Second at its head.

The fairy woman withdrew a closed fist.

'No use to you anyway. Written in the old tongue.'

Artemis nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

She opened her knobbly fingers. Lying in her palm was a tiny golden volume the size of a matchbox.

'Here, human. Thirty of your minutes. No more.'

Butler took the tiny tome reverentially. The bodyguard activated a compact digital camera and began photographing each wafer-thin page of the Book. The process took several minutes. When he was finished, the entire volume was stored on the camera's chip. Artemis preferred not to take chances with information. Airport security equipment had been known to wipe many a vital disk. So he instructed his aide to transfer the file to his portable phone and from there e-mail it to Fowl Manor in Dublin. Before the thirty minutes were up, the file containing every symbol in the Fairy Book was sitting safely in the Fowl server.

Artemis returned the tiny volume to its owner.

'Nice doing business with you.'

The sprite lurched to her knees. 'The other potion, human?'

Artemis smiled. 'Oh yes, the restoring booster. I suppose I did promise.'

'Yes. Human promised.'

'Very well. But before we administer it, I must warn you that purging is not pleasant. You're not going to enjoy this one bit.'

The fairy gestured around her at the squalid filth. 'You think I enjoy this? I want to fly again.'

Butler loaded the second vial, shooting this one straight into the carotid artery.

The sprite immediately collapsed on the mat, her entire frame quivering violently.

'Time to leave,' commented Artemis. 'A hundred years of alcohol leaving a body by any means possible is not a pretty sight.'

The Butlers had been serving the Fowls for centuries. It had always been the way. Indeed there were several eminent linguists of the opinion that this was how the noun originated. The first record of this unusual arrangement was when Virgil Butler had been contracted as servant, bodyguard and cook to Lord Hugo de Pole for one of the first great Norman crusades.