating gently against her shoulders.

And yet even the thrill of overground flight couldn't make this monthly assignment any more agreeable. Holly hated it. It had been the same every month for nearly two years now. Shuttle up to Tara, open the throttle all the way to manor, swoop in and check on the Fowl boy. Make sure he hasn't regained his memories of the people.

Simple. In theory.

It had been hard enough saying goodbye to Artemis in the first place. Now Root had ordered Holly to go back every month to check on him. It hurt Holly to see how much Fowl had changed; that hard glint in his eye, mouth set in a thin line of ambition and greed.

Artemis had reverted back to dangerous Mud Boy. The mind wipe had done exactly as Holly had feared.

Holly, shielded, pulled herself to a halt outside of one of the top-floor windows. Artemis's bedroom. She pressed her slender hands against the freezing glass and peered inside, expecting to see what she had seen for the last twenty-two months; Artemis sitting at his computer, or meditating on his bed. Each month Holly had used one of Foaly's ingenious inventions to scan his computer from outside, searching for any mention of the People.

Holly blinked. Someone was in there all right. Standing not a foot away from her on the other side of the glass, staring directly at her. But it wasn't Fowl.

"Mulch Diggums!" Holly gasped. "D'Arvit! What are you doing here?"

The dwarf reached up and pulled open the window. Only his head poked up above the sill. "Evening, Captain." The dwarf grinned, exposing rows of thick, bone-crunching teeth. "Nice to see you too."

There was movement in the room, and another person appeared beside Mulch. Taller than the scrawny thirteen year old to whom Holly had last spoken, with longer black hair that contrasted starkly with his vampire-pale face. He was wearing goggles. LEP filter goggles.

"Ah, Captain Short." Behind the lenses, Artemis's sapphire blue eyes flashed with a mixture of recognition and triumph. "At the risk of sounding clichéd, I've been expecting you."

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